Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan talk ghosts and working with Steven Soderbergh on 'Presence'
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Published Jan 24, 2025  â˘Â 4 minute read
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Chris Sullivan and Lucy Liu are pictured in this combination photo taken from the premiere of their film, ""Presence." Photo by Nathan Denette/Evan Agostini /CP/AP photosEver since seeing his 1989 directorial debut, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan have been big fans of Steven Soderberghâs film work.
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So when he rang up to pitch Presence, his first foray into horror, it was an immediate âYesâ from the both of them.
âHe wanted to have a meeting with me and I said, âWhatever youâre doing, Iâm in,'â Liu recalled with a laugh in an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall. âI have been such a huge fan of his and I love the way he works. He takes a lot of risks and chances and thatâs what art is.â
âI want to do whatever Steven Soderbergh is doing,â added Sullivan, who first worked with the filmmaker on the small screen medical drama The Knick. âIâm also a big fan of the genre. So when you tell me Steven Soderbergh is making a ghost story, I could not be more thrilled.â
In Presence, Liu and Sullivan play a husband and wife who move with their two teenage children into a suburban home thatâs haunted by a supernatural spirit.
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Chris Sullivan (Chris) and Lucy Liu (Rebekah) in Presence, directed by Steven Soderbergh. Photo by Peter Andrews /Neon/ Elevation PicturesAs the Payne family goes about life in their haunted home they face cracks in their personal lives. The coupleâs daughter Chloe (Callina Liang) is grieving the death of her best friend, while their son Ty (Eddy Maday) is being a bully at school.Â
In a separate interview with Postmedia the morning after Presenceâs Canadian premiere, Soderbergh called his ghostly story a âTrojan horseâ to illustrate how the Paynes are a family thatâs âin real trouble.â
âThis is a family that has a gigantic blind spot that they are not addressing. What allows (the story) to stay with you is the question that you immediately ask yourself, which is, âDo I do that? Is there something going on with my close relationships that Iâm completely blind to?â We do do that. We often donât see whatâs right in front of us,â he says.
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Filmed entirely from the POV of a ghost who wanders from room to room as the family slowly comes undone, Soderbergh â whose film work includes Out of Sight, the Oceanâs 11 trilogy, the Magic Mike movies, Erin Brockovich, Traffic and the pandemic horror Contagion â based the movie on an incident from his own life after a woman house-sitting for him and his wife saw an apparition in their home.
âThere was a woman that was living there that had been murdered by her daughter. Someone was staying there and saw that woman. I get chills thinking about it,â Liu said. âHe wrote three pages and then sent it to (screenwriter) David Koepp who came up with this incredible story.â
Soderbergh said he never encountered the ghost in his home, but Liu admitted she could easily buy into the supernatural element of Presence. âI believe there are other energies in the world,â she said. âI donât think we just exist. I think weâre very corporeal, but when it ends there has to be something more (after life). Everyoneâs looking for life on different planets, but thereâs also life outside of ourselves.â
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Asked how he would react to a haunting in real life, Sullivan said he would have a more light-hearted approach.
âAm I renting the place? Do I own? When is the lease up? Can I ride this out? Is this a violent situation or just someone moving my dishes?â he quipped.
The fact that Presence marks Soderberghâs horror debut excited his two leads.
âThereâs been a lot of innovation in the genre in the last 10, 15 years. Whether itâs something like Parasite or Heredity or Longlegs or Get Out ⌠the genre has been constantly shifting,â said Sullivan, who nabbed two Emmy nominations for his role as Toby Damon on the NBC drama This Is Us.
âThereâs a simplicity to horror now and itâs not just about the stabbing and gore,â Liu added. âItâs different. Itâs more inside out.â
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Callina Liang in a scene from âPresence.â Photo by Elevation PicturesThe shocking ending that Koepp (who also penned Mission: Impossible, Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) came up with surprised both the director and the filmâs stars.
âHis ending surprised me, because the presence wasnât who I thought it might be,â Soderbergh remembered.
âIt wasnât what I was expecting,â Sullivan added.
Soderbergh works fast. The shoot for Presence was completed in just 11 days and his next movie, the upcoming spy thriller Black Bag (which Koepp also wrote), will be in theatres in March.
Liu said that despite the steady output thereâs a timelessness to the Oscar winnerâs work. âHe creates this look and feel so that (his films) become a classic,â she said.
Sullivan said that Soderberghâs films are like âsignpostsâ marking his evolution as a moviemaker.
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Glancing at a movie poster that listed off some of Soderberghâs most well-known titles, he praised the director for constantly tackling films that are âall so different.â
Asked to pick a favourite, Liu paused. âThatâs hard,â she said.
For Sullivan, the answer came instantly. âThere was something about Oceanâs 11 where they took an independent filmmaking God and put him in the studio system and he made a movie with like the New York Yankees of casts. Then he brought his own oddities and sense of humour and combined everything into this movie that everyone loves,â he said, smiling. âThereâs not a person who does not like Oceanâs 11 and it is unlimitedly watchable.â
Presence is now playing in theatres.
mdaniell@postmedia.com
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