The Spanish auteur talks to EW about casting his leading stars (“they were my first choice”) and mining mortality in his first English-language feature.

For his new film about coming to terms with death, Pedro Almodóvar he was dead set on Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore bringing the story to life.

The Academy Award winners play old friends who reconnect under unusual circumstances in the the room next door, the Spanish auteur’s upcoming English-language debut feature. Adapted from Sigrid Nunez Romanian what are you going throughthe drama follows Moore’s Ingrid, a bestselling novelist who learns that her old friend Martha (Swinton), a war correspondent, is dying of cancer. Their friendship rekindled, Martha offers them a favor: she plans to rent a house in a quiet place and kill herself, but she dreads the thought of leaving this world alone – would Ingrid consider staying in the next room?

In Entertainment WeeklyExclusive preview of the film above, Ingrid pays Martha a visit in her New York hospital room, where the two discuss the latter’s waning days and marvel at the anomalous pink of the snowflakes dripping right into outside the window. It was this particular chapter in the novel that inspired an unsure Almodóvar to adapt the material into a film – he immediately envisioned Swinton, with whom he last collaborated on his 2020 short film. The human voicelike Martha.

Related: Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton explore friendship and thoughtful death Adjacent Room

“We became very close friends,” Almodóvar recalled of that experience to EW on a recent morning Zoom call in October. “I really wanted to work with her again.” Although he had never directed Moore, he was eager, citing “something very strange” and “unique” about the star. “They were my first choice,” he says. “I sent them my script and luckily they were enthusiastic.”

Almodóvar always knew that one day he would make an English feature film. After completing the script, the circumstances finally felt right; the material, he surmises, felt richer in the context of the culture. “Every time I ask for the rights of a novel, I try to… Julietfor example — to adapt to Spanish society. I didn’t want to do that in this case,” says Almodóvar. “In Spain, we have a euthanasia law. It is legal, so you can do it with the help of a doctor. It’s not like in the United States where there’s a big debate. I think it’s worth debating because it’s human. I think the person has a right to their own life.”

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With Ingrid in particular, the filmmaker was drawn to her naivety when it came to the subject. “Ingrid doesn’t really understand death and mortality and doesn’t really accept it,” he observes. “To me, it’s kind of immaturity, not recognizing death.”

After all, and as they say, death is all around us, and Almodóvar actually said so felt his presence “very strongly” during filming. “All you have to do is turn on the TV and find out someone has died, whether it’s an accidental death or in a war zone,” he explains. “Even today I turned on the news, I found out that 93 people died in Gaza, and so we are surrounded by a lot of deaths, whether they are accidental or in wars in Ukraine or Palestine and Israel. This is something that happens continuously. .”

Related: Parallel mothersPenélope Cruz Says Pedro Almodóvar Has ‘No Filters’: He’s ‘So Refreshing’

English or not, the film contains all the brushstrokes of what came to define Almodóvar’s work, such as vibrant melodrama and the expansion of what he called his “cinema with women.” “I prefer to tell stories about women, and I don’t fight against that preference of mine,” he says. “There’s something about the feminine universe and the way women react to things in ways that sometimes men can’t. Dealing with a subject like the one I deal with in this film, the female reaction will always be more expressive.”

The filmmaker adds: “Even now, you might say there are a lot of movies about men in their 60s, while there aren’t that many movies about women in their 60s, and that’s a corrective I’m trying to to do it I think the women’s universe, dramatically speaking, is a richer universe.”

Adjacent Room opens Dec. 20 in select theaters and nationwide Jan. 17.