Interview: Eliza Hittman on 'Never Rarely Sometimes Always'
Friday, March 13, 2020 at 1:00PM 
The first great movie of 2020 has arrived. Visceral, exquisite and artfully rigorous Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always drops the audience into the experience of two teenage girls in rural Pennsylvania. Faced with an unintended pregnancy and a lack of local support, Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) and her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) embark across state lines to New York City on a fraught journey trying to secure an abortion. The performances from newcomers Flanignan and Ryder are stunning in their simplicity and authenticity and Hittman reaches new heights with her assured filmmaking no matter what you thought of her previous films, Beach Rats (2017) and It Felt Like Love (2013). The movie won raves at this year's Sundance and won the Grand Jury Prize, or 2nd place, at the Berlinale last month.
Ryder, Hittman and Flanigan at the Berlinale
We recently met with Hittman in New York. [This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]
Murtada Elfadl: Congratulations on the film. I saw it at Sundance. I really loved it. It's great.I wanted to ask you first about working with the actors. I hear Sidney Flanagan has never acted before and Talia Ryder has maybe done a couple of things,
Eliza Hittman: Stage. She's done musical theater.
They are amazing. I was flabbergasted by these performances. I read about your casting process, but can you talk about working with them on set, how did you manage to get these performances out of them?
We had a day and a half to prepare and to rehearse.