Katie Aselton conjures emotional alchemy in ‘Magic Hour’

Katie Aselton faced several sizable challenges with the dramatic storytelling that is at the heart of her “Magic Hour” movie.

She began by collaborating on the script with her husband, the writer-producer-actor-director Mark Duplass, and then proceeded to direct and star in a picture that’s virtually a two-hander.

“Magic Hour” refers to the moments before the sun sets or rises when a soft glow can be captured by photographers or filmmakers.  Here, it’s literally the magical time when Aselton’s Erin has intense if imaginary conversations with her great love (Daveed Diggs), now dead.

As Erin, Aselton, 47, is formidable with heartbreak, tears and agony that, nearly nonstop, carries the film — and she did it by also directing.

How?

“The truth is,” she said in a Zoom interview, “it takes like triple the prep it would take if you’re just directing. Because you want to have all of the conversations with the D.P. (Director of Photography) and your producers and the A.D. (Assistant Director). You want to have everyone on the same page, knowing exactly what the goal is in the scene.

“So on the day I can just look up and say, Did we get it? And they can very honestly look at me and say, ‘No, go again.’ ”

As for the other actors, “It really is like I never direct,” she explained. “I don’t call Action! and Cut! when I’m in a scene –the A.D. takes care of that. Generally I keep the set experience sacred for the actors.”

Was “Magic Hour” inspired by a psychological questioning? An actual experience?

“This was inspired by Mark and my own codependency,” she answered. “How we’ve always been codependent since the very impetus of our relationship. And how, really, that word has got such a stink on it.

“It has such a negative connotation! But we love it. It’s also the thing that we strive for in our lives, right?

“You want to find the love that is so big you can’t live without it. So, we joke that we want to rebrand ‘codependency’ into something really good.

“Because it kind of is.”

This testament from a couple that, she revealed, “We’re about to have our 20th wedding anniversary in August. We’ve been together for a total of 25 years.”

Looking back, was there a moment they knew this?

“I will say, the moment that I met him the earth shifted. There was just something very deep inside me that was, ‘Omigod!’

“That’s not to say it’s always been easy. It’s a relationship! We were two very different people when we met.

“But I do think that, like chemically speaking, my body did something when I met him.”

“Magic Hour” opens Wednesday