Cybill Shepherd: The Hollywood Interview

Actress Cybill Shepherd.


CYBILL SHEPHERD: THE COMEBACK KID
By
Alex Simon

If you’re a man (or to be fair, a woman) of a certain generation, odds are that Cybill Shepherd was one of those women that gave you some of your earliest, yummiest impure thoughts that left little question as to which side of the sexual fence you lay. Born February 18, 1950 in Memphis, Tennessee, this southern belle was named Model of the Year in 1968, and was one of the country’s leading cover girls when, after seeing one of those covers, director Peter Bogdanovich plucked Shepherd from the modeling world and made her an overnight sensation with her turn in his classic “The Last Picture Show” (1971). Shepherd’s portrayal of a manipulative small town beauty queen won her accolades from audiences and critics alike. Shepherd followed “Picture Show” with another terrific turn in Elaine May’s “The Heartbreak Kid” the following year, and scored big in another classic, Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” in 1976.

But Shepherd has also had a Phoenix-like ability to survive some disastrous careers choices, such as turns in former boyfriend Bogdanovich’s legendary misfires “Daisy Miller” (1974) and “At Long Last Love” (1975), the former which caused the dissolution of The Director’s Company, a seemingly-can’t lose partnership between Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola and William Friedkin, then the three top directors in Hollywood. In the late '70s, Shepherd left L.A. for a return to her native Memphis following her split from Bogdanovich, where she married and gave birth to her first child, daughter Clementine Ford. Shepherd didn’t appear in another film for four years, until the TV-movie “The Yellow Rose” in 1983, but hit paydirt with the seminal ‘80s TV hit “Moonlighting,” which also made a sensation of co-star Bruce Willis. Shepherd very skillfully reinvented herself as a glamorous comedienne, of the Carole Lombard mold, with her portrait of Maddie Hayes, a former model-turned-private eye.

Once “Moonlighting” ended in 1990, Shepherd followed with a string of feature films, some good (“Chances Are”) some not so (the ill-fated “Picture Show” sequel “Texasville”), but found redemption once again on the small screen in 1995 with “Cybill,” a semi-autobiographical look at Shepherd’s own life, with a screwball comedy spin that combined the antics of “I Love Lucy” with a daring progressiveness in dealing with women’s issues such as sexuality, menopause and childbirth that pre-dated “Sex and the City” by three years. It also got Shepherd (who co-exec produced the show) and her creators in continual hot water with CBS censors. That, combined with other issues discussed below, got the show axed by the network, quite unceremoniously, when “Cybill” was at the peak of its popularity. Never released into syndication, the first season of “Cybill” arrives on DVD September 16 from First Look Studios. Shepherd published her very funny, and very frank, memoir “Cybill Disobedience” in 2000, to big sales and warm reviews, many praising her for the warts-and-all portraits of herself, and those she’s worked with.

The past year has been another busy one of reinvention for Shepherd, whose recurring turn on Showtime’s hit series “The L Word” has earned her an entirely new fan base. She also has three feature films in the can, and a new website (www.cybill.com) to her credit. Cybill Shepherd sat down with us recently to discuss her remarkable career as one of Hollywood’s greatest continual comeback stories.

Let’s start off by talking about “Cybill.” I know it was semi-autobiographical. In the beginning, did you sit down with the writers and tell them specifically what elements of your life you wanted to include?
Cybill Shepherd: Well, it was a collaborative decision to base it on my life. The original series that I conceived as my comeback to television, was not at all like this. A woman had written a script, where my character had no female friends; all her friends were guys. So I said that I wanted two women at the center of this story. I want a great friendship at the center of this story, and I wanted my character to be different from Maddie Hayes, and from a lot of the characters I’d played in the past: all glamorous, and perfectly coiffed and gussied up. So I thought it would be great to have someone as my sidekick who would embody that, which would allow me to fall in the mud, take pies in the face, that kind of thing. Ultimately it would be Michael Patrick King, who was one of our writers, who said that Maryann was the razor, and I was the heart.

That was one of the things about the show that was so “shocking” initially was that your character actually had bad hair days, and was very de-glamorized. No leading lady had really done that since Lucille Ball.
Yes, exactly! I remember I called up (writer/co-exec producer) Chuck (Lorre) and said ‘Why don’t we have my character have her first grand-baby, and we’ll do an episode about that?’ He said “God, you’re so brave!” (laughs) We broke a lot of rules, and we got smacked down for it too, which is why the show didn’t run for as long as it should have.

