'The End We Start From' director Mahalia Belo has lauded Jodie Comer's "courageous" acting.
The director has helmed the new survival film – which features the 'Killing Eve' star as a mother who flees flooded London with her baby after an environmental disaster – and was impressed by the clever methods Jodie used to bring her character to life and the way she placed her trust in those behind the camera.
Belo told Collider at the Toronto International Film Festival: "The way she deals with every scene and the babies, she's just brilliant. She carried this character completely and so beautifully.
"She was a partner in this whole process, from beginning to end, and journeyed with me through the whole thing."
Belo was particularly impressed by Comer's acting in scenes that required improvisation as she filmed with the baby.
The director explained: "So, if the baby was doing something she would naturally react to the baby. But also, there's a gutsiness to what she does. In this film, she had to go places, and she wanted to do that. I think sometimes that kind of tenacity as an actor is being incredibly brave."
Belo also revealed how Jodie, 30, was desperate to ensure that scenes of her character giving birth in the movie were completed "authentically".
She explained: "Jodie hasn't had a baby, so a lot of the way through this whole journey, I had to – not just me but other people in her life – I had to make sure that the reality of that was held.
"And so she was looking to me quite a lot for that and trusting me that it was right. She gives birth at the beginning, and that's a very particular experience, and for her to have to kind of create that authentically was really important to both of us, and I was there hopefully holding her through that."
