Erin Moriarty on Empowering Women and Catching Dust

In a career ranging from the title role in Annie at age 11 in community theater to four seasons as Annie January, aka Starlight, in the acclaimed comic book based series The Boys, Erin Moriarty is committed to bringing interesting women to life through her portrayals. In writer/director Stuart Gatt’s indie drama Catching Dust, Moriarty steps into a role that strips away superpowers and highlights a raw, human story.

“I think that I’ve been really fortunate,” Moriarty says of the women she has been able to bring to life on screen. “They surprise people. And I think that they’re a mandatory presence in this world because I think we have a long way to go. The pendulum is still swinging in the opposite direction. And we need to keep things in balance.”  In Catching Dust, Moriaty plays Geena, a woman who lives a life of quiet desperation in the Texas desert. Living in a rundown trailer with her controlling husband Clyde (Jai Courtney, Terminator: Genisys, Suicide Squad), who is hiding out  from something or someone but won’t share the details, Geena spends her days sketching pictures and waiting for Clyde to return, locked in a cycle of fear and submission. When a New York couple, Andy (Ryan Corr, Hacksaw Ridge, House of the Dragon) and Amaya (Dina Shihabi, Archive 81, Painkiller), show up looking for a communal retreat, Geena sees an opportunity for human connection, which is the last thing that Clyde wants her to have. “Geena has to accept what feels unacceptable, because she doesn’t know what is acceptable,” Moriarty says. A talented, creative and resourceful woman, Geena has been conditioned by society and the small town in which she grew up to believe that the only tool at her disposal is her body, and that her worth and her future are defined by being with a man. “That’s something that we’ve got to kind of confront,” Moriarty says. “We can’t pretend that that kind of stuff has gone away just because we’ve had movements. And I think that we have very much put a Band Aid on these issues, and we’ve not inoculated them.”

This gradual unraveling of Geena’s internal struggle, as well the the complexity beneath the surface, drew Moriarty to the role. “I just love these characters that have so much more going on than you would think if you first met them,” Moriarty says. “There is more than meets the eye to everyone.” Moriarty gives credit to Gatt for committing to a rehearsal period with the actors before shooting began, a process that doesn’t always take place on independent films with time a budget constraints. “When Stuart insisted we arrive early, I was like, ‘Yes’ that’s such a green flag for me,” Moriarty said. “I love that. That’s a sign that nuance is the objective.” Gatt’s approach was collaborative and exploratory, rather than a rigid structure of simply reviewing dialogue and blocking, and Moriarty and Courtney were able to establish connections and delve into the psyches of Geena and Clyde and unpack the baggage of these complex individuals and the relationship between them. “The rehearsal process was talking, thinking out loud collectively and finding the nuances,”  Moriarty says. “It was less about rehearsing as you would for a play. And that really led to us finding these very rich things in our lives, and in these characters,” Moriarty says.

The goal of using film to empower women is something resonates greatly with Moriarty, who has experienced the highs and lows that come with working in the entertainment industry, as well as the heightened scrutiny that comes with fame. She’s been faced with harassment from online trolls over the political overtones of The Boys, as well as attacks about her appearance, fueled by the misogyny that is becoming so prevalent in fan culture and many false assertions about an “addiction to plastic surgery” by FOX News host Megyn Kelly.  Rather than shrinking away, Moriarty has become all the more committed to being a part of projects like Catching Dust that dare to challenge the status quo and ask tough questions, even if it ruffles some feathers. “Some people thought that me doing what I did in the first episode The Boys, in terms of #MeToo movement thing was wrong,” Moriarty says, referencing a ploy thread that has Starlight victimized by a male superhero whom she idolized when she was young. “They were okay with violence and not sexual assault story lines. If you’re gonna be making art, or if you’re gonna be making anything that has that has complexity, it will evoke these kinds of responses. And I think that we need to just be less afraid of them.”

As Moriarty looks to the future, her passion for roles that push the boundaries of how women are portrayed in film remains unwavering. “I hope I get to play characters like this for the rest of my life and I would be lucky to and I hope there are more characters like this moving forward, more and more,” Moriarty says. As Catching Dust opens in select theaters and streaming on AppleTV, Prime Video and Fandango At Home, Erin Moriarty once again proves that she is not just a superhero on screen but a fierce advocate for nuanced, meaningful storytelling. 

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