Shepherd and guest star Morgan Fairchild in a clip from "Cybill." You broke major taboos for the mid-‘90s, in terms of how honestly you portrayed women. And this was three years prior to “Sex and the City,” which had the freedom to be on uncensored HBO, as opposed to a commercial network like CBS. The fact that you guys always pushed the envelope is what always kept me, and I’m sure viewers like me, interested. The Valentine’s Day episode, which was before Eve Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues,” I had come across this idea that Valentine’s Day was originally for “vagina.” So we went in with a very funny script about that, and the censors said “You can’t say ‘vagina.’” So we said to him, “How about ‘vulva’?” And he said “Okay.” And we’re all like “Holy fucking shit! Does he not know what that is?” (laughs) And he didn’t! So then we got in front of a live audience, and I go to the head writer and say ‘What if they don’t know what it is? Then they won’t laugh.’ “Well, let’s give it a try.” It was one of our highest-rated episodes and CBS said “Never do anything like that again!” (laughs) That will never be seen again on CBS. But it’s on the DVDs. That was the first nail in our coffin, really. We started to get buried after that. People started to really be over-vigilant. I was doing an episode on menopause, which is one of the funniest things to talk about in the world, and the network said “You cannot use any word to describe women’s biological functions except ‘Women’s biological functions.’” ‘So can we say “menopause”?’ “Yes.” ‘Can we say “menstruation”?’ “No.” ‘Can we say “period”?’ “No.” So during the first menstruation episode, we were throwing that shit around, like women do! So I said to the studio, ‘You’re going to have to go to the network, because I can’t do this episode unless I can refer to this in some way.’ They said “Okay, you can say ‘period.’” And that wound up being part of women’s health history and Time Magazine: the first time the word “period” was used in that way on network television. "Cybill" volume one DVD. You raise another interesting point. The woman I was dating at the time, we used to watch the show together, and she said to me “This is the way women talk when we’re together,” which most men never realize, that women can get every bit as down and dirty, if not more so, than men. No, they don’t realize that, and yes, we do! (laughs) It was the first time it had ever been done. You guys very cleverly combined that progressive sensibility with that of “I Love Lucy.”Yeah, it was my first chance to do broad comedy, and have the hair funny, and the shirt wrong, and the jeans that wouldn’t pull up over my butt. (laughs) Just like Lucille Ball: prior to “I Love Lucy,” she was a glamour girl, just like you were. And then she got “goofy” and reinvented herself, just as you did. Exactly, and that was my intention. If fact, there was a lot of criticism towards me, from one of the producers, who said that he was only trying to stop me from doing the “broad, Lucy-esque takes.” And the show was a hit! So we had to have a parting-of-the-ways because it was impossible to work with someone who was fighting you constantly because they had some sort of “Moonlighting” ideal that I had to be Maddie Hayes. You started out as a model, and for a majority of your career, you were a glamour girl, Maddie Hayes allowed you to branch out a bit, but did you feel objectified when you were younger, as if people didn’t really see “you,” only how pretty you were? Yes, also I remember seeing films like “His Girl Friday,” “My Man Godfrey,” and “Bringing Up Baby.” These women: Rosalind Russell, Carole Lombard, Katharine Hepburn, these gorgeous women, were falling down, doing shtick. And I remember thinking ‘I can do that, too.’ But it took forever (for other people to see me that way). Shepherd and Bruce Willis in a publicity shot from the '80s hit "Moonlighting." I always felt that Maddie Hayes was a Carole Lombard character. “Moonlighting” was a throwback to that era of screwball comedy from the ‘30s that you’re describing. Well, actually when I first read the 50 pages of “Moonlighting,” I went to (series creator) Glen Gordon Caron and said ‘You know what you’ve written?’ He said “What?” ‘A Howard Hawksian comedy!’ So we ran those movies. We studied those movies. With Bruce (Willis) on board, and that incredibly fast-paced dialogue, it was magic. In fact, those scripts were so dialogue-heavy that they were the longest TV scripts written up that point, right? Yes, because we talked so fast, that’s why we had to put ends and beginnings on all the scenes. I remember the last episode of “Cybill” ended on a cliffhanger. Someone’s boat had blown up…It said “To be continued…” Yes, and it was going to be so great how we continued it in the next episodes. They said we weren’t picked up because our budgets were too big, which was a lie. It was really about our deal that we had with the network, and somebody had to bite the bullet, and the network wasn’t going to do it because they’d been paying for everything. The studio had gotten this amazing deal with the network, one that no studio will ever get again, where they didn’t pay for anything until the show went into syndication. So what does that tell you? It’s never going to go into syndication, because why would they want to pay the network better? I thought this show was going to be buried in the salt mines, so the fact that it’s finally going to be available on DVD, it really moves me. My representatives and I have been fighting for this for ten years. Was it just about the numbers, or was that just the final straw in addition to the fact that the show was making the censors nervous? I think it was primarily about the numbers, that the studio would have to pay back this enormous amount of money, and the conflict with the censors didn’t help. But it was mostly about the money, which it usually is. Sometimes people don’t do the right things, you ask them why, and the response is because they could. L to R: Eddie Albert, Charles Grodin and Shepherd in "The Heartbreak Kid." I interviewed Lauren Bacall last year. Like yourself, she’s a strong woman who spoke her mind, and it seems that, male or female, in this business if you speak your mind, you’re automatically labeled as being “difficult.” If you’re a wet noodle in this business, do you notice how they tend to rise quickly, whereas if you’re the sort of person who puts their foot down and says “Bullshit,” it’s a tougher road? Miss Bacall said that’s really been the theme of her career: having to reinvent herself after being penalized for standing up for herself. Is that the key to surviving in Hollywood, continual reinvention? (laughs) That’s really interesting, and I agree. It’s tougher if you want to be treated with respect. You have to get back up and start up the mountain again. There’s a great gospel song that goes “I’m goin’ up the rough side of the mountain.” It’s so ironic and sort of extraordinary, this year is my comeback, with “Cybill” coming out on DVD, and my role on “The L Word,” and gradually it’s started to pay off wonderfully well. I’ve built this whole new fan base. I got guest spots on two other shows, and right now I’m working on my third feature film. I’ve been struggling the past decade. I’m not saying I’m poor, but it’s been a struggle to find something interesting to do. A lot of people don’t understand that you can be financially solvent, but if you’re an artist, someone who thrives on the creative process, it’s devastating if you’re not allowed to use those muscles. Yes, exactly. And I really disappeared the last ten years. I talk at length about this in my book, actually. But yes, if you aren’t able to create, or find some outlet that’s a fulfilling way to create, it’s tough, it’s painful. Shepherd in her film debut, "The Last Picture Show." Let’s talk about some of your other work. When Peter Bogdanovich discovered you for “The Last Picture Show,” did you have aspirations at that point to be an actor, or were you satisfied being a model? No. I hated being a model, in fact. I felt that people treated me like an object. They’d be really nice at the beginning of the photo shoot, and afterwards it was like I didn’t exist. Plus, I was so curious. I wanted to study. So when I was modeling full-time, I also went to college, first to Hunter College, then to The College of New Rochelle, then I went to NYU, and whenever I’d get a job, I’d finish a few classes, and then I had to leave. My final year was at USC, where they consider me an alumni. I never got my full degree, but I loved learning, and still do. Shepherd in Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver." What was your primary course of study? First it was art history, and then English literature. What was the “Picture Show” shoot like from the point-of-view of a 20 year-old kid? Well, it was amazing. Peter was my first acting teacher, and I was surrounded by this extraordinary cast. I was completely unencumbered by acting lessons. Every model in New York wanted to be an actor, except for me. I came to Peter completely un-messed with and un-self-conscious, and he was brilliant. I fell in love with making movies. During the shoot, I wouldn’t go home. I would sit on the set no matter what scene they were doing all night long. When you think that Robert Surtees photographed that, the man who the Academy Award for “Ben-Hur”! And then my next acting teacher was Elaine May on “The Heartbreak Kid,” who said to me “We’re going to improvise.” I said ‘What’s that?’ I didn’t even know what it was. So I had great teachers.

Shepherd and Charles Grodin in "The Heartbreak Kid." When you did “Taxi Driver” was it just another job at the time you were doing it, or did you know you were all creating magic? Oh no, it was love, love, love, love! We all knew. I never wanted it to end. We all made five thousand dollars for the movie, and shot with this skeleton crew. I’ll never forget the scene riding around New York in one of those old-style, big New York taxis, with Scorsese in the front seat and sound man in the trunk and the photographer…it was just magic, like we were stealing it. I had the same feeling on “Picture Show,” too. When they were both over, I just wept. Shepherd with Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver." What was Scorsese’s process with actors?He always told me “Do less.” He’s a great fan of Hitchcock, and I talked to him about that, Hitch’s famous line to actors was “Don’t put a lot of scribble on your face.” Jason Robards said that once, too, when we worked together. He said “Acting is with your eyes, remember, not your face.” And Spencer Tracy really invented that, didn’t he?Oh, absolutely! God, I had some amazing mentors: Orson Welles…I was there for the end of the greats, for a world that’s gone now. I don’t know why Peter Bogdanovich doesn’t have a show on TV every week where he just talks to people, because when he’s gone, it’s really the end of an era. This town is rough. There aren’t any filmmaker/historians left like Bogdanovich. No, there aren’t. We’ve still got guys like Scorsese, and Spielberg who are students of film, film history and history in general, but there’s this whole anti-intellectual movement happening in our country right now that trickles down into pop culture, and is evident in the films that are being made. They’re anti-intellectual, anti-thought. Yeah, I just saw “Hamlet 2” the other night, and I totally agree with you. Any final thoughts about “Cybill” arriving on DVD? I thought “Cybill” was dead, and it turns out she’s alive. I had the chance when “Moonlighting” came out on DVD to watch all the episodes again years later and to comment on them. I found that nothing mattered except the work, and how brilliant it was, and thank you that I had the chance to be a part of it. When people start to see “Cybill” again, they’ll start to see that it was a great show, and the fans will have it back. And I’m back, not buried in a salt mine anymore in Utah!

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Willem Dafoe: The Hollywood Interview

Actor Willem Dafoe.



"BEHIND THE SHADOW:
Willem Dafoe on portraying cinematic legend/enigma Max Schreck, being directed by Steve Buscemi, and how one prepares to play the Son of God"
by Terry Keefe

Editor’s Note: The following article appeared in the February 2001 issue of Venice Magazine.

Max Schreck. It’s a name that to film fans conjures up the unforgettable images of the cinema’s very first vampire, played by German actor Schreck in director F.W. Murnau’s 1921 silent horror masterpiece Nosferatu. Schreck holds the dual distinction of being both one of the most recognizable figures in film history and also one of the most enigmatic. Besides "Nosferatu", few, if any, of Schreck's films even exist anymore and almost nothing is known of his life.

