National Geographic’s Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story is captivating audiences on Disney+. The documentary follows Billy Mail as he nurtures an orphaned otter named Molly, all told from the perspective of his wife Susan. After warming audiences' hearts at SXSW, the film is now streaming on Disney+ for audiences to fall in love with. I recently had the privilege of speaking with Billy and Susan about the experience of welcoming a film crew into their homes, seeing people embrace their story, plus updates on how Molly and Jade (the dog) are doing. You can read the full interview or scroll to the bottom to watch the video.
(National Geographic)
Alex: I got to see the film at South by Southwest, and it was so warmly received. What was that experience like for you, traveling to Austin and seeing the film several times with a live audience?
Billy: I mean, it was a complete fairy tale of sorts, the film from beginning to end. Making it, but then going out to South by Southwest and actually watching it, experiencing the film on a big screen for the first time and experiencing audience response, it was just an amazing privilege. And yeah, a bit of a fairy tale, really.
Susan: You have no idea how these things are going to be received. You think you've been involved in something that's amazing, people are telling you it's amazing, but when you get that feedback from a real, live audience who don't know you, they're not your friends who are going to say it's nice whether it is or it isn't, but just so many people who don't know you responding in a way that, gosh, blew our minds, really.
Alex: What was it like when you first got the notification that somebody wanted to come and film this story?
Billy: When Charlie [Hamilton James] phoned and says, ‘Can we make a film?’ I just said, ‘No way, no chance.’ And the reason I said that was I didn't want to be on the wrong side of a camera. Shetland's a small place. I thought, everybody's going to see this, and do I really want to do that? And then we had a conversation, me and Susan and Charlie, in that moment. We thought, why not? Life's too short. This is never going to happen again, and let's share the joy of what we're enjoying here. So that was when we said, ‘Yeah, okay, we'll give it a go.’”
Susan: I was totally fine with it because I wasn't going to be in it. It was just about Billy and Molly, so I was just like, ‘You crack on, guys, it'll be great.’ That obviously then changed over time a little bit, but yeah. I was more keen that we captured what we had going on because when you're in it, when Billy was with Molly, he's not always able to stand back and take that film footage or take a snapshot. But I was really keen that it was captured in some shape or form. Never in my wildest dreams thinking it was in this shape and form.
Alex: You had to kind of open up your home for over a year, not just to an otter, but also to at least one person with a camera. What was what was that bonding time like? Did you feel like you became an extended family with both with Molly and the crew?
Susan: Very much. I mean, we would normally eat together. We would have coffee together in the morning. We literally did become an extended family, I think that's true. We still speak most days. We have a WhatsApp family group type thing. And I think the film couldn't have been what it is without that. If we didn't have that, this film wouldn't wouldn't have worked the way it did. They needed to live here because she's wild, so we couldn't say, ‘She'll be around about 9:00, we'll take her out at 9:00, and she'll be here for an hour for you.’ She showed up when she showed up, so for us then to phone them living somewhere else and say, ‘Right, Molly's just rocked up,’ and they say, ‘Well, we'll be here in 20 minutes,’ that was never going to work. So they had to live here.
Billy: We were lucky. We've got a cottage attached to the house, so they were able to stay in the cottage, but there's a door between the two. We came and went a lot, but we were able to have our own space when we needed it. But there were days we started filming at 6:00 in the morning because it was a lovely morning, and that's when Molly rocked up. There were nights, one of the snow scenes, we were doing that at 10:00 at night because we were here and we could. I think Susan's right, the film would have been so much harder to get some of that great material if they hadn't been living on set, basically.
Alex: Susan, what was that process like of doing the voiceover for the whole film?
Susan: I'm not going to lie, it was pretty rubbish to start with because I was kind of reading and overpronouncing. I thought that's what you did. But as I settled more into it and realized I was telling our story, I just started telling our story, actually. So yeah, it worked in the end. It was never my intended outcome, but that's where we got to. And I think me telling it in the past tense and Billy telling it in the present tense also worked. The way they did that brought a different dimension to it completely. I'm very proud of it all.
Alex: At the end of the film, we get to see where Molly ends up, becoming a mother. How often do you see her nowadays?
Billy: When she was feeding her youngster, they would come a couple of times a day because it's quite hard work for otters up here to get food. For an otter to feed for two is even harder. So she would come, get a fish, take it down under the pontoon, give it to her baby, then come back and get one for herself. So she was coming twice a day, and she's weaned the youngster, so it's still kind of observed from a distance, but it's pretty much weaned. So she'll come once a day now, but it's all for her. It's her own food. And it's mating season, so we think she's off trying to get pregnant. Hopefully, it'll all happen again.
Alex: Can you talk a little bit about your intentionality of making sure that you didn't turn Molly into a pet in any way?
Billy: I was I was brought up with animals since I was a kid, so domestic animals: sheep, cows, cats, hens, dogs. I was quite acquainted with animals and their needs and their behaviors. We were constantly among wild animals and birds, and I guess it was instilled in me when I was a child that an animal is not a human being. It's an animal. It thinks like an animal. It behaves like an animal. It has an animal's needs, so don't try and make the dog into a human because it's not a human. It might be happy to sit outside in a kennel, so that was something that was instilled in me when I was young. There’s always, on a deeper level, the temptation to try and make an otter a pet and domesticate it, and that's all very cuddly and lovely to think about. But otters don't really make good pets, so even if it was a fair thing to do, they've got their nature. They need to bite, they need to fight, they need to tear things apart, and it was just never going to be a good ending if we took it into the house or even tried to. Fortunately, she didn't want to come in, so that was fine.
Susan: Fortunately for him!
Billy: Yeah. We knew enough about wild animal behavior to realize, let tt be wild. Let it do its thing, and if it comes to you, then do what you need to do. But yeah, let it stay wild.
Alex: How are things going for your dog, Jade? Does she get to play ball as often as she wants to now?
Susan: Jade will always play ball. If you could see her right now, she's lying sprawled out in her bed in the rays of the Sun, but her eyes are open because it's just about dinner time. Jade will take every single opportunity to pick up a ball. Someone comes into the house, she picks up a ball. Someone goes outside, she picks up her ball. I take the washing out, she takes her ball with her in the hope that you'll kick the ball. Throughout the film, that was the whole thing about loyalty. She wasn't neglected by any means, but that interaction had sort of stopped. But behind the cameras, she was taking every single opportunity for every human being that happened to be around. She would have the ball at their feet, and they would be kicking it for her, so she got more than a fair share of ball play.
Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story is now streaming on Disney+. Click here to read my interview with director Charlie Hamilton James and producer Jeff Wilson.