What 'Terrified' Erin Moriarty About Her Movie Catching Dust (2024)

After a summer of ultraviolent superhero brawls in The Boys Season 4, Erin Moriarty tones it down in her new film Catching Dust. Moriarty co-stars with Suicide Squad actor Jai Courtney as a married couple hiding out in a deserted commune in Texas. Her character Geena is ready to abandon her outlaw husband Clyde -- but then another couple forces Geena and Clyde to confront the abusive tone of their relationship.

Directed and written by Stuart Gatt, Catching Dust deals with issues related to domestic violence and the societal roles of women. Geena's relationship with Clyde is something Moriarty expanded far beyond what the film showed, as she told CBR. The actor went into detail about the preparation behind portraying a Texan with a thick accent, and the backstories she and Courtney created to understand their characters.

CBR: What people might be surprised by is that Catching Dust requires you to utilize a Southern accent in the role of Geena, and you nail that convincingly. What was that part of the process like, given that accents can be difficult to do?

Erin Moriarty: Honestly, that actually means the world because I worked with this amazing accent coach named Jerome Butler, who deserves all the credit. It was the first accent I'd ever put on. And I was terrified because for me, I know if I'm thinking about the accent, I'm not thinking about the character and that is paralyzing. I can't play the character.

I spent so many hours working with [Jerome], leading up to the film and during the filming. Every single day on set, I spent 45 minutes in preparation in my trailer doing exercises, just because I was so anxious. Because it's not a little thing. Like I said, if I get that right -- or if I feel like I'm getting it right -- then I can play the character. I couldn't be present for Geena unless the accent is something I'm not even thinking about, and that's what I wanted to get to. But I had very little time to prepare for it, because I was going from one film to another. So that means the world.

Beyond that aspect of your performance, Catching Dust is also very relatable, as a lot of women can probably see themselves in Geena in one way or another. How did you approach playing a character in a very dark and uncomfortable place?

I think that one of the things that we learn as we get older... You learn more and more that there's a darkness. There is a psychological state that you can reach that you may not have thought capable of yourself. I think we all go through that, and we all go through our own relative version [of that].

We can speak to someone who is seven years old, who says that the worst thing they've ever gone through was something that we can't relate to, because it doesn't match the gravity of what we've been through by 25. There are varying degrees and varying versions, but we all have our moments when we're confronted with a level of pain that we didn't think was possible or surmountable.

And also, the identity loss one can feel is so important to see in female characters. For me, it was about playing a character who was paradoxical. There were strengths within [Geena]. She was staying with her abuser -- but we have to portray the abuser in a way that's nuanced enough, so that it's not black and white. You have sympathy for him. But for her, she finds her strength, but she doesn't overcome everything within the film. It's not tied to the neat bow.

The point is that for all the reasons you can go into these low moments, all of those reasons do not need to be transcended to find your strength. They can still be present. You just learn how to metabolize them in a different way. Movies helped me feel less alone growing up. And they still do when I see someone going through something specific. I think it's amazing that I can read a script and play a woman who grows up in West Texas, [with a] completely different upbringing from mine -- I'm from New York City -- and we still relate to her. She's so specific, but that's a really beautiful thing.

Did you ever find yourself questioning why Geena stayed with Clyde? Or wondering what kind of upbringing did she have to make her the person she is in the movie?

Yes, yes. My process involves a very granular, if not neurotic, approach. And that means that I know exactly where she came from. I know exactly what every year of her life entailed. I might not even use it when I step onto set. But it allows me to breathe life into her that I do think is present. I do find these little moments with her that are behavioral and super-subtle that someone might not pick up on, but are the exact, direct results of something that happened when she was younger. It's my belief that if you're an actor, you're lucky enough to kind of be forced to confront certain things that are present in human psychology on a scientific level.

So let's look at her relationship with Clyde and her unwillingness to confront who he is, her love for him at the same time. Why is she so in love with this man who is treating her this way? What happened previously to this whole movie that would have led them to fall in love like this and not be able to cut their ties? First of all, we had to build a relationship between us. One of the most important things was really between Jai [Courtney] and I, agreeing that the love between them, prior to us picking up on where we are in the movie, was very present. They both came from very, very, very dysfunctional households.

[Geena], specifically, had never been in a situation where she felt loved. Not only that, but she felt like she had exclusively been in situations where her only way of getting things was by being a waitress and being objectified. That's how she made her money. She meets someone who loves her so fiercely and provides her with the kind of love that she's been starved of, even if it's not the kind of love that she should ultimately be getting. [Clyde's] unfortunately and heartbreakingly unable to express his love in the right way. The extent of his abusiveness is correlated with the extent of his love for her, and she loves him. For this to be the only love he's ever had, to confront the finality of that is just earth-shattering. I think it's hard for any of us to do that. It's comparable to someone confronting fallibilities in their parents.

That's really discomforting because that's who you literally needed to survive. [Geena] needs [Clyde] to survive. That love has been the hallmark and the foundation of her feeling okay and safe. Ironically, it becomes the opposite. So that's the answer. Every single justification for her situation, her feelings and her breaking out of it is found in her backstory.

Geena's relationship to art plays a significant part in Catching Dust, too. She does mainly black and white sketches of her husband, then she's introduced to abstract art. How did you interpret her journey as an artist and how it correlates with her journey as a woman?

Art is her catharsis and I don't even think she's aware of it. In the beginning, she's drawing these portraits of Clyde, and I think that she has physical needs that match her emotional needs that we as women have previously not really been able to discuss. Our physical needs are fundamental to our well-being for the very reasons that women are kind of dismissed. We get attached when it comes to physical things. Well, yeah, there is a physical and emotional relationship there. When you see him,saying that he needs to go shower, she starts to kiss him, and he denies her of that intimate moment... That is a moment that's symbolic of her needs not being met on every level.

I don't think it's a coincidence that she's drawing him... She hasn't felt like he's in a vulnerable state. He's in the state that he would be if she was getting what she needed... Our subconscious tends to find itself out on a page or via writing. That's like her version of journaling. These are images that she's drawing of him vulnerable, and they're images that reflect the Clyde she is clinging on to, and that is cathartic.

Upon looking at them in retrospect when she meets Andy, she's able to realize that. Even the first thing he says about art, I think, is something along the lines of art being your soul painted out or drawn out onto a page. As soon as she learns that she's able to implement that concept [in] formal art, that's a key component of her being able to look inward, which she hasn't been able to do.

Catching Dust is now streaming on Apple TV+ and Prime Video.