Willem Dafoe. It’s a name that to film fans conjures up unforgettable images of his acting performances in some of the best films of the past 20 years. And it is Dafoe who has brought the mysterious Max Schreck back from the grave in Lions Gate Films’ Shadow of the Vampire, a deliciously macabre tale of historical fiction about the making of “Nosferatu”. The film’s hook is that Max Schreck was an actual vampire hired by F.W. Murnau for the purposes of realism. Dafoe turns in a terrific performance as the vampire Schreck in a role that might have been very one-note in another actor’s hands. But throughout his entire career, Dafoe has specialized in adding layers of depth and humanity to challenging characters. Along the way, he’s also been unfairly saddled with the image of an actor who specializes in playing odd or peculiar roles. A closer examination of his career reveals a deeper truth - that he’s a daring artist who simply refuses to be satisfied with the creation of the bland or ordinary.

Willem Dafoe was born on July 22, 1955, in Appleton, Wisconsin, the second youngest of eight children. After leaving the University of Wisconsin, Dafoe made his way to Manhattan in the late 1970's where he became one of the founding members of the Wooster Group, a now-famous theater company which has been a pioneer in incorporating experimental elements of multimedia into the theatrical language. Dafoe still performs with them today.

Dafoe made his screen debut as a featured extra in Michael Cimino's legendary cinematic disaster Heaven's Gate. Things could only go up from there and they did, as Dafoe was cast as a beatnik biker named Vance in Kathryn Bigelow's little-seen 1982 feature The Loveless. Dafoe's next big role was also as a biker, of a very different sort, as he played the evil Raven in Walter Hill's underrated rock 'n roll fable Streets of Fire in 1984. But if Raven was a great villain, he was only a warm-up for Eric Masters, the counterfeiter/painter that Dafoe portrayed in William Friedkin's brilliant To Live and Die in L.A., which was released in 1985. Masters is the perfect L.A. villain - a talented artist who also happens to be a merciless killer - and Dafoe colors Masters with so many realistic mannerisms that he becomes far, far scarier than the average criminal antagonist.

Then came the film that changed everything for him, Oliver Stone's Platoon in 1986. The shot of Dafoe as Sergeant Elias, riddled with bullets and his arms stretched towards the heavens, would become the defining image of the film. And "Platoon" would finally bring Dafoe both worldwide fame and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. It's perhaps ironic that Dafoe's good-hearted Sergeant Elias is derisively referred to as a "water-walker" by another character in the film, because the next major role Dafoe would take would be as Jesus in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. This choice as a follow-up to "Platoon" is all the evidence you need of Dafoe's daring as an actor. While it's true that this was a lead role in a film directed by Martin Scorsese, "Last Temptation"'s controversial subject matter was guaranteed to offend many, and for an actor who had only just broken through with mainstream audiences, it was a risky move. But it was also very characteristic of the path Dafoe's career would take during the next decade. With the possible exception of 1997’s Speed 2: Cruise Control, rarely will you see him in a big studio blockbuster that was done just for the exposure or the paycheck. The one thing you can always count on from a Willem Dafoe project is that it will be interesting, at the very least, and usually much more than that.

His next film after playing the Son of God would be an acclaimed teaming with Gene Hackman as a pair of mismatched F.B.I. agents investigating a hate crime in 1988's terrific Mississippi Burning, directed by Alan Parker. Other notable performances include Wild at Heart (1990, as the vicious hit man Bobby Peru, for director David Lynch), Clear and Present Danger(1994, as government operative John Clark), Tom & Viv (1994, playing poet T.S. Eliot), The English Patient (1996, in which he was the mysterious war veteran Carravagio), Affliction (1997, as Rolfe, the long-suffering brother of Nick Nolte's Wade), and American Psycho (2000, playing Kimball, the police detective hounding the serial killer of the title).

This past fall, Dafoe starred in Animal Factory, the second film to be directed by Steve Buscemi. Dafoe plays Earl Copen, a lifer con who is the top dog in the prison yard, and who enters into a relationship with Edward Furlong's much-younger character Ron. It's a definite love story, but the film skirts the usual genre conventions by keeping the relationship almost entirely cerebral. "Animal Factory" is based on the book by Edward Bunker, a former con turned writer-actor who many also remember as Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs.

Which brings us to the present and "Shadow of the Vampire", directed by E. Elias Merhige from a screenplay by Steven Katz. As mentioned earlier, little is know of the real-life Max Schreck and this has led to endless speculation about his true story by fans of "Nosferatu" throughout the years. The most famous quote on record about Schreck is that a prominent German film producer once referred to him as "an actor of no distinction". And then there's the name - the word Schreck in German loosely translates as "shriek" or "scream", and it seems likely that it wasn't the man's real moniker. "Nosferatu" is shot almost like an early documentary and the film has a creepiness that stays with you for days. All of these factors provided fertile ground for "Shadow of the Vampire"'s take on what really happened during the making of "Nosferatu". In fact, watching the original again after seeing "Shadow" is a very unsettling experience. You're left thinking "what if?"

As Schreck, Dafoe is a quivering, scheming mass of long claws, fangs, vanity, and loneliness. Remarkably, Dafoe creates a Max Schreck who is not only scary and sad, but also very funny. Although he's uncomfortable in front of the cameras at first, Schreck soon becomes something of a prima donna, asking for more make-up and questioning parts of the script. Dafoe also re-creates the real-life Max Schreck's original performance beat-for-beat in the "film within the film". It's a multi-layered, tour-de-force performance worthy of an Oscar.

In January, Dafoe began shooting the much-anticipated Spider-Man with director Sam Raimi. He'll play yet another icon in this one: Norman Osborne, who any good comic book fan knows is also Spidey's arch-nemesis -the sinister, pumpkin bomb-throwing Green Goblin. One imagines that the make-up required for "Shadow of the Vampire" will have been a good warm-up for what Dafoe will be wearing as the Green Goblin - in the comics, the Goblin is covered with green scales, has pointed ears, and flies around Manhattan on an airborne "goblin glider"! And it’s a safe bet that because it’s Dafoe behind the mask, the Green Goblin will have a lot more depth than your typical wisecracking comic-book villain. We sat down with Willem Dafoe this past December to discuss his career and all things Schreck.

Can you tell us about your preparation to play Max Schreck?
Well, there wasn't a lot I could do until I got in the make-up, in the costume. I read about Murnau. I looked at his films. I certainly acquainted myself with "Nosferatu", because I had to be well acquainted with the film...I had certain sequences that I knew we were going to replicate that I had to know very well. Also, I knew I wanted to have an accent, so I got some Slovakian accents from the Tatrus Mountains (in the South of Poland) and listened to them, then scored out an accent with a dialogue couch in New York. And then just made certain adjustments for clarity and what felt right. And through that, I found the voice, which of course had to be invented because there's nothing to copy in that case. Then it was really about dealing with the costume and the make-up, which was everything because that became the key, that became the mask, that became the mode to find the character, because it was so extreme that it informed everything you did.

When you finally did get into the make-up then, did you have to spend a lot of time finding the character further or was it immediate?
It was fairly quick. We did some tests. Then every morning of the shoot, I'd be the first one there. And it was three hours of make-up, which was always a great preparation for the day. Because you're sitting there every day for three hours and you have to be quite still because some of it is quite delicate work. And you look in the mirror and it was a process of seeing 'you' as you know yourself, what you identify with individually as yourself, starting to recede away and having this other character come forward, as you became more and more obscured. So you start to look less like yourself and then you start to feel less like yourself and then you start to even think less like yourself, because you're encouraging that transformation willfully. Then you apply yourself to the story and certain impulses come.

When I tried to find out more about the original Max Schreck, the only thing I really learned is that he was once referred to as "an actor of no distinction". Is that pretty much what you found out?
That's pretty much it. But to tell you the truth, I didn't feel that compelled to find out that much about him because, although any information can be useful, I was most interested in the Max Schreck of the performance, of the performance as Count Orlock. That's what I was dealing with. The other part was really the invention of Steven Katz' screenplay.

