Interview: ‘A Little Prayer’ Writer/Director Angus MacLachlan
In Maker’s Dozen, we ask folks in and around the film industry 12 questions and have them ask one of us.
Angus MacLachlan is a playwright, screenwriter, and director best known for Junebug, Goodbye to All That, and A Little Prayer, a Sundance breakout that made its Chicago premiere at the 2025 Chicago Critics Film Festival. (Read our review of the film.)
We chatted with Angus about the inspirations behind A Little Prayer, Junebug at 20, David Strathairn’s physical comedy chops, what to do in Winston-Salem, NC, and more!
This interview has been edited for content and clarity.
1. What’s the Angus MacLachlan origin story?
I actually was educated as an actor. I went to drama school and then I started writing. I worked as an actor for 20 years and I wrote monologues for myself for auditions. I wrote and produced a play in New York, then Phil Morrison saw it and said “Let’s make a movie of that.” And that actually became Junebug, which I wrote 20 years ago now and had Amy Adams in it. I continued to write plays and tried to get my agent interested in me writing screenplays because I really wanted to do film. And then when Junebug actually got into Sundance, I became a screenwriter and wrote a few films. One was called Goodbye to All That, which I sent it to my then agent who said “It’s kind of indie, isn’t it?” Which was code for it’s going to be so inexpensive that it’s not worth her time to help me get it made. I gave it to some producers who wanted to do it and they let me direct. Then I directed another one called Abundant Acreage Available, and now A Little Prayer is my third film to write, produce, and direct.
2. What was the original seed of an idea that eventually turned into A Little Prayer?
It comes from so many places. It comes from stories you read and things that happen to you in your life. There’s a lot of themes in it that are in a lot of my films, even unconsciously. I don’t really realize I’m writing about the same things. I started this film almost 8 and a half years ago when my daughter was 15 and now she’s almost 24 and lives in Chicago. I realized in retrospect that I was writing about her growing up and having to see her leave, go to college, go off into the world. At the heart of it, the film is about when you’re the parent of an adult child, you still want to protect them and you want to tell them what to do, and you can’t. You don’t have that right anymore.
3. Jane Levy delivers a quiet knockout of a performance as Tammy. What did you see in her that made her right for this role?
I work with this great casting director, Mark Bennett, and he actually brought me to her. Because I was an actor, I don’t really like to audition people that have careers. I just give them the script, and if they respond to it then I talk to them and then just intuitively feel like they’re right or not. So I cast her and then they sent me clips of her. She had a television show on NBC called Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. It’s a musical comedy where she sings and dances, and it’s funny. And I was like, “Oh my God, she’s so good! She’s so talented!” It was like the reverse of buyer’s remorse, like “I’ve really got something here.” I don’t think she’s ever done anything like it, and she’s just so beautiful in it and so real and true. And she was a dream to work with.
4. David Strathairn has been great in so many movies for decades now, and he’s a very welcome presence in this one. What’s something most people don’t know about him?
I think he’s exactly what you imagine him to be. He is a great man. I always say he’s such a mensch. He’s just a wonderful person. We shot this in 19 days. It was incredibly hot. It was in the middle of COVID. But he’s a real actor’s actor—that’s all he cares about. He doesn’t care about all the other things, and he’s been nominated for an Oscar. We had one day where we had the main actors to rehearse, and I had to have actors who would be able to communicate relationships that are lifetimes, like parents and children. And these actors were able to form this sense of being a family. He’s also physically really funny. I keep saying “I wish you could do a physical comedy.” He actually studied at the Ringling Bros Clown College for a bit. That’s something people don’t really know about him. He’s just terrific.
5. I loved the detail of the mystery woman’s voice reverberating through the neighborhood. What was the inspiration behind that?
I used to go to New York quite a bit and I stayed with Phil Morrison, the director, who’s a great friend of mine. He lived right on Washington Square South and there was some woman who at 5 a.m. every morning would walk by and sing at the top of her lungs, and not very well. I would always run to the window to try to see her and I never could. I thought it was funny and interesting and mysterious, so I thought I’m going to steal that and put it in there. Because in the film all the other characters find her bothersome, except for David Strathairn and Jane Levy’s characters. For them she’s special. She’s kind of like a grace that you can’t put your finger on, but when it’s there it’s special, and even when it’s not there it’s special. And that’s another part of their relationship, that they both feel that way.
