Pam (Sissy Spacek) sleepwalks with a rifle in rural Montana in the haunting new film "Die My Love."
Pam (Sissy Spacek, seated) sees parts of herself in Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) in "Die My Love."

NEW YORK – Sissy Spacek had no intention of making a movie last year.

“I thought I needed to recover from a summer of helping out with my precious grandchildren before I could take something on,” Spacek says, beaming and buzzing from “too much coffee” on a recent weekday morning.

But that all changed when she met Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay, who had a part in mind for Spacek in “Die My Love” (in theaters now), a blistering new drama starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson as a couple in freefall. The film follows a stifled young writer named Grace (Lawrence) as she slowly unravels after the birth of their son, unleashing her savage and sensual side in ways that perplex her aloof boyfriend Jackson (Pattinson).

Spacek, 75, plays Jackson's perceptive mom Pam, who is unmoored by the death of her husband (Nick Nolte) from Alzheimer's and haunted by his brother's suicide.

Pam understands how isolating it can be as a wife and mother, and as Grace becomes increasingly erratic and rageful, she tries to extend a sympathetic hand. "Everybody goes a little loopy the first year," Pam assures the despondent new mom.

Before filming, Ramsay had lengthy conversations about the character with Spacek, who last appeared on the big screen in 2022’s “Sam & Kate.”

“We talked about how Pam could support Grace, and Lynne came up with this great idea of them really connecting,” Spacek says, seated with Ramsay at a Midtown hotel. “They’ve both been through incredible trauma, so she helps me and I help her.”

In Ariana Harwicz’s 2017 novel, “the grandmother character is really a bit of a batty lady and didn't have this empathy,” Ramsay explains. “Jennifer has said herself that Grace is really visible as a character to Pam; Pam sees her when Jackson doesn’t. It became a much more interesting dynamic between these two women than it was initially,” and that was in part because of Spacek’s input.

A bleak, lyrical Western set in present-day Montana, “Die My Love” bears an obvious resemblance to Spacek’s breakout 1973 drama “Badlands,” which was directed by Terrence Malick and costarred Martin Sheen. Ramsay has worked with other Oscar winners including Tilda Swinton (on “We Need to Talk About Kevin”) and Joaquin Phoenix (“You Were Never Really Here”), but has never been more starstruck than she was by Spacek.

“I mean, bloody hell, my heart was pounding!” Ramsay says breathlessly. “ ‘Badlands’ is one of my favorite films of all time, so to be able to speak to this icon was wild. But there's such a warmth that Sissy brings. Everyone loved when you were on set.”

Spacek says it’s rare to find “a spectacular artist” like Ramsay who is so open to collaboration.

“When you’re young, you think they’re all going to be like that,” says the "In the Bedroom" star, who cuts a striking figure with her flowing strawberry-blonde hair and glimmering pale eyes. “The more excited Lynne got, the faster she talked and the more her Scottish accent came out. And the more excited I got, the heavier my Texas accent was. We were using cast members and producers as translators!”

Like Grace and Pam, Spacek can understand the demands of motherhood. At 22, she made her movie debut in 1972’s “Prime Cut,” which she followed with chilling turns in “Carrie” and “3 Women” before winning a best actress Oscar for her Loretta Lynn biopic “Coal Miner’s Daughter” in 1981. A year later, she gave birth to her first of two daughters with her production designer husband Jack Fisk: Schuyler, 43, and Madison, 37.

“I took a step back, and I really only did about one film a year at the height of my career, maybe two,” Spacek says. “I was just always looking for a project that I thought I could bring something to and serve the story.”

Throughout her more than five decades in Hollywood, Spacek has tackled hot-button issues of abortion (“A Private Matter”) and suicide (“ ‘night, Mother”) long before they were widely discussed, although she rarely concerned herself with how people would react. “There was a time where that’s all I thought about, and then I was able to finally get it out of my head,” she says.

Ramsay says she’s eager to work with Spacek again, only this time in a leading role. (“From your mouth to God’s ears!” the acting legend says giddily.) Both women have always been drawn to everyday characters caught up in extraordinary circumstances.

“I think we're all pretty ordinary people, and it's just what happens to us as we go through life,” Spacek says. “You can be going along, everything's great, and then a piano falls on your head. You just never know. I guess I feel like an ordinary person, so I'm drawn to that.

“I'm not drawn to playing kings or queens – I'm into the minutiae of real life.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sissy Spacek spent a summer with her 'precious' grandkids. Then came a bloody new film.

Reporting by Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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