There have been many programs featuring young women with magical powers as of late, but none as authentic and deeply disturbing as the 2016 horror period piece, The Witch. The success of this film can be attributed to many things, such as writer/director Robert Eggers’ insanely dedicated devotion to research, or the fact that much of the seventeenth century dialogue is exacted straight from written accounts during the time period. While all of these aspects undoubtedly factor in to the impact of the film, the experience wouldn’t be nearly as moving without the powerful performances of talented actors Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie.

In the film, Ineson and Dickie play Puritan husband and wife William and Katherine, who struggle to maintain their faith when a rash series of events conspire to rip their family apart. Set during the 1600s, the family deals with the turmoil of daily life as a settler in New England territory. First, their crops wither and die, then their youngest, Samuel, mysteriously disappears, which the family attributes to a wolf stealing him; an act that happened often during the unruly early days of colonial life. Despite logical explanations for the horrible things that have been happening to this devout family recently, their steadfast dedication to their religion leads them to believe that dark magic is at play here, and the person doing the playing is none other than their own teenage daughter, Thomasin. Thomas makes for an easy scapegoat, as she grows into womanhood and begins making her family nervous with his recent increased sense of sexuality, but is she honestly to blame for all of the mischief that has been plaguing these good people, or are they simply going mad with delusions as a result of their hardship and their tendency to attribute every event as a will of God? No one can know, but that won’t stop them from drawing conclusions.

I was lucky enough to sit down and chat with stars Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie on behalf of Bloody Disgusting about their exciting new exercise in faith-charged paranoia. In the interview, we discuss the duo’s decision to work with a first time director, the grieving process that leads to pointed fingers, and the inevitable shift of power in the household as Thomasin develops into a fully grown woman.

Bloody Disgusting: So, obviously, looking back now, we can all see what a talented and visionary writer and director Robert Eggers is, but coming in to the project, Eggers’ name wasn’t quite yet known. He’s made some very impressive short films, but this is his first real feature length film. With that in mind, what made you both say yes to this project, and take a chance on a relatively unknown director?

Kate Dickie: His fabulous script, honestly. It’s very rare that you read a script that comes through, that you might enjoy, but you it goes (moves hand forward) whoom! You want to come into this world, you know? But it was so beautifully written, and that’s what my initial gut reaction was, was just about his beautiful writing because I hadn’t met him at that point.

Ralph Ineson: No I mean, people say that, it seems bizarre, but right from the start – and I’d like to call it, I picked him right from the start, I really did – I didn’t have a second’s doubt.

Kate Dickie: Nope.

Ralph Ineson: From the moment I read the script and I saw the whole [look] book, and I met him on Skype. Obviously you can’t predict that a film’s going to be quite as good as this turned out, and getting the reviews and the notoriety that it’s already got. You couldn’t predict it to have this kind of success, but I knew right from the start, and was absolutely convinced, that it was going to be something of very, very high quality, and that he was somebody that I just had to work with.

Kate Dickie: You kind of just get instincts about things, and honestly it didn’t even enter my head that Rob was a first time feature [director] because his script was so brilliant and then when I went down to do a casting, Rob had been cast already so we did a slight introduction and we had such an amazing connection —

Ralph Ineson: It was amazing. We had this incredible chemistry!

Kate Dickie: We were shaking!

Ralph Ineson: Yeah we were physically shaking when we were doing this improv together it was like whoa!

Kate Dickie: Yeah and you just felt like you were in the safest hands ever, and I never once thought, “Actually, I’m going to the middle of northern Ontario with WHO?”

Ralph Ineson: Right, like this low budget film set in 1630? What? (laughs) And it just always felt right, at every stage of the way, which is kind of like, kind of boring in a way (laughs) but at every stage, no matter how hard it got, or physically demanding, I never questioned that it wasn’t going to be a really, really good piece of work.

Kate Dickie: It’s true! I never questioned anything.

Ralph Ineson: I never questioned that Rob wasn’t going to make it amazing.

Katie Dickie: Yeah, and I never thought at any point, unsafe with him in any way, it didn’t feel like a first time feature director, in a lot of ways, because he’d spent four years researching it, and was so ingrained in that world that he was like a walking Encyclopedia. So, any little thing, you’d go, “Oh, I wonder -” and he’d be like, “Oh I know”, so you were in brilliant hands, sometimes safer hands than the people who were experienced.

Ralph Ineson: And also with any film, and any crew, you’ve got all sorts of different people who’ve got lots of experience as well, so you get that experience from different departments. Not every department has to be the most experienced. Rob had this amazing vision that a lot of experienced people wanted to help him fulfill so it just worked.

Bloody Disgusting: What was it like on set? There’s such an intensity hanging overhead throughout the film, and such precision with each shot, that it feels very carefully crafted. Can you talk about Robert Eggers’ directing style? Was it very intense on set?

Kate Dickie: It was like, the work was intense, and yet the relationships were easy, if that makes sense?

