In Conversation: ‘Plastic Surgery’ Director Guy Trevellyan and Actress Anna Popplewell

by Sydney Reyes

Everywhere you look, plastic is present. It’s wrapped around the food we eat, helps us brush our teeth, cushions our delivery parcels, and more. Plastic is a popular tool in everyday life, yet it’s so potent that it found its way inside our bodies. Microplastics have even been discovered in human blood in recent years. Situated in a place where it shouldn’t be, this alarming news calls for action in order to protect public health. One of the first steps to doing so is spreading awareness. 

Plastic Surgery (2025) is a short film that follows Dr. Terra (Anna Popplewell) as she faces the inferno of what could only be described as a plastic infection. Through tight acting, eerily realistic practical effects, and a suspenseful climax, the film is a graphic depiction of the dangers plastic poses even more now that it’s inside of us. To learn more about the creative process and the importance of the film’s messages, we sat with Director Guy Trevellyan and Actress Anna Popplewell to discuss these themes.

In each of your perspectives, what drew you to telling the story and making this film?

GUY TREVELLYAN: In terms of what drew me to this story, it's all about my experience with The Ocean Agency and a lot inspired by my sister who used to work for them. That gave me insight into marine life and the dangers and the threat that we're posing on the underwater world. I started to look into plastic pollution, and the one thing that popped up the most was the effect of plastic pollution on the human bodies and our health. So I started to look at a story that might be able to be impactful, short, visually striking, something that looked at Mother Nature as a metaphor. 

And then I remember when we had the call with Anna—I think it was our first call in Bristol ages ago, and Anna revealed that she was actually pregnant. We then reworked the story, rewrote it to Dr. Terra being pregnant. What better way to represent Mother Nature than, you know, a mother on the verge of giving life. That's kind of how it developed for me really. 

ANNA POPPLEWELL: I was sent the script, and I think that short films are a really excellent [polemic] medium [that] makes a point about something. It's such a good opportunity, I think, to make a strong argument when you have that concentrated, short time frame. And I just thought Guy had written such an elegant piece that did that very powerfully, with the opportunity for a kind of interesting character and a tight narrative. So that was what got me. 

I found that the title is comically misleading but 100% accurate. Why did you choose to title it this way? 

TREVELLYAN: To be honest, I think I was just writing it, and it was an interesting play on words. When you think of plastic surgery, you think of cosmetic surgery. So when I was writing it, I wanted the audience to be kind of a bit shocked that it takes a different turn. [Plastic Surgery] was kind of leading the audience down a comedic route at the beginning. I mean, the first surgery obviously is extracting something from his rectum. So it's very much going down, or what you think is about to go down, a comedic route and then it completely changes. And it’s meant to build so it feels subtle at the start with this plastic fork. It's a plastic item, but not something that isn't heard of. I mean, you'd be amazed how many doctors and nurses who I interviewed and discussed with for script development said they found so many plastic items in those specific areas. [ . . . ] Plastic Surgery felt like the perfect kind of title for that because it's kind of misleading the audience. So it makes the impact and the story even more surprising when you find out it's actually about plastic pollution. 

POPPLEWELL: I think it's appropriate, too, because as with the audience, we in life are just sort of merrily swanning around. [We’re] not worrying too much about this huge environmental and existential threat that we're facing, not to get too bleak. The same thing is really happening to us with the planet that is happening to the audience watching that, where you're kind of constantly lulled into a false sense of security about the widespread disaster that we're all facing. 

What's your thought process in choosing the lead of this film and why did you choose Anna to represent all of this? 

TREVELLYAN: I've been wanting to work with Anna for a while. I watched a lot of stuff that [Anna’s] been in, and I just thought she was such an amazing fit for Dr. Terra. She has such an emotional range, and a willingness to be part of a project [with a new director]. So I've never done anything before, but Anna put her trust in me from the very beginning. That was exactly the person that I was looking for, to take a chance. Anna was amazing at doing that, she was so supportive and let me explore this world and this medium. [ . . . ] Then when we had a call, our first call, I, at that moment, just thought there's no one else for the role. It had to be Anna. 