I was just curious about what you thought about Max Schreck as an actor.
Oh, I think he's great. You know....traditionally, silent film acting is considered hammy and unsophisticated and amateurish. But if you kind of let go your criteria for what is 'acting', which is usually based on our notions of realism and naturalism, there's some very beautiful things that happen (in Schreck's performance). In his awkwardness, there's a grace. There's a poetry to his simple actions. We aren't handing out prizes here, and it's particularly not important when the guy's been dead for so long. So whether he's a good actor or not, I don't know. But I do know that in watching him, there is some poetry.

How was working with your director, E. Elias Merhige?
It was great. An actor wants a good set-up. He gave me a good set-up, and he kept me on track. And then some. He's very supportive. He's very passionate about what he does. He paid alot of attention to the technical aspects of it, to create the conventions in the "film within the film" sequences. He's quite ambitious and quite driven and I think on some level he identified with Murnau (laughs). But in other ways he's not at all like Murnau, because he's very sweet and very warm.

You recreated Schreck's performance flawlessly for those "film within the film" sequences. How many times did you watch "Nosferatu"?
We had it on the set. I mean, we watched it a lot, but then...we had a cassette of it available always. And sometimes we'd huddle around it and there'd be debates about actually what we were seeing. We would get together and it would be amazing how some people would see different things than other people, watching the same thing. It was a lesson about perception. And sometimes we'd argue about what we actually saw. Because the rule was that, as much as possible, we'd try to recreate those moments.

Murnau and the Vampire are very similar people. It's very hard to say who's the real monster and also who's really directing the project.
As Schreck says in the movie, "We are not so very different, you and me." (laughs)

I wanted to talk about another film of yours that was just released, "Animal Factory". Could you tell us a little bit about working with the director Steve Buscemi?
Sure. Steve's an old friend and I only mention that not to name-drop, but that does make a difference in this case. I've known him for many years. I knew him when he was a fireman, before he was an actor...he was a New York City fireman in Little Italy. And he was doing his comedy sketches with Mark Boone Junior in the clubs. And I went off to do "Platoon" and he filled in for me at the theater, at the Wooster Group. And then I've known him through the years and we've kept in touch. And when this project came up, he said he wanted me to do it and I thought it was a beautiful story. It was fun being directed by someone you knew very well because you could skip to the chase on alot of stuff. And he directed me like an actor, because the language is there. I also felt like sometimes it was almost as if he was doing the role, but he was doing it through me.

Let's talk about your background a bit. You were raised in Wisconsin and you're the second youngest of 8 children. That's a big family - were your parents or any of your siblings also artistic?
They're all artistic but professionally they did other things. It's the old story - I'm the actor but when we get together for a family reunion, they're all far more talented than I am (laughs).

When did the acting bug get a hold of you?
When I was quite young...I was in school plays, and I was in summer stock. Then I went to Europe for a little while and I went to New York. And 23 years ago I started working with the Wooster Group and I still work with them now.

It seems like it's a great balance creatively to be able to do both the Wooster Group and the films.
It is. Sometimes it's frustrating because sometimes I feel like I'm cheating one world when I go to the other one. It's like having two lovers. But at the same time, being with one makes you better for the other one (laughs). Not sure if I should say that - get me in trouble! (laughs again). No, for me, sometimes it's hard because you have two masters. But sometimes it's good because when you go back and forth between the two it always forces you to find out why you do what you do. It really is a great insurance against falling into a routine.

One of your first major film roles was in 1985, when you played Eric Masters in William Friedkin's "To Live and Die in L.A.". It's a terrific film which was kind of overlooked at the time it came out.
It was. It's actually a film that directors have responded to. And I think I got alot of work in my early days from that movie. That was a very important movie for me. People, key people, really responded to it. It was seen as a failure. It was an independent at the time, when independents seldom got that kind of release, with a prestige director and basically an unknown cast. But the thing that I remember about it was that a lot of the reviews said the same things and I think it was ahead of its time, because they basically said, "We don't know who to root for. Everybody's so horrible in this. There's no one that we can identify with. This is a crummy movie because you've gotta have someone to identify with. These people are so corrupt." Well, I think Billy Friedkin somehow prefigured the coming of the kind of love affair with the anti-hero that someone like Quentin Tarantino knew so well and audiences responded to.

In 1986, you filmed a role that really catapulted you into the national spotlight, that of Sergeant Elias in Oliver Stone's "Platoon". Could you talk about the production a little bit?
I just remember meeting Oliver and thinking, "God, I don't know anyone in Hollywood like this guy!" (laughs) I loved the preparation for it, the training, it was very tough. We had people that really cared about what was being conveyed, so there were really high stakes in making the movie, Vietnam Vets that wanted their story to be told. So the training and the whole movie was done in a spirit, a very intense spirit. I loved making it. But I thought, because you've got to remember the climate at the time, I thought, "This movie is not going to see the light of day. There aren't any big stars in it. It's the kind of war movie that could be seen as depressing to some people. It could have political problems for some people. This is going to get misidentified and wind up on a video shelf next to kung-fu movies." I really did think that. And that's no judgment on what I thought we were making. It's a judgment on how I thought it would get to an audience.

The next major role you took after “Platoon“ was “The Last Temptation of Christ“. Did you have any reservations about taking the role?
No. And I've said it before, I don't know why I didn't (laughs). No, I didn't because the way Marty approached me...saying what kind of Christ he wanted it to be. I thought, "I'm the perfect guy to play this." And I think that movie probably had a profound influence on me, professionally and in my life. It was a great experience. It was a movie where I really felt used, I mean “used” in the best sense of the word. As an actor, I want to be used. I want to use my body and my mind, my voice, whatever I've got, for something. And Marty had this beautiful story to tell. He made this movie in his head for many years, and I felt privileged to be involved in it. It was a deeply felt experience, and when I finished it, I felt really spent. And that's such a good feeling.

What type of preparation did you do to play Jesus?
As little as possible. I mean, the thing that I'm always struck with is that it was more a process of elimination rather than accumulation. Because you wanted to cleanse yourself of any kind of expectation. The whole notion of the way the story goes, Jesus is a very reactive character. He's dealing with what is being presented to him. So you want to be in a place where you could receive that without knowing the outcome too much, you wanted to be very open-hearted and open-minded about it. So it's like sometimes I think I like to start from a place of not knowing, probably end up at a place of not knowing too (laughs) but in that one (Jesus) deeply there was an aspect of him that was like an innocent, so I didn't want the overview. I didn't want the information. I just wanted to deal with it as it was presented to me. And because it was so well-designed and it was framed so beautifully, that was a good place to be.

You made a lot of comic book fans, including myself, very happy when you agreed to play the Green Goblin in the "Spider-Man" film that you're about to shoot with Sam Raimi.
I'm excited about it. But there's not a lot I can say about it right now. Not purely for secrecy, but because I'm just starting. There's a lot of comic book fans we've got to make happy. The stakes are high (laughs).

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS WINNER Melissa Leo

Best Supporting Actress winner Melissa Leo.

I interviewed Melissa Leo in January of 2009 for her much-buzzed about (and Oscar-nominated) turn in "Frozen River," in many ways a fitting precursor to her Oscar-winning role as Mark Wahlberg's overbearing mother in David O. Russell's "The Fighter." During our talk, Leo was engaging, dramatic, and mercurial, much like her performance on the Oscars. She remains one hell of an actress, and we at The Interview congratulate her on this well-deserved win.


Melissa Leo: Many Rivers to Cross
By
Alex Simon


Born and raised in New York City, Melissa Leo is one of those faces you always see popping up on the big or small screen at least once a year, and you invariably find yourself asking "Wasn't she in fill in the blank with a movie or TV title of your choosing" and you'd probably be right. A fiercely prolific actor who studied at the Mount View Theater School in London as well as SUNY Purchase's renowned theater department, Melissa Leo made her film debut in Henry Jaglom's Always in 1985, and literally hasn't stopped working since, appearing in nearly 80 films and TV productions. Stardom has eluded Melissa Leo until now, with her turn in Courtney Hunt's micro-budget indie hit Frozen River, which won the Grand Jury Prize at last year's Sundance Film Festival. Announced in the wee hours of this morning, Melissa Leo has been tapped as a nominee for Best Actress by the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences.


