Fox Searchlight Pictures is releasing Sound Of My Voice in select cities beginning April 27, 2012. Co-writers, plus star and director, respectively, Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij sat down to answer questions about the film in a roundtable interview setting. For a film such as Sound Of My Voice it was a welcome opportunity as the perplexing nature of the story breeds analysis from the viewer, and for a science fiction fan (like me!) all sorts of questions dying to be answered. The interview is below, and to read the review of Sound Of My Voice go here and/or watch the first twelve minutes from the film here.
[ Legend: BM – Brit Marling ZB – Zal Batmanglij I – Interviewer KS – Kathryn Schroeder, FilmFracture ]
–Begin Interview
Brit Marling (co-writer, actress, role of Maggie)
I: What was it about cult life that attracted you to want to write the script?
The feeling that, we are alive in such a strange time and how, where does meaning come from? How do you decide what a meaningful life is? I think anything can really be considered a cult. There is a cult of filmmaking. Every time you make a film everybody comes together, they make this family or this tribe, and the script is the higher power and everybody comes to work everyday and surrenders to that story, that imagined narrative. For a while you live this way, in a sort of cultish group.
I: On where the story came from, and the ambiguous science fiction narrative…
BM: I think it came from the first part of the story that really presented itself, of Peter and Lorna, and this boy and girl detective in the vein of the “Hardy Boy Mysteries.” They’re descending the basement stairs, and they’ve been blindfolded and their hands have been cuffed on this high adventure together. Then it was like, okay, what is in this basement? What would you go through all of this for, what is the secret worth protecting. 
And the idea of time travel seemed so appealing because who’s to say there are not time traveller’s amongst us. Human perception is so limited. How do we know if this is actually happening? It’s hard to say. We like thinking of time travel in that sort of practical way. What would it be like, where would you hide? Then try to solve the mysteries of what that would actually feel like.
I: On playing Maggie…
BM: I was always really terrified about playing Maggie. Which is why I wanted to play her. The idea of playing a cult leader sort of really scared me. It scared me because, how do you pull that off? How do they hold your attention and why? Anytime I feel nervous to take on a part is when I want to do it. I always like to run into the direction of the thing I am afraid of and figure out why. I think the thing that helped me find her eventually was a feeling that she was, underneath all that allure was potentially an insecure woman full of doubt; she throws up all of these different faces: the mother figure, vixen, terrifying psychotherapist. I like the vulnerability at the center of her, I think its sorta unexpected in a cult leader.
I: Were you always going to be Maggie when writing the script?
BM: I don’t know why but, for some reason I was never Lorna. We didn’t much talk about it, Zol [Batmanglij] and I, and yet when Lorna was coming out I was just never Lorna, I was always Maggie. And Maggie came later. We didn’t know who she was for a while. The script was coming together and there was an outline and there was literally maybe an arrow to “insert charismatic leader here.” Who knows what she says or looks like or does. It’s hard to write that and then I think the way we eventually found her, why i was so compelled to play her, was this idea that she is tender, and literally in the next moment will cut you at the ankles.
KS: Did you intend for the character of Agent Briggs to be perceived as being from the future, hired to take Maggie back? (Or is that just our minds propagating it because of similar genre films such as The Terminator)?
BM: It is a story that at every turn [will] play with the audiences expectations and keep turning over the coin of ‘is this magic, or is this mundane.’ Does she work for the Department of Justice or is she a time-traveller herself. And I think we always want to give evidence to support both cases. Everyone has a different interpretation and we try never to say what [is our truth].
KS: It is like the ending, too, ambiguous. You could assume one thing, or something completely different. All depending on how you decide.
BM: I don’t think the ending is ambiguous, I think its very clear, and conclusive in everyone’s own interpretation. That’s what I like about it. People don’t ever seem to not know. I usually talk with people and they say “She’s from the future,” then the next person, “She’s not.” There is a real debate and I think what’s interesting is the movie has a lot more to say about who the audience is than it is about trying to spoon feed you something. The ending does ask you to bring yourself into it. Which I like.
I: Do you two know (the ending)? [referring to her and fellow co-writer Zal Batmanglij]
BM: Oh yes. From the writing perspective we have a version we believe to be true. I would argue, once we make the film and put it into the world it does not really matter what we think anymore, it matters what the audience thinks.
