Elizabeth Olsen finds herself in a new kind of fantastical setting with Eternity, and the award-nominated star set a unique record while making the A24 film. The Marvel Cinematic Universe vet leads the fantasy rom-com as Joan, a woman who dies and goes to a realm called The Junction, in which those who die can pick out the type of eternal afterlife they choose.

Initially arriving to find her recently deceased husband Larry, played by Emmy nominee Miles Teller, Joan subsequently discovers her dead first husband Luke, played by Neuromancer‘s Callum Turner, has been waiting in The Junction for nearly 70 years for her. Torn between her first true love, and the man with whom she built a life around, Joan must choose between the two for which afterlife she would ultimately like to live in forever.

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Also starring Oscar winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph, John Early and Olga Merediz, Eternity has garnered largely positive reviews from critics since its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025. Praising it for its unique spin on its genre structure, and the performances of its three leads, the movie currently holds a 76% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 91% from audiences after its wide release.

In honor of the movie hitting theaters, ScreenRant‘s Liam Crowley interviewed co-writer/director David Freyne and stars Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller and Callum Turner to discuss Eternity. In reflecting on the creation of The Junction’s aesthetics, taking a retrofuturistic approach to its afterlife junction, Freyne explains that his goal was “something that would illustrate how you go into memories,” with the area ultimately feeling “like a natural history museum of dioramas“:

David Freyne: I love the idea that The Junction itself was like you were on, it was a brutalist structure, but on the backlog of a film set where the idea of heaven for them would’ve been scenic bluffs…you go in and see many plays of your life and the background is painted. It’s like sparse elements of your memory that are there and almost idealized versions of the experience that you’re seeing.

Describing the train tunnel that takes souls to The Junction as being “a conduit” for people to “revisit and see your life like a play,” Freyne went on to reveal that he shot the version of the scene with Olsen experiencing the different versions of herself “all in one day.” This required his star to go through what the co-writer/director described as “a record for the amount of hair and makeup changes” required for the different images, calling it “an extraordinary” experience.

Freyne, who went on to credit the art departments and the like for the “extraordinary job” they did in building the various afterlife settings, also shared that “a lot of them were written into the script” by him. Wanting to get “things that were really specific” into the film, Freyne developed everything from “the commercials you see” in the movie to “the other booths that we pass by“:

David Freyne: I remember just doing a spreadsheet of names of eternities and taglines and paragraphs and I would give that to the art department, and they did an extraordinary job with what they created. So yeah, I created all those, which were really, really fun, but then there were touches that people would come up with that added to them in great ways as well.

Another key point for the film’s development in the writing process was coming up with the rules for how his afterlife works in Eternity, with Freyne explaining that since “rules give constraints” to a storyteller, that helps lead into the drama. For starters, with the film only offering new souls a seven-day window to choose their eternity, “it gave you an instant ticking clock for Joan to make her decision.”

The other key structure to the afterlife in Eternity is that “there’s a hierarchy” and a “bureaucracy to this place,” in which those who choose to stay in The Junction “have to get a job,” as Luke does by working as a bartender. Even then, those who choose to get such jobs “can get promoted and demoted,” all of which Freyne felt “added to the drama for these characters” along with the humor of the “slightly fantastical world” the film is set in.

David Freyne Weighs In On Eternity Versus A24’s Other Love Triangle Hit, Materialists

ScreenRant: It’s a hell of a year for A24 love triangles. Materialists is one of my favorite films of the year. One thing in that film that we didn’t get is a one-on-one conversation between Pedro and Chris Evans. You made a big effort to make sure Luke and Larry, Callum and Miles, have their own relationship in this film. How important was it for those two characters to not only interact and have that kind of peckish back and forth, but actually develop a bit of a friendship throughout?

David Freyne: It was really important. I think it was so important to me that the relationship between Joan and her husbands isn’t the only one. It’s between the men. It was so important that you have the competition with them, but there’s a reason she loves both of them. There’s something between them that’s familiar, and it’s really important, particularly later in the film when they’re getting drunk together, and you realize how much they have in common. What they really have in common is that they love this woman. Miles and Callum were just so brilliant with each other. They got on so well, and you feel that chemistry. I think if you have that, you have to explore it. And I think those actors really did. I did a lot of little rewrites, the pre-production and production, just responding to how brilliant they are. That was a lot of fun.

