I’ve been on the phone with actor Sasha Lane for less than five minutes and she’s already used the words “empathy” or “empathetic” at least 20 times. She laughs when I point it out; a deep, throaty chuckle filled with warmth and kindness. “I’ve looked into my soul and realised my purpose is to have empathy. To be love, to be understanding. I feel like that’s how our world should be. Love is the answer, and empathy is how that starts. Humans are so complex and life is a fucking dick sometimes. Not everyone thinks how you think and not everyone feels how you feel. So we need to have empathy.”
Empathy is also a big theme in The Miseducation Of Cameron Post, a film by Desiree Akhavan in which Sasha stars, about a teenage girl (Cameron Post, played by Chloë Grace Moretz) who is sent to a gay conversion camp to “pray away the gay”. It’s a story that could very easily become heavy and depressing, and a caricature; good against evil, them versus us. But the script – written by Akhavan and Cecilia Frugiuele – is charming, sweet and gentle, and funny too. Best of all, it doesn’t serve up easy answers. Instead, it is clever and nuanced, and forces us to face the grey areas we so often stumble upon in life. “We show Reverend Rick’s point of view,” says Sasha. “He really believes he’s doing something good. He’s coming from a passionate, pure place, but he’s misplacing it. He’s doing it the wrong way.”