‘Die My Love’ Director Teases Her New “Hitchcockian Thriller” and Alaska-Set Period Piece [Exclusive]

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Jennifer Lawrence as Grace with her face up while confetti falls down over her in Die My Love

Last year marked the long-awaited return of Lynne Ramsay to feature filmmaking eight years after the release of the crime thriller You Were Never Really Here in theaters, and, at least with critics, she hadn't missed a beat. Die My Love, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, was another acclaimed effort from the We Need to Talk About Kevin helmer, which told a harrowing story of motherhood through the lens of a woman slipping into madness. This time, though, she's not planning another prolonged absence after her latest success. At the BAFTA Tea Party over the weekend, Ramsay gave Collider's Maggie Lovitt an update on her next two films, including what to expect and who is set to star.

Ramsay teased that both of her upcoming projects are somewhat close to getting underway, though she has yet to decide which will take priority. The first is "a film lined up with Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara," while the other will feature Julianne Moore as the lead. "We'll see which one moves first," she added. The former of the two is Polaris, a longtime passion project of Ramsey's that will also reunite her with Phoenix after their aforementioned team-up in You Were Never Really Here. After years in limbo, momentum has finally started to pick up on the film, with regular Paul Thomas Anderson collaborator Jonny Greenwood tapped to compose the score late last year. The latter, meanwhile, may be Stone Mattress, an adaptation of Margaret Atwood's short story of the same name that Ramsay has similarly been trying to get off the ground with Moore.

Describing the two projects, the director said, "One of them's kind of Hitchcockian, kind of Vertigo type of thriller, but very modern, very much a strong woman character. And the other one is another strong woman character. It's a period piece that's the turn of the century, and it's about a woman pioneer who meets the Devil in Alaska." In other words, she appears to be sticking firmly in the horror-adjacent thriller realm for the foreseeable future after Die My Love, with a similar emphasis on the projects' female leads. When Lovitt expressed excitement for the second film, Polaris, Ramsay concurred, adding, "Yeah, me too!" and confirming, "That may be first."

What Is 'Die, My Love' About?

Whatever comes next for Ramsay will have a tough act to follow after Die My Love, which Collider's Emma Kiely said in her 8/10 review features, "a career-best performance from Jennifer Lawrence in a must-see thriller spectacle that turns a single woman’s experience into a brutally honest psychological epic." Lawrence leads the film as Grace, a writer who moves with her husband, Jackson (Pattinson), to his late Uncle's rural Southern home, an arrangement that starts well until they have a child. As she increasingly finds her needs unmet, the young mother starts becoming more and more erratic, much to the concern of Jackson, and their relationship quickly spirals. An adaptation of Ariana Harwicz's novel of the same name, the project was co-written by Enda Walsh and Alice Birch and also features Sissy Spacek, LaKeith Stanfield, and Nick Nolte among its powerhouse cast.

Die My Love is currently available to stream on Mubi. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on Ramsey's next projects after the psychological thriller.