Leo has made a career of playing tough, unglamorous women who are still retain their femininity in spite of the life of hard-knocks they've endured. Her unapologetically weather-beaten facade, which looks like she stepped right out of a Walker Evans photo commissioned by the FSA during the Depression, has served her well, appearing on hit television series such as The Young Riders as the most authentic-looking frontier gal in TV history, to her long-running role as Det. Sgt. Kay Howard on the lauded Homicide: Life on the Street, as the toughest of Baltimore street cops, trading blows and bullets with the baddest bad and good guys alike. Other notable turns recently include a recurring role on Showtime's The L Word and Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.

In Frozen River, Leo wears her character's existence of hardship, disappointment and determination in every well-earned facet of her remarkable face. As Ray Eddy, a single mother in upstate New York facing dire straits after her husband takes off and absconds with the down payment for their new doublewide trailer, Leo fashions one of the greatest portraits of feminist perseverance and survival since Ellen Burstyn in Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, which earned her a Best Actress Oscar for 1974. Faced with losing everything she has, Ray joins forces with Lila (Misty Upham, also excellent), a Native American girl, in smuggling illegal Chinese and Pakistani immigrants in the trunk of her car across the Canadian border into the U.S., over the frozen river that separates the two countries.
Originally filmed as a short, Courtney Hunt shot her feature version on the digital Panasonic Varicam in 24 days in sub-zero temperatures in and around Plattsburgh, New York, Frozen River's first time writer-director Hunt has earned herself an Oscar nod as well for her original screenplay. The film is still playing theatrically and arrives on DVD from Sony February 10.
Melissa Leo sat down with us recently to discuss this remarkable capstone in her career.

When I first saw Frozen River the film I kept thinking of was Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

Melissa Leo: Oh, I like hearing that! Yeah, I see what you're saying. I think it's a fair comparison in that it's about a woman's journey of self-discovery and survival. So yes, I'll take that. Thank you! (laughs)

Tell us about how you found Ray.
I didn't find her. Courtney (Hunt) found her. Courtney spent nine, or more, years researching this story, these circumstances, and put it down in a spectacular and sparse script. In the short I didn't even know what Ray's name was. I was just "the blonde" and Misty (Upham) played "the Mowhawk." There's a moment that does wind up in the feature where we drop the bag on the ice and we have to decide whether to go back or not.


Melissa Leo in Frozen River.


Are we going to see the original short on the DVD?
I'm not sure. You'll have to ask Courtney. (laughs) Then we waited three years until we got the funding for the feature, had nine days of pre-production, and shot in 24 days.

Such great things can come out of situations like that where you have a gun to your head.
Yeah, and in the art of filmmaking, which is very different from the theater, primarily because in the theater you do something very rehearsed and practiced, and you try to hit something each night that you go on. Film is the art of capturing the moment. So when you're flying by the seat of your pants, caught in a whirlwind, it's kind of a good thing in moviemaking.

It's part of what makes a neo-realist film, which is certainly what this is, and what Alice was.
What's the old expression? "Necessity is the mother of invention." And that's exactly what it was all about.
How was it filming on location, being a part of that world?
I love that part of acting, that you get to go to these places where the events actually take place. I shot in South Africa once, a movie called Lullaby, about a woman who arrives in Johannesburg at a moment's notice, just as I did, so my reality could be sewn into the performance of that character. It was very much the same being up in Plattsburgh, in that environment. We were all booked into a little Motel 6-type place, with little kitchenettes in them. And that became my "Ray's trailer home" while we were shooting. If we'd shot the entire thing on a soundstage, I'm not sure we'd have gotten the same effect.
Courtney is a first-time writer/director. What's that like for a veteran performer?
The greatest pleasure in working with a first-time filmmaker, and a I do a lot of it: student films, and so on, the great pleasure is you can really work with a first-time director, not so much for them. I had fun working for many directors. I would get up, right in the middle of this interview, and work for Tommy Lee Jones again. (laughs) But the real delight is the collaboration you get working with them, finding communication between the two of you, without pushing that too far over the line into what her job is to do, which is to direct. Because the only way to make a really good movie is to have a single visionary. And whatever relationship the director has with the writer, when it comes to the shooting game, the director is the captain of the ship, and must be followed by all on-deck.


Leo (L) with writer-director Courtney Hunt (R) on the Frozen River set.


We discussed the neo-realist feel the film has. Was any of it improvised?
Absolutely none of it. It was a completely written script. For me as an actor, that's a much easier way to find realism: in a very tight script. I've done a fair amount of improv work, like the films I've done with Henry Jaglom. There's fun in it. There's a certain freedom in it. There's an absolute lack of accuracy in it that, for me, takes from the truth in the end. And if we all know what the truth is that we're going after, because it's there on the page, we can all look to it and know where we're trying to get to, and better serve our characters.
You and Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) are both character actors who've been working for 25 years and are finally getting a moment in the sun. We're seeing a time, like in the 1970s, where character actors are becoming stars again. How does it feel, after paying all those dues?
(inhales deeply) I'm taking in a big breath of that one! (laughs) It feels right, frankly, and I've known Richard for a long time, although we've never worked together. I've heard Richard say the same thing, too: At another time, I wouldn't have been ready. Things happen in life as they should. Somehow it's already there, and you have to find your path. So that's what going on and I feel very comfortable, and honored, and welcomed, and recognized. People keep trying to put the thought in my head of "Well it's about time, dammit!" but that just doesn't feel right. I know with Frozen River, every moment of my professional life came up to Plattsburgh so I could work with Courtney and help make that movie happen.

Going back even further, your path started at SUNY Purchase, with that amazing class of actors that included Stanley Tucci, Ving Rhames and many others.
We called each other "companies" because Purchase was orginally founded to be an American conservatory. Your mentor would take you through the four years of the program. Stan and Ving were in the group just above me. Steven Weber was in my group, another fine actor who does a lot of stage work around town named Preston Maybank was in my group. Edie Falco came a year or two later, Wesley Snipes. It was a very interesting, very serious, acting training program. It's training I still use, every day I go to work, right now here with you.


Leo (R) and Misty Upham (L) in Frozen River.