Ralph Ineson: Yeah, because we were so far in the middle of nowhere, divorced from all our normal lives, all living in this job. So we’re in the middle of nowhere, in this tiny hotel, all living on top of each other and just living and breathing this film the whole way through. So, there was an intensity to it, but we all bonded so well, we had such fun together, that we also had a really good laugh, didn’t we?

Katie Dickie: Yeah, we did, we did. And there was such a support and love from everyone because we’d spent a week before we started filming. Rob gave us a week there, getting to know each other, going over things, trying wee bits out, rehearsals, and just trying to build a bond with the kids really, so that they felt that we were their mom and dad, so that they wouldn’t be acting like strangers around us. So, yeah it was intense and the scenes were very intense, but then we could come out of it, and we could have a laugh, or if one of us had a really intense scene, the others would be there, going, “Yeah, you can do it!” We were there to support each other, it was really incredible.

Ralph Ineson: Yeah, it was a very special job, even if it turned out to be a really shit film. It would be a job that I would remember for a very long time because of the bond that we all have as a cast and a crew, and the experience we went through. But obviously, because it was something that was very high quality, that drives you on as well, whilst you’re doing it.

Bloody Disgusting: There’s a fascinating dynamic between the three characters of Katherine, William, and Thomasin, as the blame bounces back and forth. Thomasin is quickly becoming a young woman, and she’s shifting into more of a motherly role, which seems to cause her mom to panic a little. How would you two describe the relationship of these family members?

Kate Dickie: It’s so complicated. But the time before, in England, before the script started, quite a normal easy-going family relationships, but I think the fact that Rob’s character, William, has taken the family, not only from kind of all of their support and their home in England, to the New England plantation, for then, for us to be banished from there and be on our own, it just puts the family into a different gear, and puts us all under these strains and pressures that we’d never really had to deal with as a family before as such.

Ralph Ineson: Yeah, and I think the essential thing is Thomasin’s age as well, as she gets to a certain age, that sexuality becomes threatening in all sorts of ways, and I don’t think William, the way I wanted to play it, was that William thought she was younger, and in his own mind, wouldn’t let her grow up. I always tried to make William think she was thirteen, or fourteen, as his little girl, and kind of always steadfastly refused to acknowledge the fact that she was growing up. Whereas, Katherine is threatened.

Kate Dickie: Yeah, it’s a lot for Katherine, because Katherine, you know, with Thomasin being the one who loses the baby, and being on the brink of womanhood and childbearing and all that, Katherine’s at the end of that, you know, that was her last baby. There’s so much resentment from me, and jealousy and things that I don’t even want to admit as a mother that I’m starting to feel towards Thomasin, about becoming a young woman and developing and starting to separate from the family and want to look at the outside world, and Katherine doesn’t deal well with that at all.

Bloody Disgusting: There’s such an interesting parallel in this film between sexuality, and exposing oneself, and the gaining of knowledge. What is your take on the idea of freedom of thought as shown in this film?

Ralph Ineson: I think it’s how terrified people are of freedom of thought, I think that’s what it is.

Kate Dickie: And hope, people think they can curtail it and make others love the way that they do. You know, Thomasin’s sexuality brings such a shift to the household and such a kind of free song that we never had experienced before then, and it just unsettles people and [Katherine]’s maybe not as beddable as she was a couple of years ago, and it’s just, as it’s almost like the freedom of thought is terrifying, especially if you live in religious constraints such as this family does.

Ralph Ineson: The way they have it, the constant praying, the fast days, all these kind of things, everything’s kind of brought back around —

Kate Dickie: And nothing’s allowed for vanity or ego or you know, not a lot of treats, or obviously, no treats, but everything being a point. You live kind of as Spartan a life as you could to be closer to God so Thomasin’s kind of burgeoning sexuality and freedom of thought —

Ralph Ineson: But it’s because these are all choices made by the parents; made by Katherine and William essentially, followed by Katherine, and obviously, Thomas’s kind of going, “Really? Why?”as any teenager would, and they kind of know as well, that Caleb’s going to be next.

Kate Dickie: Yeah, questioning things. And it’s a dangerous time for her because then, with witches being a real threat, and women being burned in wretched ways, I can imagine she feels almost as if she’s got something in her that she’s not really in control of and she doesn’t understand, and she’s got a mother and father who just won’t go there. I would never sit down with Thomasin, as Katherine, and let her tell me the throes of that because she wouldn’t be being a good Puritan. You have stay in this very rigid road, and you have to defer to God all the time, so it’s terrifying for the family. Really terrifying.

Bloody Disgusting: There’s a quiet tension that permeates nearly every scene between William and Katherine, and it almost feels kind of familiar. Is it possible that this isn’t the first time that William has let his pride put his family in harm’s way?

Ralph Ineson: Yeah, I think there’s an element of that, yeah.

Kate Dickie: I think it’s the first time I’ve questioned it as much, and also, it’s William’s fault that the baby wasn’t baptized, because he said, “Let’s wait, let’s wait” and now our baby’s dead in limbo, which to a Puritan is Hell.

