'The Addiction of Hope' and the courage to change your life
Anne-Marie Johnson and Martin Gottlieb on their new film, aging, purpose and the moment you realize the life you built may no longer be the one you want.
There’s a concept that sits at the center of The Addiction of Hope that I haven’t been able to shake since watching it.
Hope isn’t a plan. It sounds simple, almost obvious. But the more you sit with it, the more unsettling it becomes. Because for most of us, hope is the thing we cling to. It’s the thing that gets us through. The idea that it might also be the thing holding us back is not something we like to interrogate too closely.
That tension is what drew me into a conversation with Anne-Marie Johnson and Martin Gottlieb. A couple who have been together for over 40 years, now making a film together that feels deeply personal. It’s a quiet film, but it lands with surprising force because it asks a question most people avoid: What happens when the life you’ve built stops working for you?
Hope, and the truth we avoid
For Gottlieb, the idea didn’t come from a single moment. It came from watching patterns play out over time. The kind of patterns that are easy to recognize in other people, and much harder to confront in yourself. “We all have friends; we see them making similar mistakes. They’re not hearing the universe speaking to them, because they’re so hopeful,” he says. “That what they’re doing is going to work out, but hope isn’t a plan.”
What’s fascinating about this film is that it doesn’t reject the idea of being hopeful. If anything, it’s an acknowledgment of how powerful it can be. “It’s a great, great motivator. It gets you out of bed in the morning, it really drives you, can be very rewarding,” he continues. But at some point, Gottlieb says that hope “gets in the way of truth.” That’s where the film lives. In that uneasy space where something that once propelled you forward starts to quietly hold you in place.
Relevance, rejection, and perspective
Johnson recognized that immediately when she read the script. Not as a concept, but as something she had lived through in her own career. “I’ve been in this industry for quite a long time, and I’ve seen the ebb and flow of careers and of relevancy. I have felt, many times, only in my career, not in my personal life, but in my career, exceedingly not relevant, not current, not viable.”
There’s no dramatics in the way Johnson says it. It’s just reality. “I still audition after all these years, I still audition for 99% of the work that I do. 99% of the time, I hear no,” she reveals. “When you hear yes,” she smiles, “it’s an out-of-body experience.” It’s the kind of reality that could easily hollow someone out. For Johnson, it hasn’t. Because she made a decision a long time ago not to let the industry define her sense of worth. “Being an actor is not who I am. It’s just my job. But I have so many other things that I do in my life that bring me more satisfaction than the rat race of the industry.” That perspective grounds her performance as Jo. This isn’t someone clinging to relevance as much as it is someone beginning to question what relevance even means.
The moment everything clicks
That question comes into sharp focus in a pivotal scene as working actress Jo meets with a director (played superbly by Clancy Brown). On the surface, it’s a working session. Beneath it, it’s a moment of recognition. Johnson connects it to a personal experience that reframed her entire approach to the industry. “There was a time in my career where I was completely abandoned. My agent fired me, my manager walked out on me,” she says. Instead of waiting for things to change, she stepped outside of it. “I got a job. I worked at City Hall, because I was not going to sit around waiting for the phone to ring.”
Then came a meeting that crystallized everything. “I had lunch with a potential manager,” she recalls, “and she said, you know what, maybe you should just cut your hair.” That was the moment. “At that point, I said to myself… there you have it.” It’s the same shift Jo experiences. Not failure, not rejection, but clarity. The kind of galvanizing clarity that comes with a quiet understanding that something no longer fits.
What makes that scene even more striking is the contradiction built into it. Jo proves, in that scene, that she can still do the work. She delivers. She completely nails the scene. And yet, that success is what unlocks the deeper truth. “She’s obviously very talented. She’s obviously up to the job,” Gottlieb says. “And it’s hard to walk away from something that you love and that you’re good at. But you understand that it’s not satisfying you in the same way.”
That distinction sits at the heart of the film. This is not about giving up, at all. It’s about choosing differently. “I never, ever even considered that she was giving up,” he says. “I always looked at it as a positive choice for her.”
A story bigger than the industry
Johnson sees that choice reflected in something much broader than the industry. The film was shaped in the aftermath of COVID, at a time when people everywhere were forced to reassess what mattered. “Millions of people were re-evaluating their lives,” she says. “Do I want to be stuck in this job when the world is imploding? Can I be of service? Can I be a better mom? Can I be a better dad? Can I be a better friend? Can I be a better human?”
Johnson’s portrayal of Jo becomes a way into that conversation, as a reflection of anyone who has found themselves stuck on a path that no longer feels right. “Jo represented anyone in any field,” Johnson says. “She just happened to be an actor.” That universality is what has carried the film through its festival run and into audiences who see themselves in it, regardless of their profession. “I think what resonates is it’s very relatable,” she says. “People sit there, some are crying, some feel reassured and heard and seen.”
Gottlieb puts it more simply, but it lands just as clearly. “One of the more rewarding things is that people have said it’s answered some questions for them. It has made them evaluate where they were, or are.”
Betting on yourselves
That kind of response feels earned when you consider how the film was made. This wasn’t a project that came with built-in support. They financed it themselves, made it on their terms, and accepted everything that came with that. “We don’t have kids, so this is like sending a kid to college,” Gottlieb says. “A very expensive college.”
At a certain point, the decision becomes less about risk and more about timing. “If not now, when?” For Johnson, it was also about protecting the integrity of the work. “If we relied on other people’s finances, we wouldn’t be able to create the art we wanted to create,” she says. “We needed to control the narrative, and we needed to control the money.”
That choice comes with limits. Less time, fewer resources, constant pressure. But those constraints shape the film in ways that feel intentional. “There was no unlimited bank account,” she says. “We had a certain amount of days and a certain amount of money.” Gottlieb sees it as part of the creative engine. “It pulls more out of you.”
You are not finished
By the end of the conversation, the film’s central question feels less theoretical and more immediate. What do you do when something isn’t working anymore? For Johnson, the answer begins with stepping outside of yourself. “I want people to stop relying purely on themselves,” she says. “Release their ego and release their control,” she adds, framing it through faith but opening it to something broader. The idea that you are not as alone as you think.
For Gottlieb, it comes down to ownership. “You don’t have to listen to the universe tell you you’re finished,” he says. “When you decide that you’re finished and you're done chasing, or participating, or enjoying this, but it's not enough anymore, then then you make that choice to do something else.” And then the line that lingers. “You are never too old to change what isn’t working anymore.”
It’s a simple idea. But like the film itself, it stays with you long after it’s over.
At some point, whether we care to admit it or not, we all at some point will arrive or have arrived at a crossroads. It doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it’s quiet. A feeling that something isn’t quite working anymore. A sense that you’re staying where you are because it’s familiar, not because it’s right. Taking the next step, whatever that looks like, can feel risky, even frightening. It might mean walking away from something you’re good at, something that once defined you. But that’s what The Addiction of Hope understands so well. It’s about recognizing when it’s time to choose differently. If that feeling has ever crept in for you, even just once, this film will meet you exactly where you are.
Already a multiple award winner across the festival circuit, The Addiction of Hope may be a quiet film, but it asks a very loud question: are you still living the life you actually want, or just the one you chose a long time ago?
The film begins streaming from April 7. It’s well worth your time.
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