Odessa Young on how Mothering Sunday director made nude scenes easier: 'She wasn't a prude'

Odessa Young joins Colin Firth and The Crown mother-son duo Olivia Colman and Josh O'Connor in her newest film. Mothering Sunday, based on a novel of the same name by Graham Smith, hits select theaters starting March 25.

The Australian actress sat down with EW at the October Savannah Film Festival to discuss her character's journey, what she learned working with Colman, Firth, and O'Connor, and how she collaborated with director Eva Husson on her nude scenes.

"Olivia and Colin have a kind of vibrancy and they're always seeking something new and interesting," Young says. "They're not the kind of actors that just come in to do the job. They're very dedicated to their jobs, even on little movies like this one."

24-year-old Young stars as Jane Fairchild, the Nivens' (Colman and Firth) maid having a secret affair with the son of a nearby estate owner (O'Connor). The pair hit it off without ever doing a chemistry test.

"He just deserves this moment and everything more," Young says of her co-star. "He's the best person I could have hoped for to make that movie with and to go through that experience with."

Written by Alice Birch (Normal People), the screenplay elaborates on the original novel, extending the story beyond Smith's plot.

"Birch created this alternate reality of Jane in her later years that is only alluded to in the novel," Young says. "It meant that we got to see the results of some of the contexts in the story, and so it was very exciting to imagine that new future, and it's really what sealed the deal for me."

Husson, who most recently wrote and directed Girls of the Sun, approached shooting in a way Young says, "instills a great amount of trust in a crew and in a cast because there's no question about what your credit to the movie is being used for."

This trust and clarity Husson brought to set as a "very visually specific director" carried over to Young's nude scenes.

"It definitely helped that Eva was not a prude about it. Eva had this very realistic understanding of, 'This is what nudity means,'" Young says. "It was that kind of relaxed attitude she had about it that probably made it far less nerve-inducing for me to go into those scenes."

Hear more about Young's experience with the cast and creative team of the upcoming period drama in the video above.

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