POPPLEWELL: It was just so lovely working with Guy from the off, because short films often are on a very tight budget. They're on intense time constraints, and Guy was so organized and so clear about what he wanted. I could see from his script that he had a really well-developed and specific creative vision, but it was also just so impressive speaking to him in pre-production about his planning and how he knew exactly what he wanted. I think it's easy to overlook that diligence as a really important quality in directors. But when you're making a short film it's actually that diligence that allows you the creative freedom on the day to play. 

If you don't have that kind of preparedness in place, then you know, you won’t have any time or any parameters. I had read [the script] and the character was not pregnant in the story. I was not particularly optimistic about being able to do it because it's quite specific to be 35 weeks pregnant when you're shooting something. Not necessarily what a director has in mind. So I was incredibly grateful to Guy for being open to that and I’m thrilled that it served the story well. It's not necessarily the norm for creatives to be open to women working throughout their pregnancy. So I was also really admiring and grateful about that. 

TREVELLYAN: I think I spent most of the time almost being worried that I'd put you through, you know [ . . . ] quite a stressful environment. So I think I was actually more relieved at the end that we got through it and everything was fine. 

POPPLEWELL: We were all relieved that I didn't go into early labor on set. That was always a risk. 

TREVELLYAN: I was thinking this is my first film and I've just, yeah. I kept having those thoughts, but Anna, again, just approached every day with such a supportive nature. I think there were times where you were asking me if I am okay. Instead of being the other way around.

POPPLEWELL: No, it was great. I remember one of the supporting artists being like, "Oh, the fake belly looks really real." And I was like, "No, no. It is." 

Your emotive performance really helped me recognize the gravity of the situation in the film. Did you do anything to prepare for this role and to express such specific emotions? 

POPPLEWELL: I was very fortunate in that we shot almost completely in chronological order, which is very helpful for telling such an intense story. It gives you the opportunity to develop the emotions in real time in the right order. It's not a given that that would happen, it's kind of unusual, really. [It’s], again, a testament to Guy's preparedness and generosity in extracting good performances. 

Actually, the scene where Dr. Terra enters the very chaotic ward with lots of patients and lots of prosthetics—Guy had wanted me to not see any of those before cameras were rolling. So I was kept in my dressing room. I was locked away until we were ready to shoot. It's kind of funny, that technique, to me because someone else is sort of doing my job for me. I always think that's such a gift as an actor because you get to react in real time. It's not something I would ever expect or try to engineer. That was, of course, really helpful, and then it was just about trying to maintain that intensity into the scene that comes after. It was really exciting to me to film that because there was a lot of free camera movement. It becomes a bit like a dance, trying to make sure you rush around in the right way and get the right props. That frantic energy is really helpful to channel into a sort of highly emotive state. 

TREVELLYAN: It was so powerful. And in fact, the only regret I have is not having a second camera that I could have kept on Anna the whole time. We had to come off Anna to go around the room and come back to Anna. I kept thinking, God, this is such a shame I don't have another camera that I could just keep on her for the whole time. But that's short film, you know, you have to work with what you've got. 

That was always the idea, to keep Anna shielded from what the prosthetics looked like, because they were so visual and quite striking. I remember when I saw them for the first time with Rebecca [Wheeler], the designer, and I was blown away by just the impact of what that imagery is saying. So, for Anna to come into that room and just see it for the first time is exactly what you want, really. 

For me, the scariest prosthetic that impacted me the most was the [bloodied] bubble wrap as second skin. That one gave me the chills.

POPPLEWELL: Rebecca did such a beautiful job with the prosthetics. [It’s] really a herculean task with her team to set up, particularly that day with so many supporting artists in different makeups. It was really an extraordinary creative and logistical achievement.

TREVELLYAN: I think we did 44 setups that day, I don't even know how we did that. I remember seeing Rebecca at the end of the day, and she was like, never make me do 13 prosthetics again in one day. She had such an amazing team. 

In relation to the prosthetics, what was the experience like of having plastic attached to your arms, Anna. Or for Guy, having the bloodied plastic all over the set. Did this help both of you connect with the story more? 

POPPLEWELL: I mean, it was really helpful. I only had quite a small amount of plastic attached to me. Although everyone had taken great care to make sure that I was comfortable, it was slightly uncomfortable. That [discomfort] is really helpful in performance, because it looked quite real. It's a very visceral feeling looking at it attached to your body. Of course, on set we tried to not to use any single-use plastics that we didn't need to. We all had reusable water bottles. [However] there's still lots of hospital equipment we were using that does utilize plastic. So I think I kind of had that awareness even on set, I had this plastic coming out of my arm and then I was unwrapping syringe packets or the PPE in hospitals. In our story [which is] a haven for addressing those issues, there's still kind of plastic everywhere. So I felt really visceral having it attached to my body in that way.

