Interview: Jane Larkin on transitioning from athletics to art with her debut feature film The Edge; “We need to know what makes us great and take that journey together.”

In The Edge, the dramatic feature film from debut filmmaker Jane Larkin (a former Australian representative sprinter), three young women (Larkin, Japanese paralympic swimmer Mei Ichinose and First Nations powerlifter Lily Riley) navigate life, love, education, and controversy while deeply embedded in the world of elite sport. The film is an honest and gritty portrayal of female athletes in the pool, the gym, and on the track, exploring not only their sports, but morality, friendship, heritage, and sexuality.

As the film gears up to premiere at this year’s Gold Coast Film Festival on Friday, May 2nd, our Peter Gray spoke with Larkin to talk about her transition from athletics to art, how her philosophy background helped inform her directorial skills, her greatest challenges, and the unlikely film that informed her academic journey.

Because you’ve excelled in athletics and academia, what was the transition into acting like for you? Did you view it as a reinvention or an evolution of yourself at all?

It’s a good question.  I think, in some ways, and I’ll pretend that I’m really clever (laughs), and I’ll say all three are performance based careers.  I believe.  But I’ll also just say that I’ve got ADHD, and I’ve been a Jack of all trades, a Jane of many trades, and I don’t like to be boxed in too much.  I think I’m really drawn to high stakes, and I think all three of them have that.  There’s a quote that I really like, which is, like, “Life is on the wire and the rest is just waiting.”  And I’ve always liked the idea that you discover who you are in the moments of danger and the extremities of the human experience.  I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie, I guess.

Actor, director, writer, athlete, student.  Do you feel that they all inform each other in a way? That there’s a creative feeding between them?

I always liked the idea of a renaissance man, but maybe I’ll say a renaissance woman bleeds into that too.  I think it’s really hard to excel in one field, and that “10,000 hours” mentality.  We do have hours, it’s just where and when you’re putting your attention.  I don’t think you can do everything everywhere all at once, but I do think that they all inform the other.  I mean, sport taught me discipline.  Academia taught me research.  Film taught me storytelling.  And an extension of all those things is that they all lead into a feeling that’s still very much Jane, and Jane has always had really wide interests.

I think sometimes we can be encouraged to just be one thing, or just box ourselves in, but we’re multifaceted beings, and I actually love when you’re on the road with someone, either in acting or sport or research, and you find out that they’ve got a stamp collecting hobby, or they can play bass guitar.  It gets me excited about this thing that I don’t know about.  I love to see people’s passion.

I assume that acting and directing require different kind of empathy and control when you hone those two positions.  How do you balance that when you’re wearing those hats?

It’s not easy.  I was probably quite stupid (laughs).  I felt like I didn’t pursue being the writer, director, actor, producer…I felt like I had to do it out of pure necessity, unfortunately.  If there’d been a script out there about female athletes, I wouldn’t have written (The Edge).  If there’d been a director who I felt understood the vision I was going for, I would have hired them.  But that’s not what happened.  So the result was I had to wear different hats, and I felt like I had to get better at it.

But I like that you said empathy, because I think that’s really important, because that bled into it.  I could be so tied to my performance as an actor, and then as a director I’ll be in the editing room, and I can be proud as an actor, but I also need to serve the story.  And then as a producer, I could be proud of a directing moment, but know that I need to make a cut.  So you do have to wear different hats and, if you let it, I think it gives you an understanding of every department and every role.

It’s almost like you have to have a stern talk with yourself.  But do you go too easy on yourself? Too hard on yourself? And the same with the other actors?

I used to joke when we finished principal photography that I was having a lot of Gollum and Smeagol moments (laughs).  “You don’t have any friends.” (Laughs).  A lot of arguing with myself, but to be completely honest, I dealt with the actors, as a director, quite differently.  There were people that wanted you to be firm with them.  There were people that needed a lot of coddling.  I think you have to parent the whole project.  As a parent you treat your children differently, but you understand this role serves their strengths and their weaknesses, and I think within that space, you need to understand yourself.  Which I got better at.  I wasn’t as good in the beginning, but I got better.

Do you feel that having an athletic background was beneficial to you in the creative process as a director? This a world you’re familiar with, so you were able to bring a sense of authenticity to it…

Yeah, authenticity was very important to me.  I wanted a female director, and I wanted a director familiar with sports, and I also wanted a director who was going to be on a budget, and, unfortunately, I was the only person that fulfilled all three of those criteria.  I’m very cheap (laughs). Obviously there are incredible directors out there that I would have jumped at the opportunity to work with, but I think I also tried to tell myself to lean into the idea that I had a voice, and it was very distinct for this story.