6. Junebug turns 20 this year and shares a good amount in common with A Little Prayer, including Celia Weston. What’s a fond memory you have from making that movie?
One of the things I learned so much on that is the way Phil Morrison directed. I saw that you can get really great work from people and not be a jerk. Now that I have become a director, I’ve found that directing is like being Dad in a really good mood—you’re there, you’re supportive, you have an idea, you’re enthusiastic. If there’s a problem, you can take care of it. It helped actually being a father and being an actor before I became a director. But Phil really showed me you can do it very positively, and it’s very important to me to do that on my films.
7. Your Criterion Collection Top 10 is full of classic masters like Renoir, Bergman, and Lubitsch. What’s a modern movie you think deserves the Criterion treatment?
That’s a great question. Most of them are on Criterion. I love Mike Leigh, he’s on there quite a bit. I love Kenneth Lonergan’s films. I find a kinship with them, both in their humanity and humor that’s mixed in with deep emotion. I love that Anora is now on Criterion. I admire Sean Baker’s ability to mix that kind of humor and depth and characters. And I love the way he casts his movies. They’re always so specific.
8. What’s a play you think should be turned into a movie?
Wow. Man, so many of the great plays have been turned into movies or television movies. Jez Butterworth, who’s a great English playwright, just had a play on Broadway that’s been nominated for a Tony called The Hills of California. I don’t know if his plays have actually been made into films yet, but I’m sure they will.
“You can get really great work from people and not be a jerk.”
9. What skill do you need to have now as a filmmaker that you didn’t when you first got started in the industry?
You have to do everything now. I produce my plays, so I have to go out and raise all the money myself, and I have other producers who help me. But it’s not like you can just be the director, at least I’ve never had that experience. The kind of films that I write, nobody else will produce because they’re small. I don’t think they’re actually that small, but they’re not like superhero movies—they’re about human beings and they have a very specific kind of tone to them. I’ve had the experience of my writing being done by other directors and sometimes not satisfactorily, so I just feel like you have to do everything. You have to be a producer, a director, a screenwriter, you have to know about distribution. That’s new to me, and I think it’s different than when I when I started.
10. Overrated or underrated: the effect of AI on the film industry.
I don’t know yet. It has no effect on me because I’m like a little cheese maker in a small little town in France. What I do is so tiny that nobody’s paying me to do it, so nobody’s going to replace me in this tiny little thing that I do. But, you know, all tools can be good and bad. Fire can be good and bad. I know it affects people in the industry who are in writers rooms, or like where they’re going to have the first two versions be AI-produced. There’s been equivalence of it happening before, where technology has moved so you no longer need this job or that job. So I don’t know. But I can’t really imagine it affecting the kind of tiny little productions I do.
11. What’s an essential thing a first-time visitor should do in Winston-Salem, North Carolina?
There’s a scene in my film where the mother is a docent at Old Salem. Winston-Salem was two different cities that in 1913 became two, and the first city, Salem, was settled by Moravians, who were from what used to be the Czech Republic. So we have these four or five blocks that are kind of like Williamsburg, which is a recreation but is really very beautiful. Moravians are very interesting. They’re very musical, and they have a very simple aesthetic that is not quite Shaker but that I find very beautiful. There’s a Moravian star, which actually in my film is on the front porch of the characters’ house, and when the camera pans down the street you see that star. It often comes out at Christmastime and it was a symbol for them, but it’s something again I think is just very beautiful that. They also have what’s called sugar cake, which is like a potato bread that’s flat with incredible amounts of sugar coated on it. And it’s so good.
12. What’s your most anticipated movie of 2025?
I would say A Little Prayer. I really hope and think that it will be released this year in theaters. That’s what I’m hoping.
+1. What’s your question for us?
Are you coming to the screening at the Chicago Critics Film Festival?
Chad: I’m not sure I’ll be able to make the in-person screening, though I really wish I could. I have little ones at home and it’s hard to get away these days, but I love going to the theater as much as I can.
I hope when it’s actually in theaters that people will come to see it because it’s a real different experience. I’ve had people that have watched the screener or watched it earlier and then come to see it with an audience and they go, “Oh, it’s such a different experience.” And it’s something that we’re losing. There’s a lot more humor that I think people understand, and there’s also just being able to see those human faces too.