TREVELLYAN: It's not necessarily noticeable as much, but hidden in a lot of the X-rays are the original graphic designs that we worked on when we first were creating all the plastics inside our body. It’s on a lot of the [X-ray] light boxes around the hospital, which they don't actually use anymore. It's more of an old-fashioned thing, but I just love the imagery of it. And then we replaced, you know, bones with plastic. We even made a plastic brain which is only visible for, like, seconds of a take. So there's a lot of hidden elements as well within the film which build with time. And that's what we wanted with Anna's prosthetic, we wanted to start off small, and then build. The scary thing is that she doesn't notice it building until that final room where she looks down and sees that it's spread. So there's a physical spread and increase as well, which makes you even more worried about what's happening to the life that's inside her. 

Why was now the right time to create this project, and how do you both feel about the final product? 

TREVELLYAN: If I was to answer about why now, I'd say, well, I wrote it during COVID so it was a long time ago. I probably wrote it because I had disease on my mind. That's probably what affected the idea of writing something in that kind of space. But again, you know, it is extremely topical and it's only getting more and more recognized with more research and more insight. Charities and organizations are looking at plastic, like the British Heart Foundation, which has just done various studies about microplastics in the plaques around our heart. So there's big organizations which are starting to actually reveal its effect on our health and what it poses to our heart. So, I think it's extremely topical. Again, when we made it was purely the right time. Having Anna come on board, kind of really kick-started us into production. It's just very topical and sadly, I think it's going to become more and more talked about. That's hopefully why this film will help in that sense, raise more awareness about it. 

POPPLEWELL: I love it, and I say that as someone who doesn't like watching themselves on screen. I'm usually quite critical of work that I'm in. I think Guy's done such a beautiful job in building tension and structuring it and cutting it in such a way that I think is really efficient and potent in delivering its message. So it's kind of an easier watch for me than some other stuff I've been in, just because I think it is so clearly making the point it is trying to. It becomes about that, rather than me watching my performance and finding stuff in it. So I think it looks great. 

And also, there's so much beautiful work from our crew on screen, that the sets look great, the design is wonderful, the effects are so, so well done. All of the camera movement is really effective, too. I'm really delighted with it and I'm so happy that it's doing well at festivals and audiences are responding to it. Just very delighted for our crew, our cast, and for Guy that it's doing well. 

What is your message to people who will be seeing your film, and how do you want Plastic Surgery to impact them? 

TREVELLYAN: I would say a really good example is when we screened the film in Portugal at CineEco Film Festival, and they kind of surprised us by bringing schools in. I think it was four different schools from around the local area to watch the film. They were kids ranging from the age of 10 to 18. So, quite young audiences. The takeaway and impact was exactly what I was hoping for. They were shocked, slightly scared, but they really wanted to know more about what they could do to avoid plastic in their everyday life. They were asking me, you know, what's the easy things that we can get rid of and switch, how can we stop this, is there a way to? [ . . . ] Little things that we can do to switch, which really don't take much effort, the small changes are so powerful. On top of that, there's the responsibility of governments and organizations to allow for plastic-free alternatives as well. That's the next step, which is to hopefully partner with certain charities like Greenpeace and other charities to help legislate for change. There's other charities that we're working with called Kids Against Plastic, who advocate for plastic-free chewing gum and different foods that are plastic free. That's probably the biggest takeaway, really starting the conversation. 

POPPLEWELL: I think for me, I would hope the audiences feel that this is a film that shakes you a bit into some kind of action. But I always think with these enormous issues that we're facing, I hope people can do something rather than feeling so overwhelmed that they do nothing. The idea that any change you make in the right direction is really positive. What these issues need is not a very small number of people to do something extreme, they need a huge number of people to do something at all. I would hope that people who see this film do make changes in their lives in everyday ways, but the idea is not to immediately, completely revolutionize your life and go off grid and not live in the world you live in. But that you can make small everyday changes that might feel moderate, and if everyone makes them or if the vast majority of us make them, they would make an enormous difference.