In Paul Schrader’s movie on the 2023 movie schedule, Master Gardener, which serves as the third movie in his man in a chair trilogy, we are asked to think about acceptance and forgiveness. In the movie, Sigourney Weaver plays a rich woman who takes in a man who used to be a white nationalist and her niece who has found herself in some drug trouble. As the movie progressed I found myself wondering why her character took in these two people, and ultimately how her decisions led to her giving up some of her power. And for the legendary actress, she found some of her answers to those questions by going back to William Shakespeare’s play King Lear.
Over the course of Master Gardener, we see Ms. Haverhill go from a fairly giving, but selfish, property owner who takes in folks with troubled pasts to someone who aggressively kicks the two main characters out of her home. While talking to CinemaBlend about this shift in her character, and how she ultimately ends up giving her garden to the man she kicked out, Weaver noted how she went back to King Lear to understand her character’s final choice, saying:
I think she has the best of intentions. She also turns the garden over to Narvel. She allows him to not only have a new chance at life, but to come into the kingdom and own the kingdom. And, like all good deeds, this does not go unpunished. I kept thinking of King Lear. You know, he gives away his kingdom because he thinks things are a certain way and then it's too late for her. I think that it's very hard for her to lose. I don't think she's had any experience with it. I am sort of astonished. I don't know what will happen to her when [Narvel and Maya] move in and this becomes their life. It's going to be tricky for Norma.
Weaver was part of a production of King Lear in 1970 when she was part of a group at Stanford called the Company, the Stanford Magazine reported. The actress played Goneril, the eldest of the king’s three daughters, so it makes sense why she was referencing back to the play for this movie.
In the case of Master Gardener, it makes sense that Sigourney Weaver kept returning to King Lear for inspiration. The king in Shakespeare’s play values appearances, which is his major flaw, and the moral of the story is that one’s actions always speak louder than words.
In Paul Schrader’s movie, Ms. Haverhill is someone who deeply values appearance, which you can clearly see when she picks out an outfit for Maya, how she presents herself, and her obsession with her garden.
Also, the relationship between the two stories gets closer with the moral of the play also being one of the themes of this movie. Actions, like Narvel taking care of Maya or Ms. Haverhill taking both of them in, do speak louder than words because it shows their change, and proves that they’ve been able to grow despite their seemingly unredeemable pasts.
I find it fascinating how Weaver has used her theater training, specifically when it comes to Shakespeare, to help inform her film career. She spent time doing a lot of plays during her undergraduate time at Stanford, and then she attended Yale’s School of Drama where she graduated with a Master of Fine Arts. The actress even told Vulture that while filming Alien she kept thinking about Henry V, so it seems like she's been able to use Shakespeare in lots of her projects no matter the genre.
These days many of us recognize Sigourney Weaver as a sci-fi legend for her work in the Alien movies, though she said the “ship has sailed” when it comes to reprising Ripley, and the Avatar movies, as she came back for The Way of Water, and will be in the upcoming Avatar 3. However, she also takes on roles in serious dramas, like Shcrader’s Master Gardener, and it was incredibly interesting to learn how she developed her character, and how she worked to understand Ms. Haverhill’s motivations and choices.
To see Sigourney Weaver’s performance in Master Gardener, it’s currently playing in theaters.
