Manon Gage On Playing Marissa Marcel In ‘Immortality’

In the 2022 video game “Immortality,” out now, the player investigates the mysterious disappearance of an actress, Marissa Marcel, by sifting through fragments of footage including audition tapes, table reads, and dailies from her three never-released films: “Ambrosia,” “Minsky,” and “Two of Everything.”

The use of live-action footage, featuring flesh-and-blood actors, is essential to the experience, and the game’s creator, Sam Barlow, has spoken in the past about his preference for working with live actors: “You can just point the camera at a talented actor and it works. You don’t have to spend six months tweaking animations, 3D character rigs, or working on an eye shader that makes the eyes sparkle the way they would.”

Marissa Marcel was played — in her various guises — by the actor Manon Gage, in a performance that has earned her the Golden Joystick Award for Best Performer and the Great White Way Award for Best Acting in a Game at the New York Game Awards.

It was an acting gig truly like no other, as Gage explained in a recent interview.

Manon, how did you get involved with this project?

“Immortality” was my first ever Zoom audition. It was March 2021, I was still quarantining in my apartment and hadn’t auditioned live in over a year. I was excited because I thought the sides were brilliant and instantly connected to Marissa, but I was also confused about the gaming aspect of it. I was honestly imagining filming the whole thing in a mocap suit. Once I played “Telling Lies” and “Her Story,” I started to get the gist. I’ve definitely become a lot more knowledgeable about the gaming world.

How did Sam explain the project to you, and your role in it, in your initial conversations about it?

Sam is obsessive and thorough, and the scope of what he’d created was insane. In my first callback, he talked to me about the project for an hour and I felt like he hadn’t even scratched the surface.

We then had about a dozen more conversations — half of which before I’d even gotten the job — where Sam laid out the entire plot and game mechanic and took me down rabbit holes of films and pop culture that had inspired him. He basically gave me a syllabus, which I totally nerded out over. It was like a crash course in film history. I watched “Black Narcissus,” “Romeo & Juliet,” “The Devils” (which is impossible to get in the US because it’s banned; I ordered the DVD from Korea), “Klute,” “Performance,” “Blow-Up,” “Lost Highway,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” “The Bodyguard,” “Basic Instinct”… The list goes on.

Marissa’s first film is an adaptation of an 18th-century Gothic novel called “The Monk,” so I read that. Sam likened Marissa to Jean Seberg, Oliva Hurley and Jane Fonda, so I watched their interviews. I listened to Jane Fonda’s memoir on tape. I read Liv Ullman’s autobiography and Françoise Gilot’s memoir “Life with Picasso.” Sam also sent me clips of Barbara Loden interviews, behind-the-scenes footage from Alfred Hitchock, Nicolas Roeg and David Lynch films, 70s talk show episodes… Once I’d worked through all of this I felt like Sam and I spoke the same language, we had a shorthand on set.

Was there a particular experience on set or behind the scenes that captures some of what it was like working on “Immortality”?

After we wrapped “Ambrosio” and started shooting “Minsky” — because thankfully we shot the script chronologically; I think I would’ve lost my mind otherwise — we got to a scene where Marissa and Durick (Hans Christopher) are celebrating Christmas with Andy Warhol (Jeff Grace) in his New York apartment. In reality, we were shooting in a warehouse in the L.A. Arts District in August, so it was about 90 degrees in there, but the arts department had blacked out the windows and strung lights everywhere, and it really did look like we were in New York. Maybe it was heatstroke, or the work schedule catching up with me, but I had a moment where I fully dissociated and felt like I was actually celebrating Christmas with Andy Warhol in 1969. I have to say… It was marvelous.

How would you compare working on this project to other projects you’ve worked on?

This was my first job in the three years since graduating from Juilliard. So to suddenly make my screen debut as six different characters and have to shoot 400 pages in 10 weeks? It was intimidating to say the least. However, although we did shoot it like three films, “Immortality” actually reminded me a lot of the theater I’d done in school, from the lengthy rehearsal period, to the heightened text, to the relationship to the audience as active participants in the story, to shooting each scene in one set-up and only a handful of times.

Can you paint a picture for us of what it is like working with Sam as a director and storyteller?

Sam is obsessive yet collaborative. He holds his vision dear while trusting the creatives he’s hired to better it. So while he was essential in helping me shape Marissa in rehearsal, Sam was also excited to hear my take on her and to let me find elements with my wonderful fellow actors, as well as with the brilliant Natalie Watson (producer), Doug Potts (DP), Jean Franzblau (intimacy coordinator), and Kerry Hennessey (costume designer), to name a few. Once we started shooting, Sam was non-invasive, not giving many notes, so it did feel like I was on stage, flying free. Except when I couldn’t hold a prop so that the AI would later be able to include it in the game system… That took some getting used to. All for good reason! If we screwed up the match-cuts the whole thing would fall apart.

What was the most exciting aspect of working on this project for you? And the most challenging?

The most challenging part of working on “Immortality” was the relentless shooting schedule. I cannot believe we shot 400 pages in 10 weeks.

So much of working on “Immortality” was exciting but I have to say, the writing really took the cake. Across all storytelling mediums, great writing is great writing. It was thrilling to get to work on such brilliant scripts. Additionally, as someone starting off my own film career, I felt so lucky—I got to play six characters across five different time periods in about six different genres. I got to do stunts and sing and dance and work with animals and more stuff I can’t mention here because of spoilers. It’s almost like I got to do everything I’ve always wanted to do as an actor, all at once.