Your resume has an incredibly diverse mixture of stage, TV and film.
That's something that would be worth spending a little time talking about. I realized in this last year, going from set-to-set, I have an incredibly unique and unusual career. I was at The Marrakesh International Film Festival. It's beautiful there! It's only eight years old, but you'd think it had been going on for a hundred. It had an international jury: Barry Levinson, actors from around the world, different directors, and as I looked at the jurors in the catalog, and their credits, I realized that I had more credits than any one of those jurors! It's very rare that any of us in the industry go from one thing to the other as much as I've been lucky to have done.
Let's talk about stage vs. film vs. television.
They're all very different. You're doing exactly the same thing, very differently. You're pretending to tell the truth, and in stage the main thing is the rehearsal process that we begin reading around a table, then eventually comes up from the table and finds its blocking, usually with a certain amount of 50/50 between the director and actors finding the staging of the play, working on it for the first week or two, then the third or fourth week of rehearsal before you get to your previews, really honing in on what those moments are in the path you're going to go out onstage and walk. We're so lucky in the theater because we get to come back Wednesday and try again, because Tuesday we surely didn't hit them all. (laughs) In film, there's always this discussion of rehearsal, but as actors know who their characters are, what they wear, how they live, what their relationships are with their scene partners, you can just have the actors play the scene with the camera running and capture something that nobody could have constructed beforehand. The capturing of an image that film does, that's what makes movies magic. Television is similar, but at a much faster pace. You have turn things around very quickly in television. So it's doing the same thing, but with very different tools and rhythms. Does that answer your question at all? (laughs)
You mentioned Tommy Lee Jones earlier. Is it a different experience working with an actor as a director? Is their understanding of the craft more intimate, which provides a kind of shorthand between the director and his or her cast?
I'll be honest here: I think it's a really stupid idea for an actor to director. Writers tend to be certain kinds of people. Actors tend to be certain kinds of people. Directors tend to be certain kinds of people. Dentists (laughs) tend to be certain kinds of people. I don't know if I'd want a dentist/gynecologist! (laughs)
Wow, that's an entirely different, and possibly very philosophical, conversation.
Not really! I'm an old school actor. I like a director who directs. I like a writer who writes. I like a conversation with both of them to find the truth of a piece. But, there's exceptions to the rule. Courtney Hunt wrote an amazing script and did an incredible job as a director. Mr. Jones, would say "Okay, you go over and you go over there, and you do that." Then, in a blink of an eye, this acerbic, brilliant director, would drop away, and there would be (the character of) little, stupid Pete. I actually think he'd have been happy to just direct Three Burials, but then I doubt they'd have given him the money to do it. So he was great to work with, a brilliant, brilliant director, but ordinarily I don't think it's so great when actors direct. It's just an opinion. I might be wrong.
When did you realize you were an actor? I saw in your biography that your father was an editor and a fisherman, which are two really interesting extremes, and your mother was a teacher and a social worker.
I didn't see it. I don't remember going to the movies until I was a teen and seeing Jaws. I'm not sure that was the first movie I ever saw, but that's the first one I remember seeing. I probably saw some Chaplin stuff with my family when I was little. What I really remember is working with Peter Schumann, who ran the Red Puppet Theater. Since the late '50s, Peter has done this amazing work with hand puppets, people as puppets wearing masks, giant puppets with several people operating them. Even as a child, I remembered you couldn't just operate the puppet, you had to be the puppet! Just pretend. And I knew that I was more comfortable doing that than any other thing.
On the IMDb I see that you have ten movies in pre, post, or some state of production coming up over the next year. Do you come up for air at all, or is this the way you like it?
No, thank God. I need very little air, and I'm very happy here under the water.



Trailer for Frozen River.

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VERA FARMIGA: The Hollywood Interview 2009

(Vera Farmiga, right, and George Clooney in UP IN THE AIR.)

by Terry Keefe

(Currently appearing in this month's Venice Magazine.)

The first time we interviewed actress Vera Farmiga was in early 2001, at Swingers Diner on Beverly, over French fries. It was around 8 in the evening, as she had to spend the day auditioning for a network pilot. She was promoting a supporting role in a relatively forgettable Robert De Niro-Ed Burns cop thriller called Fifteen Minutes, where she played a Eastern European hairdresser who witnesses a murder. Parking was scarce in the neighborhood, to the point that we first met that night while angling for the same spot. Today, things have changed somewhat. We’re meeting at a ridiculously large and posh board room at the Beverly Hilton, which reminds of the one in Network where uber-exec Ned Beatty chews out Peter Finch’s Howard Beale. Valets take care of the cars. A number of publicists and assistants abound. It’s all part of the studio publicity machinery for Up in the Air, the feature film directed by Jason Reitman, in which Farmiga stars with George Clooney. Strong Oscar buzz abounds on the film, not just for Reitman and Clooney, but also for Farmiga this time around.

Up in the Air introduces us to Clooney’s Ryan Bingham, a corporate down-sizer who travels the country some 300 days of the year firing vast numbers of employees for companies too gutless to do it themselves. Bingham has been aptly referred to by Reitman as a sort of “new species” of human, in that he travels so much that his home is in the air. He obsessively collects frequent flyer, hotel, and rental car points, and seems to have adapted the philosophy that if he just keeps moving, he’ll never have to get too tied down to any place…or anyone. At a hotel bar, he meets someone he perceives to be the female version of himself, Farmiga’s Alex, who shares a uniquely modern courtship scene with Ryan, as they seduce each other with the power of each other’s preferred traveler club cards. “Just think of me as you with a vagina,” Alex says to Ryan, and with that, he believes he has found his perfect woman. What Ryan doesn’t realize is that in his relationships with Alex, and his unlikely young protégé Natalie (played by Anna Kendrick), he is unconsciously forming a sort of surrogate family. In the sky.

The films of Jason Reitman walk a fine line between comedy, often black comedy, and drama. Deep characterizations of unlikely heroes are found in his Thank You For Smoking (2005), Juno (2007), and Up in the Air, but the films are also sprinkled with sharp comedic dialogue. Farmiga fits well into the Reitman universe, as she is able to deftly hit the comedic beats, but also bring to the surface the largely unspoken levels of loneliness which are definitely an element of what drives Alex. The world of plane-rental car-hotel-conference-plane that she inhabits is in part a role-playing fantasy, something she knows inherently but which Clooney’s Ryan must learn the hard way.

Between our first meeting with Farmiga and this most recent one, we also spoke with her in 2005 about Down to the Bone, the low-budget character study in which she plays a sometimes-recovering heroin addict (read that interview here). Down to the Bone won a Special Jury Prize for Acting at Sundance, and although few in the general population of moviegoers saw it upon release, Farmiga credited the film, at the time, with helping her land a role which just about everyone saw, as the psychiatrist Madolyn in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed in 2006. It seems likely that Farmiga was consequently offered a lot of paycheck-style studio film roles in the wake of The Departed, although one has to assume that Farmiga has largely avoided those projects. While she has made somewhat larger commercial films such as the recent Orphan, she has also continued to pursue roles closer to the indie Down to the Bone in both scope and spirit, playing a disability-obsessed sexual explorer in Quid Pro Quo, the wife of a Nazi officer in the bleak children’s tale The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and a woman in an interracial marriage in the lower-budgeted Never Forever. She had mentioned at the time of Down to the Bone’s release that these type of smaller, character-driven roles were where her heart was. You hear talk about wanting to mix more commercial projects with smaller, higher-quality ones from actors on the rise all the time, but Farmiga has actually followed through on it. With Up in the Air, she’s landed the rare project that is the best of both worlds these days, a studio film with dynamite characters.

[Note: There are some indirect plot spoilers in the text of this interview.]

Jason Reitman wrote this role for you in Up in the Air, but he also made you audition.

Vera Farmiga: Yeah [laughs]. Yes, he did.

What’s up with that?!

[laughs] He’s a master of contradiction. Look at all his characters. You know, I was very pregnant when we met. And then I was even more pregnant when he handed me the job, and by the time we started filming, I weighed more than George Clooney. I had just delivered a baby, and the studio was stressed about the decision. And so, he just said, “Vera, I hope you don’t mind,” and we’d already met, up for a chamomile tea, at Gramercy Park Hotel, early on in the process, but he couldn’t quite make the decision, because it was a big decision to make for him. I kept insisting…I said, “Call up every director. Call up Scorsese, he’ll tell you about my record...” [laughs]

Scorsese should be enough of a good recommendation, right?

But Jason said, “No, I talked to everybody!” And so I said, ‘Well, if I tell you I can do it, I can do it.”

Was your pregnancy the main issue?

Yeah, I think he was more…not so much physically…he was more worried about my mental capacity, and if I could handle all of it. In my eighth month of pregnancy…I think it was in my favor that everybody else that was being considered probably was pregnant, too. [laughs] But so, he actually made me read the scene with Anna Kendrick’s character. And he came back, to the Gramercy Park Hotel, with a video camera, and he’d hired two local actors from the city to sit in and read for George’s and Anna’s characters, and he videotaped me, and I got a call that night. [laughs]

(George and Vera compare frequent flier and travel mileage point cards.)

You do a lot with silence in this film. Her non-verbal moments aren’t just reaction shots. She’s an enigma, and hiding a few things, and you can feel that in her glances. How much of that silence are you consciously filling, and how much is just your screen presence?

