CNN
Published: April 27, 2018

Rachel McAdams and Rachel Weisz hope their new movie empowers others to love whoever they choose.

The actresses co-star in “Disobedience,” about two women, living in an orthodox Jewish community in London, who go to great lengths to hide their romantic involvement. The film, directed by Sebastián Lelio, is based on the book of the same name by Naomi Alderman.

“I hope the big message is, it’s difficult and a challenge to be free enough to love who you want to love in some instances. It can be very hard, and it’s not sometimes easily won,” Weisz told CNN in a recent interview.

McAdams echoed those sentiments, saying that most people can relate to sometimes having to “hurt” someone in the process of following your heart.

“We all sort of grow up in our little worlds and people try to push you this way and that. We all can relate to having to break free of that,” McAdams told CNN in the same interview. “I think everyone goes through that struggle to some degree or another, but I think everyone has the right to that struggle. That’s part of being human and to have that taken away closes down your entire system.”

For Weisz, the film felt like a departure from previous projects.

“[The characters] are so complicated in the fact that you see them in a relationship with each other, talking to each other, endlessly about everything … it’s also about female friendship, something I really like because I’ve got really close female friends and I chew their ears off,” Weisz said. “I’ve never been in a film where I’ve gotten to talk to a woman this much, let alone also make love to her.”

McAdams, too, said she appreciated the complexity of the women they portray.

“Rachel drew me [to the film],” she said. “It was two very strong female characters who are very, very different and yet came together as lovers and friends.”

© 2018 CNN | Written by Chloe Melas | No copyright infringment intended.