Ralph Ineson: He can’t go to God if he’s not baptized.

Kate Dickie: He can’t go to God, I can’t live with myself, we left our son in this limbo and we blame William because it was William who said wait so there’s a lot…Katherine doesn’t have many choices for herself as a woman then, you know you can’t make your own decisions as a woman, it has to be your husband.

Ralph Inseon: Yeah, I think William’s pride, as you pointed out, has put them into these situations many times, I mean, I’m sure leaving England was to do with that, to go and be the great concrete Puritans, to go and conquer the New World. Being kicked out of the plantation was again, it was like, “No, you don’t know it, I am the master of this, I am the only one who understands it” and I think yeah, it’s happened a lot.

Kate Dickie: But I think, yeah I think Katherine shouldn’t question that, because that’s her role as a mother and as a wife. That’s, you know, William who makes the decisions, and then God.

Ralph Ineson: I think it’s always used as a cop out. I think a lot of times, William says, “It’s not me, it’s God”, and I think he’s hidden behind that and used it.

Kate Dickie: Yeah, I think over time there’s less and less to hide behind, and he gets more and more exposed for his kind of pride and things like that.

Bloody Disgusting: Yeah, and there’s such heavy themes of witchcraft and the settlers’ struggles that I feel like one thing that gets lost in the mix is the fact that the parents are grieving. You know, it’s not just their religion that’s making these parents act this way, they’re grieving over the loss of their child.

Kate Dickie: The grief for Katherine is all-consuming, you know, the praying, the crying, the praying —

Ralph Ineson: I like William’s justification, like, “Come on, this is the first child we’ve ever lost, you should be saying thank you that we’ve not lost more children”. It’s like, “What!? We lost a kid!” “Yeah, but only one!” But that’s the fucked up nature of the whole Puritan thing, is that, that’s essentially what he does, he goes, “No, stop fucking crying. We’ve only ever lost one. You should be grateful we’ve only lost one”, and it’s just like, “What?”

Kate Dickie: Yeah, it’s like although she does grieve all the time, she shouldn’t be, there’s no place for it, there’s no space for that kind of grieving. We should be getting on, and being grateful for what we have. But, the grief in it is the thing that attracted me to it. It was the real familiar story of a drama of a family falling apart, of losing a child, of the grieving from the loss and the love and that was a kind of theme for me that really stood out when I read it, and I found really interesting, as well.

Bloody Disgusting: One of my favorite things about the film is just how authentic it feels. It doesn’t feel like we’re watching a movie, it feels like we just stepped into this time period, and I think part of that is the dialogue being taken from real sources.

Kate Dickie: Absolutely, and everything of Rob’s is taken from reality. I mean, we’ve talked a lot today about how everything is hand stitched. Not a popper, not a button is fake. Ralph’s socks are made from the wool from the right sort of sheep from the plantation that would have made them. The set was built with the old tools because circular saws weren’t invented then, they would have made the wrong marks, so they were making them as you would in 1630 when they built the house. So, for us as actors, it was a dream, there was nothing to imagine, nothing was pretend. We were just saturated with detail, and that’s what makes it stand out is it’s so accurate and so to the point and every little detail, so there’s nothing that you go, “Oh, that jars” or “Oh, that doesn’t set right”.

Ralph Ineson: As an actor, having the weight of the right tools, you can feel that this is the real thing. This is the right tool that I’m cutting this stuff with, or, how they have single shank shoes, they’re not right and left.

Kate Dickie: So your shoes would do either feet and it was up to you which shoe you put on and how you broke them into that, it just depended how you broke in your shoes.

Ralph Ineson: These kind of things just make it so easy to really get into it and not be dragged down.

Bloody Disgusting: Were there any books that you were told to read in preparation for your roles?

Kate Dickie: Well I got obsessed with a prayer book called The Practice of Piety which is basically a Puritan prayer book. There were a lot of things [in the script] that said, “Katherine praying, Katherine praying”, and I thought, “What is she praying? And if I mumble and don’t say anything, it’s going to look bad, but if I make up modern prayers it’s going to sound bad”. So, I thought I could learn what prayer would go into that bit, and I found in it, like “Oh this bit talks about grief, I’ll talk about that”, and Rob supplied us with lit books and writings and so much research that we could use that, or just ask him anything and he’d be like, “I know that!”

Ralph Ineson: He’s like an Encyclopedia of the period. The depth of research is incredible.

Kate Dickie: He was the one that guided us about what sort of research material would be helpful. I had another thing called The Housewives’ Hand Book or something, and it was how to be a Puritan wife: what you made, how you made food, how you cleaned clothes, how you acted with your husband, how you acted with God, and these were really helpful for just making me not panic that I was doing it too modern, or was going to make something jar. But we had Rob who just is…I don’t know if there’s anything he doesn’t know about back then. So he was our great source if we needed to know. He was wonderful.

The Witch hits theaters on February 19th, 2016.