VANESSA'S Vision

After finding fame in The Crown, Vanessa Kirby’s debut lead film role is sparking Oscar buzz, while also helping women deal with the trauma of a previously silent subject

Vanessa Kirby has never given birth, but after shooting her first lead movie role in Pieces of a Woman, she almost feels as though she has. “Whenever I see a pregnant woman now, or someone’s telling me that they’ve just given birth, I smile,” Kirby explains over Zoom, her magnetism evident even through the screen. “I feel with them.”

The days she spent shooting the opening scene for her new film could explain this, as could the thorough way Kirby, 32, immersed herself in the role. Pieces of a Woman, currently streaming on Netflix, stars Kirby as Martha and Shia LaBeouf as Sean, a couple whose child dies during a home birth, leaving them to deal with the traumatic aftermath of neonatal death.

This pivotal event at the beginning of the film plays out in a 24-minute, single-take scene that starts with Martha’s first contractions and ends in tragedy. The camera follows the couple (and a midwife, Eva, played by Molly Parker), around their apartment, condensing the agonies of labour into under half an hour. Kirby says the gruelling nature of the scene – shot six times over two days – evoked intense emotions in the cast, who collectively hugged and screamed each time filming finished, while she sobbed after the first full take. “It was completely surreal because we were there, we were just there. We were witness to something,” she says.