In a joint video interview with Will, Julia described him as “my favorite brother,” which wasn’t the only time they broke up. (He’s her only brother.) She said they’ve always been able to talk “about our feelings, excitement, sadness” and “about our hearts.”
Julia was about to make her first trip to New York to see “Corsicana”—the first time she saw a professional production of one of his plays. Julia, a country music fan who used to sing in a choir, doesn’t know many details of the piece. But she said she was especially excited to hear Ginny and Lot’s song (co-written by Arbery and indie musician and recording artist Joanna Sternberg).
There is a scene in the play where Christopher, the future hipster author, asks Ginny (a fan of “High School Musical”) if she would like to star in one of his movies. “Is it going well?” she shoots back. (So much of “Corsicana,” Arbery said, “is a tug-of-war over taste.”)
In real life, Julia starred in a few of her brother’s short films, including the sci-fi-tinged “Your Resources,” shot in 2016 at their parents’ ranch-style home, starring Julia as a young woman who joins in. in a competition to win a brain implant developed by a sinister futuristic company so she can be “different” and help her ailing father (played by Glenn Arbery).
“The short film is a bit embarrassing,” Will later emailed. But “Julia is really good.”
They’ve also talked about making a hybrid documentary film, about Will filming Julia directing a mash-up of “The Princess Bride” (one of their favorites) and Liam Neeson’s “Taken.”
Julia, he said, inspired not only this piece, but also his approach to writing.
“From a young age, she instilled in me the idea that the way a person uses language is a fingerprint,” he said. “It always felt very clear to me that she was the reason I was doing this.”