And for this story, what I was trying to convey was minority representation, a female led cast, a female based narrative, and an Australian story.  I got told a few times that our (Australian) accent does something for the overseas markets, and I actually love that.  I think countries that pour a lot into their domestic film and television see amazing results.  Like South Korea.  Look at Korean cinema.  Ireland’s really coming up (too).  I think instead of stepping away from that, we need to lean into it.  We need to know what makes us great and take that journey together.

Mentioning the narrative, do you feel that with your background in athletics and philosophy helped you build these characters and understand narrative structure?

Philosophy is such an interesting field.  It’s terrible for making money, but it’s great for every other aspect of life.  It’s human understanding.  It was the only thing that people used to ever contemplate the big questions.  And from the big questions, we would get to the other field and the other departments.  I think a mistake that people make these days is to step away from those big subjects and big questions.  (People) are a bit more narrow minded.  For me, philosophy has informed who I am.  It’s so important to understand yourself.

I think people often discover that through lived experience, or their job, or through having kids or a family.  I don’t think it does you a disservice, besides maybe the odd existential crisis to contemplate the really big questions.  It’s important.  It’s why we’re here.  (And) storytelling is an extension of that.  It’s a natural extension of asking the big questions.  “What does it mean to be a good person?” I find the human experience just fascinating, and I think that’s why I’ve loved being on fields in stadiums, but also at the cinema.

I adore cinema.  It was my safe space as a kid.  I would just come out of (the cinema) transformed.  What a place.  What an experience.  (And) I think film got me into philosophy.  You know, it’s like what came first? The chicken or the philosopher? (laughs).  But The Matrix is my favourite movie of all time, and that got me into Plato and Socrates, and after my doctorate I was researching German existentialists.  It was really interesting at the time, a lot of people would ask me “Why philosophy?” And I’d be like, “The Matrix.” (Laughs).

I absolutely get that.  Batman Returns at about 8-years-old was my moment.  I fell in love with Michelle Pfeiffer, and then there I was as a 9-year-old wanting to watch The Fabulous Baker Boys, because that’s exactly what a child that age would watch.  But I understand that it can be something so random that can shape our journey so much.  That’s the power of cinema.  I love it.  With The Edge, I’m assuming there’s some real life experiences factored into the storytelling.  Is it difficult to balance a certain truth with an accessible entertainment factor?

It’s a very good question.  I think it is hard sometimes to actually write something that you know too much.  It’s easier sometimes to lean into fiction.  But I tried not to do that.  I tried to be truthful, an authentic storyteller.  I hope there’s authenticity all throughout it, in the sense that all three leads have been elite female athletes in their fields, which already makes it authentic.  We did everything we could.  We used costume design and the brands that actually represented these bodies.

When it came to the emotional side of storytelling, as well as the technical, was there a scene that challenged you more than others?

I think the scene that was the most emotional with was Yui’s (Mei Ichinose) childhood scene.  I think it’s easier to lend empathy to other people rather than yourself, and I found (my character) Annie probably the most difficult character I’ve ever played.  I’m a little bit silly and a little bit ridiculous, and I felt like she was all the serious parts of me stripped down with none of the fun.  To hold a mirror up to the parts of yourself that you’re the most concerned about is a bit of an existential crisis waiting to happen, but I learned to gain a lot of empathy for her and her character.  As an actor that’s really important, because you can never judge your own character that you’re playing.  I’m really proud of the result, but I do feel like the experience of playing the character, I wasn’t prepared for how hard that would be.

Would you say that was one of the most surprising lessons that this film taught you about yourself?

Yeah, definitely.  I think one of the really surprising things was just how much of a marathon filmmaking is.  I know that people think that it takes a year or two, or it does this or does that, but I don’t think they realise how carefully selected everything is.  Like, all the departments are necessary.  They all have their beauty.  They have their reason for being there.  Nothing is left to chance.  I think gaining an appreciation for every department, and learning a bit of patience on the way, which was a hard lesson for me.  I always joked that I was a sprinter who’s had to turn into a marathon runner.

The Edge is screening as part of this year’s Gold Coast Film Festival, running between April 30th and May 11th, 2025.  For more information on the festival and screening times, head to the official site here.

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