Carrie Coon says 'Gone Girl' director David Fincher emailed her defending her performance after she called it 'horrific to watch'

• In an August interview, Coon said it was "horrific to watch" herself in "Gone Girl."
• She says now the result of that was an email from the movie's director David Fincher.

Carrie Coon had some explaining to do over the summer after saying in an August interview with The Independent that she found her performance in David Fincher's 2014 movie "Gone Girl" "horrific to watch."

"David, of course, emailed me as soon as that headline broke," Coon said in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter while promoting her movie "Ghostbusters: Afterlife."

In the thriller based on the hit book by Gillian Flynn, Coon plays Margot Dunne, the twin sister of Ben Affleck's character, Nick, who is the prime suspect in the shocking disappearance of his wife (played by Rosamund Pike).

Coon told THR that in Fincher's email the director explained why her performance as Margot was the way it was, which Coon had described to The Independent as herself just "making faces."

"He was like, 'It was really important for Margo to be really transparent in her emotional life because Nick is lying and is closed off. It's a story point,'" she recalled Fincher saying. "And I was like, 'I know! That's not what I meant!' So I was expecting to hear from David and I definitely did."

In THR's interview, Coon walked back her earlier comment saying, "I don't think it's horrific or grotesque."

She also explained to the trade what kind of headspace she was in at the time of the August interview.

"When I gave that interview, that delightful interview, I was in my house with my new baby," she said. "I have a 13-week-old baby, and I'm horribly sleep-deprived. All I really meant to say was that between 'Gone Girl' and 'The Leftovers,' I got better because I had worked with David and Ben, and Kim Dickens [who plays the detective in 'Gone Girl'].

"So I was engaged in a learning process in 'Gone Girl,'" she continued, "and so when I watch 'Gone Girl,' I see my learning process. I see myself learning. That's all I meant!"