I love the silent moments. I cherish the silent moments in film. It’s even more important and telling of a character what they don’t say, what they choose not to say…and what they may be thinking but don’t say. What they can’t say. What they’re incapable of saying. That is as revealing, if not more, than what a person actually says, so I love that, and that for me is something that I focus on as an actor, and obsess over, and relish. [laughs]

It occurs that you have to be in the moment to do silence properly on-screen.

And sometimes I take it to extremes, because Jason’s biggest direction of me was, “Vera, you gotta say it faster. Can you pick up the rhythm?”

I guess I can also see that, because the first scene where you and George meet has a real Cary Grant-Rosalind Russell-His Girl Friday fast repartee to it.

Yeah, you’re right, because there is a rhythm...there’s a rhythm to Jason’s writing, and you have to honor it. It’s like the metronome’s on, and you do have to honor that metronome, and keep up with it. And that’s part of what’s so sexy [about the two characters], the rhythm, the tennis match, the banter. They finish each other’s thoughts, and they’re on very even, equal footing. But then there were moments, like at the wedding, when you see them exist without any words. What’s so sexy about this relationship is…it’s hardly anything that happens in the bedroom. There’s no allusions, there’s like one allusion to them having a romp, but I think what’s so sexy about it is that Jason is just very old-fashioned in the way he portrays a romance. Look at Juno. You root for the relationship, and it’s just so authentic and heartbreaking, but it’s really just the conversation between them, and who they are together, and words that they exchange…that’s what’s so sexy. I love that because I’m always on a hunt for a good old-fashioned romance.

"I love the silent moments. I cherish the silent moments in film. It’s even more important and telling of a character what they don’t say, what they choose not to say…and what they may be thinking but don’t say."

What is true of all of three of Jason Reitman’s film is that he keeps this fairly light tone overall, but also has these deep characters and overall themes. How much of the tonal balance, and how it should be played, is obvious on the page, and how much do you have to find in the execution?

He’s a master of finding that, and we also struggled at times. There are certain lines that my character has that are hilarious, but could be as vulgar as could be if you don’t hit the right chord with them. The “vagina” line [Editor’s Note: the classic one-liner delivered by Farmiga’s character.] is an example. Just talking about genitals is a funny thing, is a tricky thing, and the word “vagina” is not a word that you hear all the time. It’s such a critical word, but actually, when you say it, there’s all sorts of imagery that pops up, and you know that line, in particular, is probably going to be a sound bite in the film. And there’s a lot of pressure on that line, and I find with Alex, she says the most …she’s a sexual adventuress, the things that she says are demanding and liberal and unapologetic, and yet the key was to find a dignity in delivery, and infuse it with as much dignity and self-respect in honoring thyself, herself, an integrity of self, as possible. That was the key to Alex.

The key one-liners like that one…how much did you practice them on your own in front of a mirror?

That one – in my trailer, all the time.

If I remember correctly, that line is also delivered on the phone with George. So you didn’t have him to play off directly on one of the biggest quips of the film.

Yes, but George was in the room. He’s very generous and he’s available, and he was there, that was one of the first things we shot. The first scene is always the hardest scene for me in any film, always the first scene. I gotta get that out of the way, and then I can relax into a performance. It’s just how it is with me.

As Ryan falls in love with Alex, did you play her as falling in love with him, also? Because she pretends not to, but -

Well, I don’t know if she pretends not to, and this is interesting about how Jason directed me, because I wanted to infuse it more…look, it’s undeniable what they have is a real thing. And obviously she’s pretending through it, but she wouldn’t be there if she sincerely didn’t enjoy it. You look at them, and I think what exists is a real thing. Call it love, call it what you may. She’s just someone who follows her rules, that she’s established. I always pressed Jason, I wanted to know, “What’s going on with her? What’s happening in her life? Is she insatiable? Is she uninspired? Is she … um ... a player? Is she so dissatisfied” He said it didn’t matter. I said, “But it matters. I need a backstory.” Who’s to say, that in her home life, people aren’t condoning that kind of behavior, and saying, “You know what, you look like you need something I can’t provide…” And who’s to say that she doesn’t have a very liberal partner? Okay, so the thing was to not judge it, that was the biggest thing for me, was not to judge that character, and not even to determine why she is the way she is, but like a court-appointed lawyer, before the jury of an audience, defend that character. Find something to defend, and this is a woman … who is compartmentalizing her life, and you only see one facet of it. You see her as a romantic operative. You see her in the romance aspect of her life, and we don’t know what happens everywhere else, in those other compartments.

You don’t even know what she does for a living, exactly.

You don’t. That’s another thing I kept pestering Jason about. “What does she do? Who is she?” He goes, “I don’t know.” I’m like, “What do you mean you don‘t know? You’re the writer. Tell me what she does!” [laughs] And then he had to give me [something], because I said, “Listen, it’s gonna determine what shoes I wear, it’s gonna determine if I have a clutch or a handbag or a backpack or a briefcase.” He’s like, “Uh, let’s make it the same thing as Ryan - she instructs companies how to run a better business. She’s a businesswoman, in short.” But so, yeah, you don’t know much about her, at all.

It’s interesting because Jason also said last night at the Q&A that he doesn’t like back story. And back story is such the rage in American films today. We have separate films in super hero franchises just to explain the back story.

Yeah [laughs]. That’s true. It’s funny.

What did you have going through your head, though, in the scene when you are standing in the doorway, with him standing outside? You must’ve come up with some additional back story for her in that moment.

The staging of that scene is pretty genius. Jason’s got me at the top of the steps, with the exterior lighting of the brownstone highlighting me, and there’s George on the bottom of that staircase, looking up, meaning his big brown hound-dog eyes are gonna be the biggest, brownest hound-dog eyes he’s ever given, as he looks up, and she’s unattainable. So just that proximity and that elevation above him, in being on the top of the stairs when the truth of who Alex is unveiled…did a lot of the work. And then for me it was just responding to what I was being given. I was reacting to what George was being given, and was giving me, and that’s it…that reaction. I wasn’t really thinking, but sort of just looking at George, and reading his face, and just sort of serving back what he was serving me.

(Farmiga back in 2001, in FIFTEEN MINUTES.)

Jason has mentioned that George never leaves the set. Which could drive you crazy with some fellow actors, or it could be great. I assume the latter with George, because everyone seems to love him.

It’s good with George. You want him around, because he’s single-handedly responsible for that tone onset, which is a very frivolous jungle gym. Sense of humor is everything to him. He loves being at work. He respects the crew. He befriends them. He befriends everybody. He’s very open-hearted, and childlike, and happy-go-lucky, and eager to share himself. He loves to make people feel special about themselves. It’s a great gift that he has. He’s a magnet.

"I find with Alex...she’s a sexual adventuress, the things that she says are demanding and liberal and unapologetic, and yet the key was to find a dignity in delivery...That was the key to Alex. "

Let's talk about the shooting of the scene where you and Anna Kendrick meet and compare your expectations of the ideal man in front of George. It's one of the best scenes in the film and also reveals new levels in both the female characters.

That was a long day. We shot the whole morning, so it wasn’t the whole day, but it was the first time that Anna and I got a chance to work together. It was really two different storylines. She was never onset when I was there…and we established our different relationships with the crew, and so I got very quiet that day, and I just wanted to watch her work, because she is so compelling, and she’s such a force of nature, at her age, she’s so self-possessed, and has a wicked sense of humor, and so sharp, and I loved watching her work. I became very sort of quiet that day, and even took my cues from her, watching someone being given this tremendous opportunity, and using it as a springboard…and I love the scene, and for Ryan it’s wonderful, because it’s everything his character has fought against, which is paternity, and husbandry, and yet here he is, taking to his somewhat…his travel wife and his business daughter. That was cool.

