Havana Rose Liu finds meaning in music and the mess of it all

I recently spoke with Liu, who says working on the film was a form of catharsis, mainly in the ways it connected her with her late grandmother. She shared about the difference between playing anger and hurt, the intersection of food and artistry throughout her life, and how creating films and music acts as a way to stay in touch with those who have died.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Zachary Lee: In an interview with Elle, you shared that Lurker came to you at a time when you were thinking through questions of fame and fandom. With Tuner, I know that there was some similar catharsis that allowed you to not only process through feelings related to artistry but also to the passing of your grandma. What has it been like to experience life and then have projects that allow you to directly process what you’ve experienced?
Havana Rose Liu: Amazing homework. Candidly, I'm also like, “What the f*ck is going on?” It’s a special thing and I can't tell if it's just my mindset around it where I'm connecting dots and narrativizing things that are not totally there, but even if I am, it's a really fun way to live life. 

I’m enjoying the experience of harmonizing what I’m experiencing in life and the projects I take on. I’m clearly processing something in energy that feels like it’s connecting dots outside of me. I’m also in therapy, though, so it’s not like I’m using art as a therapeutic tool. Something is fascinating about art, though, in that you can pour a part of yourself into something, and you can hold it. 

ZL: For Ruthie and Niki, food plays such a big part of their relationship, from the “$1,000 bowl of pasta” to the donut scene. How were you thinking through the role of food in understanding their dynamic?
HRL: Leo and I had such a running joke about "Tuner" because our director, Daniel, the only thing he had us do was eat. We would say, “Daniel, every single time we hang out, we eat…that’s the whole montage of us eating 16 different cuisines.” It’s true, though, that food is a way to people's hearts. 

Acting with food is fun because it’s another way to express how you're feeling about something. With Ruthie, when she’s eating and first meets Niki, it’s like that funny thing on a first date where you’re eating in front of someone and are thinking, “Am I eating weird? Am I eating ugly? Did I order the wrong thing?” 

In that first time when they’re eating in her house, and there’s this pasta that she’s made, there’s this insecurity in the way that she's holding and eating the pasta that I felt was really right in that moment. Both Ruthie and Niki are holding this tenderness around something so mundane as food. But I do feel like when you're first falling in love with someone, all those little details feel so big. 

ZL: I feel like your artistic career is so deeply tied to food, both on-screen and off. In college, one of your projects was making cookbooks?
HRL: Yes, I made art cookbooks that were about people and food. I think food is a very important metaphor for a lot of things, actually. There's give and take, there's creation, there's digestion, there's just so much goodness.

ZL: I’ve heard that for actors, a common adage is that it’s easier to portray anger than it is to portray hurt. You display hurt so well, and I think about that with the scene where Niki and Ruthie are fighting, and I can tell, “maybe Ruthie wants to cry,” but she instead says, “Why don’t you play me something.” How do you feel your approach to playing hurt has shifted?
HRL: That’s an interesting question. I think a lot of the time, it feels like a really interesting part of the psychological map of a character is how they react when they feel vulnerable, cornered, or wronged. I feel like it speaks to where their insecurities are and what they need to do with them. Ruthie is tightly wound, and in that moment you’re describing, she's incredibly fragile, anxious, and trying to be strong. 

That’s part of the conflict inside of her: she is a real soft, very tender, fragile bird and a lot of desire to be fine and good, capable, strong, and fiery. In that moment, the only way I could see it really working at all was for her to become extraordinarily sharp. There’s an idea in that scene that she might sob at the end, but it was interesting to pursue something different. We found a lot of that scene on the day and tried it in a lot of different ways. 

ZL: It’s fascinating to trace the arc of Ruthie’s story through her outfits as well. Did you get a lot of input to help craft her on-screen look? What were conversations with costume designer, Sarah Millman, like?
HRL: It was a fascinating process with Sarah, Daniel, and his wife, Caroline. We would sit and discuss what archetypes we were pulling from around this character and also the truths we’re pulling from, her being a musician from Williamsburg and Bushwick and being from our era, but there’s a timelessness about her in the way she evokes these classic romcoms. We did a lot of different fittings because there were lots of possibilities for how she could look; she could have gone more contemporary or classical. We tried to look at music students and also used Hania Rani as a style reference. 

Costuming is interesting and ever-elusive to me, because one of the harder things I think is getting the image of the character right. As I grow in my career, the more I like to hand that over, and the only thing I can do is say if it feels wrong on the body. It’s helpful to have other minds to sort of push up against in that way and then build something from everyone's sort of disparate perspectives. It was a lot of thinking on this character, though, which is very interesting because it ended up being a really simple and clear person.

One thing that Sarah did that was really amazing was that she let me incorporate a lot of my own grandmother's pieces into the look. I have this long navy coat at one point in the film when Niki’s walking me to class. That's my grandmother's, and I sometimes have these hair scarves that are also hers. I already felt like I was carrying her with me throughout that whole project, but it felt really like I got to play her in a way, and the music student she would've been if she were in different circumstances. The fact that Sarah let me run in that way and found a way to make it really work, and it incorporated this sort of grandma energy to her character, which is what we wanted. 

ZL: Not to keep spitting your words back to you, but I was reading an Interview Magazine interview you did with Bottoms co-star Ruby Cruz, and you shared, “I think loving the people I’ve lost feels like I’m contacting ghosts in some way.” I’m curious how you see music playing into this idea in any way.
HRL: I like to believe that the people who pass are still with us in some capacity. I feel that these people who I've loved so much have made such a massive impact in my life, and through my art making, it feels like I am trying to write love letters to them. I feel like it's beyond being my duty in some ways, like a good grandchild, but also just feels like the right thing to do, and I think probably makes me feel a little more alive. 

ZL: I was reading a Wonderland interview, where, when you knew The Sky is Everywhere and No Exit were coming out, you were meditating and joining ceramics classes. You’re only getting busier, and I’m curious if those are practices you’re still retaining, or what you’re doing to stay rooted, human.
HRL: I've been thinking about this a lot recently. I usually have some creative practice that does feel like a root for me. I think right now, part of what has been difficult is that I've been traveling almost every other week to a new place. I can't be carrying around a hunk of clay. I'd be paying way too many airline fees. Right now, I’ve been doing some singing lessons, which has been really grounding, actually, and doing as much dance as I can. I think anything I can do with my own body and mind instrument is the right thing to do. I'm excited to keep putting things to paper or to clay, though at some point, though.