Molly takes a wild River ride

When Lynne Stopkewich asked me to play Leila Murray in Suspicious River I was unsure about the role. It was self-preservation - just the idea of going to such a dark place was exhausting. I wanted to make sure I understood the role and why it was worth doing.

The woman in Suspicious River is incredibly self-destructive - deadened and numbed by working in a motel and selling her body to customers who drift through. She's looking forward to death - it's a kind of an obliteration.

The movie's based on a novel by Laura Kasischke, which I hadn't read before we started filming. Then I read it, and began to understand what made Lynne act the way she did. It took me a while.

I was excited about working with Lynne again, because I enjoyed working on Kissed with her, and we'd become really good friends. She's probably the only person I would've made this movie with - I trust her as a film-maker and a friend. She didn't beg me to do it, but I wanted to be sure that it was OK to do.

Once we began work, it was a lot less emotionally disturbing than I had assumed. After the first week, I felt fine, and then I began to think I was doing something wrong - like it was so dark that I couldn't let myself connect to it.

In fact, that's the experience of the woman I play - she's disconnected and distanced from what's happening to her - and I ended up approaching her that way. Lynne had a hard time asking me to do those things, because she cares for me, and it's hard for her to see me in pain.