Thomasin McKenzie shines in “Joy,” a photo of a test-tube baby taking a bow at the London Film Fest

EXCLUSIVE: Thomasin McKenzie says her youthful appearance – she’s 24 – makes it “a bit difficult” to act her age or older, but those worries have disappeared with her latest role. In the wonderful film Joyshe provides a remarkable portrait of Jean Purdy, one of the founding pioneers of human in vitro fertilization therapy, commonly known as IVF.

If the gynecologist Dr. Patrick Steptoe and physiologist Robert Edwards are considered the “fathers” of IVF, then Purdy, a nurse and embryologist, is its godmother.

It’s an absolutely perfect role for the New Zealander who played the lead Jojo Rabbit, Last Night in Soho And The power of the dogand she shines brilliantly as Purdy alongside Bill Nighy as Steptoe and James Norton as Edwards, later knighted for his services to medical research.

Joy It premieres at the BFI London Film Festival at the Southbank Center on Tuesday, with screenings also on Wednesday and Saturday. Joy will be in theaters on November 15th and will be released worldwide on Netflix on November 22nd. The film comes at a time when there is heated debate about reproduction rights in the USA and elsewhere.

McKenzie laughs as she says she was quite nervous about making the film, directed by Ben Taylor (Sex education) because “it was the oldest one I’ve ever played.”

Joy spans 10 years, “and I’m a pretty young-looking person, I always have been,” she explains. “So it was a bit difficult for me to act my age or older and I was trying to make the transition from teenage roles to young adult roles. And that was that transition for me.”

And rightly so, she was treated like an adult on set.

In some previous productions she had “the feeling” that her suggestions were not always welcome, “but that wasn’t the case with this film.”

There’s a line that McKenzie wanted to add for a scene in which 23-year-old Purdy meets Edwards for the first time at Cambridge University, where she had applied for the position of research assistant in the Department of Physiology.

“Jean says, ‘These are my qualifications, I studied here.’ It’s just a short line, but it wasn’t there before, and I felt like it had to be included to make it clear to the audience that she wasn’t just popping in, she was working,” says McKenzie.

She praises Taylor for setting the bar high for politeness and kindness: Everyone in the film behaved the same way, she says, from Jack Thorne and Rachel Mason and producers Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey to her close cast friend Tanya Moodie and all other actors, creatives and other crew.

This attitude gave her confidence and suggested making it clear to the audience that Purdy was “fully qualified to be there.”

Taylor, along with Mason and Thorne – who are partners – have a personal connection to IVF “and were so immersed in the story,” McKenzie says.

The film brings Jean Purdy into the spotlight, something that has happened only slowly in history.

Purdy’s involvement in the groundbreaking conception that led to the birth of the first “test tube” baby, Louise Brown, on July 25, 1978, was often overlooked, while her two fellow pioneers were crowned by their scientific colleagues.

When they attempted IVF, there was enormous resistance from the general public and the medical community, but when the procedure was successful, at least their colleagues Steptoe and Edwards applauded it. “They received recognition, congratulations and plaques, and at the time they wanted Jean to be included in those congratulations. But the scientific community did not allow her to participate because she was a woman.”

McKenzie, who studied tons of material for the role, says: “If Edward hadn’t chosen Jean to go on this journey with him and Steptoe, I think it would have taken a lot longer for them to achieve success in artificial insemination would have found because… “Jean is really the person who brought it all together.” And there is a lot of biographical and scientific background information to support Mackenzie’s theory.

Appropriately, however, at a lecture marking the 20th anniversary of clinical IVF, Edwards announced: “There were three original pioneers of IVF, not just two.”

Still, some wondered why Edwards was the only recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the development of reproductive medicine. First of all, the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously, which is why Purdy and Steptoe were unfortunately ineligible.

It is notable, however, that while Edwards referred to Steptoe’s contribution in his Nobel Prize citation, Purdy is not mentioned at all in the document.

Yet she was often the only woman attending lectures where men talked to other men about fallopian tubes, the maturation of eggs, and the workings of the female reproductive system in general. Because of this, McKenzie and director Taylor talked a lot about “seeing Jean as an equal,” portraying her not as a helping hand to Steptoe and Edwards, but as a “key to everything.”

When Purdy took time off to look after her mother, nothing happened for months in the laboratory at Oldham Cottage Hospital in Greater Manchester.