I: On where the story came from, and the ambiguous science fiction narrative…
BM: I think it came from the first part of the story that really presented itself, of Peter and Lorna, and this boy and girl detective in the vein of the “Hardy Boy Mysteries.” They’re descending the basement stairs, and they’ve been blindfolded and their hands have been cuffed on this high adventure together. Then it was like, okay, what is in this basement? What would you go through all of this for, what is the secret worth protecting. And the idea of time travel seemed so appealing because who’s to say there are not time traveller’s amongst us. Human perception is so limited. How do we know if this is actually happening? It’s hard to say. We like thinking of time travel in that sort of practical way. What would it be like, where would you hide? Then try to solve the mysteries of what that would actually feel like.
Zal Batmanglij (director, co-writer):
I: We don’t want to give away the ending but do you know what the real truth behind her [Maggie] was [is]?
ZB: The reason Sound of My Voice works is because everything has been meticulously figured out. We don’t necessarily overtly say what all those things are but the actual film is constantly switching gears and levers and pulleys to pull off that thing. So, yes, we have answers to all of those things. Like, who is Maggie really?, What’s her story?, What’s her journey? All those things. We just don’t say them overtly we let them be like a cinematic experience, beyond words. It’s what you feel through the movie. More like what you feel rather than are told.
KS: By placing the film in chapters you’re essentially breaking the narrative over and over again. There’s some times where certain amounts of time have passed in-between the chapters, which is left unknown. Is that a purposeful thing to do so we have to use our own minds to put things together and keep us guessing?
ZB: What we were hoping is you sort of enter Peter and get pulled into this group, and one of the ways you get pulled into this group is it keeps going to black and asking you kind of in this way if you want to continue. The film’s going to continue whether you want it to or not. 
I love that in a book, when you get to a climax and you’re reading a book and it goes to the end of a chapter and you have a choice of whether you keep reading [at that time] or whether you’re going to use that as a marker to stop. At one point we had taken the chapter markers out and after the scene where Maggie breaks Peter down it was so intense that you really couldn’t enjoy the rest of the movie. And when you have that palette cleanser of cutting to black, you take a moment to breathe, you’re out of that basement and the claustrophobia, the film actually becomes a lot more digestible.
I: Did you make any changes to the script while shooting, because they were not working?
ZB: No, we did not have time for re-writes, we shot in 18 days all over Los Angeles. We found out the hard way [about the basement, being from the East Coast] as there are no finished basements in Los Angeles so we had to build one. So we got a friend who had a warehouse in Downtown and all these people came together for a couple days and built this little basement. My whole thing was I did not want movable walls as you usually have on a set, I wanted to feel that claustrophobia, because the camera can never be in a place it couldn’t actually physically be.
I: What was the most difficult scene for you to shoot?
ZB: I think the scene I was most nervous about was the throwing-up scene (vomiting).
I: Were they really throwing up though?
ZB: One person actually started throwing up and they tried to close down the set and I was like, “no, guys we need to get this.” I really believe there’s something really real about that scene because that actual one person, we doubled his audio and replaced it for everybody. It feels so authentic that the stuff that is going to come later in the movie is more terrifying because that felt so real.
I: Is it more challenging creatively to have big science fiction ideas and have to frame it in a very small independent feature budget, instead of having $100 million dollars to get every special effect?
ZB: Well, I could never get have gotten $100 million dollars two years ago, or today. So, that is out of the question for me. I had to work with what resources I had and yet I want to tell stories that have scope because those are the stories that fascinate me. Of course, the human drama elements of Peter, Maggie, and Lorna fascinate me too. Just because its a low-budget movie does it have to be a couple in an apartment? Why can’t it go to all these other places? I’m very fascinated by high concept and I don’t ever want to do something that doesn’t have that.
KS: With the character of Abigail you create this young girl with odd behaviors, and a strange relationship with her father but then you just kind of forget it. You never take the character further and examine her; you let it all go back to Maggie and the couple. Why is that? It feels like you tease us that there may be something about this girl and then do not reveal the answers.
ZB: I think because the film is constantly disorienting you so you can have an experience that is thrilling. Why are there the loops on a roller coaster that there are? You know, thats the experience of the movie. And also because this is the first book in a larger [anthology].
KS: So there is a possibility for a sequel?
ZB: Yes, the world has been written. Brit [Marling] and I figured out the world a lot further than this story. This is a standalone story but if you actually want to do that you have to lay the seeds at some point early on or you can’t reach them later.
KS: Would you ever consider this as a TV Series?
ZB: Definitely.
–End Interview
More on Sound Of My Voice:
Official Website: soundofmyvoicemovie.com