ScreenRant: We put some spotlight on Miles and Callum. I want to give a lot of spotlight to Elizabeth.

David Freyne: We can do an hour on Elizabeth.

ScreenRant: I feel like she plays two different characters in this film. How much of a luxury was it to get to have an actress of the caliber of Elizabeth Olsen taking on this part, and how much did she evolve who Joan was through her performance?

David Freyne: She is staggering in this. I think it is such an extraordinarily nuanced performance, and I think that was absolutely it. Myself and Lizzie spoke a lot about not just how she would behave being an older woman in a younger body again, and how that would affect her voice and her posture, but how she is a different Joan with Luke, she’s with Larry, and how she reacts to them and the joy she might have with each of them is different, and she really developed that over. I mean, like you said, her voice changes subtly, her posture changes. How she walks or kind of brushes her hair. Everything is different with each man and I think it’s just a gift. It’s a gift to have an actor of her caliber and her talent come in and craft that with you and, yeah, I can gush all day about Lizzie.

ScreenRant: Did the throwback vibe of WandaVision help?

David Freyne: I mean, I love WandaVision. I think it’s brilliant. I’m sure it helped a little bit. Yeah.

The Eternity Cast Have A Few Ideas About What Sets The Film Apart From Other Rom-Coms

ScreenRant: Your career began with some great rom-coms. That Awkward Moment is one of my favorite movies. It’s one of the reasons why I moved to New York, it makes me romanticize the city so well. I feel like you haven’t done a rom-com like this since you got married. How have you seen the genre evolve from those two different periods of your life, pre-marriage and after?

Miles Teller: I guess for my generation, it’s even something like You’ve Got Mail. I think that probably came out when I was like 9 or 10. On the earlier side, I think some of the romantic comedies maybe have leaned into the comedy a little more. There’s kind of a lot more one-liners, maybe. And what I loved about this, it felt very character-driven. There’s a real arc here. You really care about the progression of these characters. It’s incredibly heartwarming. And for me, I’ve certainly made some comedies where we’re just going for the biggest laughs possible. But for this one, it just really felt truthful and sincere. And I like movies that treat the audiences with sincerity.

ScreenRant: The characters in this film are so rich, especially Joan. Elizabeth, we get to see two very different sides of Joan through her relationships with Luke and Larry, one a little more puppy dog young love, and the other a 65-year marriage full of little slights, like her pretzels comment. Whether it was vocal inflections, or even the way you looked at Miles or Callum, how did you find these different sides?

Elizabeth Olsen’s Joan looking speechless in Eternity

Elizabeth Olsen: I think even without having lost someone, if we haven’t seen someone that was important to us and a moment in our lives, we haven’t seen them in 10 years, when we see them, we kind of return to the people that we were, even if we’re trying not to. So I thought about that a lot with Luke and Joan. She was obviously younger, but also maybe not as sure about what she has to say or how she says it, or her own mannerisms, or making a mistake, or not wanting to, and just being kind of overwhelmed by the butterfly feelings. Whereas with Larry, there’s almost a deflation.

Miles Teller: You get tired.

Elizabeth Olsen: Yeah, a tired feeling, but it’s because of that intimacy that you get from that kind of comfort with someone for so many years. And so there is a difference, I think. I think we’re all slightly different versions of ourselves depending on who we’re with or who’s around. And so I think it was an opportunity to get to show that.

ScreenRant: Callum, Luke is a really good listener. I picked up on this because when Larry references his great-granddaughter, Luke responds and says, “Charlotte.” Names are so hard to register, especially when you don’t have a face to put to a name, but the fact that he remembered a little detail like that I thought spoke a lot about who he is. Could you speak to the value of being a good listener?

Callum Turner: What’d you say? [Laughs]. He’s been in The Junction for 67 years. He has been waiting for a long, long time and I guess he’s incredibly susceptible to everything around him and people that are coming through. People don’t stay for a long time, and he’s managed to build a few relationships with people that have stayed in The Junction to work. But really he’s been waiting for Joan his whole time. And to be a good listener, I guess, is about communication, separate from Luke.