She was also the one who suggested the lab use women’s natural cycles. “She was the one who found out,” McKenzie says.

The repercussions of those who vehemently disapproved of this were cruel. Some accused the three innovators of doing “the work of the devil.”

Purdy’s mother Gladys (a great Joanna Scanlan) makes the same point to her daughter.

Like her mother, Purdy was a very religious person. A nurse she studied with in the mid-1960s remembers her fondly, calling her a “nice Christian.” That’s why it was difficult for Purdy to work a job that excluded her from those she loved most.

“She had so much courage because she was a very religious person,” and taking care of her mother was a huge responsibility for her, so she “had to make enormous sacrifices in the work she did,” lamented McKenzie.

She was excluded from her church community. She received death threats and hate mail. Her mother wouldn’t talk to her and she had no other family. “Yes, that took a lot of courage from Jean,” says McKenzie.

McKenzie sees Purdy as someone who “has so much love and so much to give, but doesn’t allow himself to receive that love.”

McKenzie says in an emphatic voice: “But there has always been so much pressure on women, and there has always been so much pressure on women to be mothers.” Historically, women’s roles in society have been to reproduce, marry, and to play that role, and Jean felt she wasn’t capable of it, and so she didn’t let herself be loved.”

McKenzie finds it heartbreaking, and you feel the same way when you see the film. It is so deeply moving that thanks to Purdy’s work, countless women have been able to start families. “She made an enormous impact on the world and enabled millions of people to have children who loved her dearly.”

The three main actors invested a few hours in preparation. They visited London’s Guys Hospital and were allowed into the gynecology department “to speak to the nurses, the people who work behind the scenes in IVF.” They were also able to look at the incubators “that had embryos in them, and they were able to track whether those embryos were growing or not, whether the cells were multiplying, which was incredible.”

They had an embryologist on set who advised them on all scientific questions. “They were very strict about it,” McKenzie murmurs. “It was stressful because I didn’t want to look like an idiot.”

The actress had help in Wellington, New Zealand, where, when she was younger, she looked after three children whose grandfather, Dr. Richard Fisher, a pioneer and pioneer of fertility in the South Pacific country.

This family happened to move to London and happened to live near McKenzie, who had moved here a year ago. “Before we started filming, we talked about IVF and Dr. Fisher’s experiences bringing IVF to New Zealand and all about the protests and pickets, and he gave us so much valuable information that was so valuable for filming.”

I ask her permission to ask if any close family members have had a relationship with IVF.

She shakes her head and says that “no one in my family has had IVF.”

A moment later, McKenzie volunteers, “I mean, I hope I’m pretty fertile!”

She added: “It’s strange to say, but my mother had my little sister when she was 44 and my grandma had my mother very late, so I think I come from a very fertile family.”

However, McKenzie reveals that there was a time when she was young that she had health problems that had long since been resolved and that she was “scared that I might not be able to have children.”

Because of this, McKenzie was able to feel “very connected” to Jean, as she says, because of “the fear and societal pressure that all women feel.”

Making the film was an important realization for her about “how things work inside me,” and she was surprised by the things she didn’t know.

Actually, she was shocked at what she didn’t know. “We need to talk about these things because if we don’t know about them – I mean, it’s about birth; This is how the world moves on, this is how generations move on.”

Another film she is working on is The woman clothed by the sun Director: Mona Fastvold. It’s about the origin of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, better known as the Shakers.

She is currently preparing for the shoot Fackham Hall for director Jim O’Hanlon. I apologize for mispronouncing the title of the film.

McKenzie explains, smiling brightly. “But the joke is, it’s supposed to sound like that The.”

From what I understand, McKenzie plays the daughter of a noble aristocrat, played by Katherine Waterston.

I first met Thomasin McKenzie in 2018 when she attended the premiere of Debra Granik’s Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes Leave no traceand was impressed by the level-headedness she showed at 17.

She’s older now but just as down to earth and I like that she doesn’t try to frequent attention-grabbing West End restaurants and overrated nightclubs. She would rather go to Arsenal games with her cousins ​​and uncle from Wellington or go on fun adventures with her boyfriend and other friends.

“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I’m from New Zealand,” she explains.

Then, a moment later, she whispers, “Honestly, I don’t know where these restaurants are. They’re just not my favorite place.”

I can’t help but say that McKenzie exudes joy!