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VERA FARMIGA: The Hollywood Interview

This article originally appeared in the December 2005 issue of Venice Magazine. This was the second time I've interviewed Vera, and her star was certainly on the rise at this time, which would, of course, continue with the release of The Departed. Although this interview deals largely with the micro-budgeted Down to the Bone, she also touches briefly on Quid Pro Quo, another very unique and also very small film, which is finally about to get its theatrical release from Magnolia Pictures, a few years after being shot. Our upcoming interview with Nick Stahl, who she co-stars in Quid Pro Quo with, will cover the film in more detail. That interview with Stahl will also appear in this month's issue of Venice.

Vera Farmiga Gets Down to the Bone
by Terry Keefe

It's been over 4 years since we last met with Vera Farmiga and they've been very good to her. At the time, she was doing publicity for 15 Minutes, an action thriller starring Robert De Niro and Ed Burns in which she played a supporting role of an immigrant hairdresser who witnesses a murder. The actress was in the early stages of really getting noticed at that point, having landed other roles in Autumn in New York with Richard Gere and Winona Ryder, as well as The Opportunists with Christopher Walken. On a strictly visual level, it was easy to see why she was garnering attention from these small parts. Blessed with a model's looks, there is something strikingly otherwordly about her which stands out even in an industry known for its lovely ladies. Round features mix with angular ones on her face, which is topped off by stunningly large blue eyes. But perfect cosmetics aside, there was also clearly acting talent there, which she went on to display in television work such as the series "UC: Undercover" and the films Dummy [2002], Iron Jawed Angels [2004], and The Manchurian Candidate [2004].

On an interpersonal level, this writer recalls that Farmiga appeared resolute in not getting too sucked into the L.A. machine. A cell phone had been provided to her for use during her stay, and she referred to it as "this vulgar thing," with a laugh. Then, as now, Farmiga spends much of her time at her home in upstate New York and commutes out here when work requires it. Her desire to center her life close to home in Ulster County made Farmiga an ideal fit for director Debra Granik, who was putting together her feature project Down to the Bone some two years back. For a long time prior, Granik had been shooting videotape of the life of Corinne Stralka, a housekeeper in upstate New York, along with the lives of her children and boyfriend. Corinne was a recovering drug addict and Granik used those tapes as the inspiration for a short film entitled "Snake Feed," in which Corinne, her kids, and boyfriend played themselves. Down to the Bone would be a feature-length treatment of the same material, and in Farmiga, the director found a partner who was as interested in uncovering truth as she was. With a bare bones crew and shooting on digital video, Farmiga and Granik crafted Down to the Bone using largely non-actors and in real locations in upstate New York. Farmiga lived briefly at a rehab center as research and helped populate the film with some friends and neighbors in smaller roles. The film which has emerged takes a sparse fly-on-the-wall approach, which very much feels as if you are in the room with these characters. That isn't always a place easy to be, as the film never goes for a real manipulative moment to jolt you out of the malaise that is the reality of an addict's life. But it is perhaps the most honest portrayal of drug addiction captured in a narrative film yet. Farmiga's performance garnered a Special Jury Prize for acting at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, along with a Best Director nod for Granik. Both well-deserved.

Farmiga will soon be seen in Martin Scorsese's The Departed, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Jack Nicholson, as well as in Anthony Minghella's Breaking and Entering with Jude Law. And this January she'll be seen in Running Scared with Paul Walker.

Did you watch any of the original documentary tapes that the director Debra made of Corinne in preparation?

Vera Farmiga: I watched them once. The film is really a hybrid form, of documentary/cinema verite. It's a combination of scripted documentary from the real-life models, to scripted improvisation from Debra, to improvisation (with the actors) as the script is loose in format, particularly in regards to the scenes in rehab and the ones with the children, to the fact that I live in that part of the world in upstate New York and I bring my own experience to it. So I did watch them once, but I also spent a lot of time with Corinne. We cleaned houses together. I spent lots of time watching her and listening to her. I was right alongside her on my hands and knees scrubbing floors. You know, that original short won Best Short at Sundance, and the audience was really curious. They wanted to know more about where these characters went and what they did.

We are also. Where did Corinne's life go from where Down to the Bone leaves off?

Clean and sober for a long time now. Relapse is often a part of recovery, so there were a lot of hurdles and obstacles. But to obtain anything spiritually, there will always be pitfalls and obstacles in the way. It was a day-to-day struggle. But she is clean and sober. She's got a warrior spirit.

Did you feel the responsibility of taking on her mannerisms in your performance or it was it more her essence that you were going for?
Debra was very clear to me that she didn't want me to mimic. Although it was Corinne's story, I wasn't "playing" her, and Debra wanted me to use her as a source of inspiration. But for me, she moved me so much that I did adopt a lot of her rhythms, and her energy. The way she walks, she has this kind of tough girl exterior which really contradicts the sort of brittle fragility she had inside, at that point of her life at least. So I guess I did adopt some of her mannerisms, along with those of a few of the women who I met when I attended rehab [for research]. Namely, those of a girl named Vera who I met. [laughs]

How long did you attend the rehab program?

Several days and several nights. We slept there. It's amazing to me how open these women were, but it's a curious thing to be involved with, because it's their healing process. And you don't want to interrupt it. You also don't want them to perform for you. It'd be great if there was a glass window you could just observe through. But we were actually in the circle, in the meetings with them. It was a tricky situation, but they welcomed us. Their hearts and spirits were open. Ours were too, our intentions were clear and innocent and very simple. They knew that, so they trusted us. We shared with them our stories also. We'd partake in conversations, not necessarily about addiction, but wherever the conversation would go.

What was the process of working with the non-actors like?

You know, I absolutely loathe and am terrified by the notion of improvisation. It wasn't as frightening for me in this experience though. Somehow it wasn't so daunting. Debra put out an ad in podunk newspapers to come and be a part of this, and a lot of people showed up. The audition process for Debra with these lay people was to give them a situation and have them improvise. Sometimes though, even though they were so compelling to watch and had so much to bring to the roles, once it was scripted they froze up. And all those little beautiful gifts of their personas would disappear. So, we kept it loose and we would improvise. Like my friend Walt [who lives in Ulster County and is in the film] has that scene where he brings the deer head to me. He was given a situation and Debra encouraged Walt to go from there. He brought so much to it. He took the deer head from me and had that line about putting it against the knotty pine. That's who he is. It's hard to even write that. It's things like that which are the treasures of this movie to me. It really helped me to be in an authentic environment. Sometimes you just find yourself on a black soundstage, surrounded by plaster. To have real materials, to have a real knotty pine wall [laughs], it helps. We shot in all real locations in Ulster County. It makes a big difference, because the scent is just there. The scent of a real police station, you know? You don't have to pretend as much.

As opposed to a lot of films about drug addiction, Down to the Bone doesn't have that big histrionic breakdown scene. It portrays addiction much more as quiet suffering.

Yeah, because addiction is pretty monotonous. They always seem to glamorize it in the media and fashion and photography and music. There are people in the culture who can just dabble in it and shrug at it. But for people in real addiction, it's really a drab thing. The monotony of it on a daily basis is what's so scary. This is your life on a daily basis. That's the grisly, grim reality.

It must have been a temptation to go for those big moments though.

Because we're used to seeing something to get our adrenaline going. To manipulate you into some place, because you only have an hour and a half to tell the story. And instead of doing that via words and imagery and photography, the tendency in movies is to manipulate the audience into saying "This is how you should be feeling. You should be feeling sorry for this woman. So let's bring on the violins and cellos." And this film has none of that. Debra is really forcing the audience to sit there for this slice of life. A day-to-day reality of struggle. Debra is so full of integrity.

You also didn't have that fetishizing drug scene that seems to be in every drug film, with the needle slowly being inserted in the most glam manner possible with a hip score.

Oh, she was careful not to show any needles. Very little usage on-screen actually.

You've been getting much bigger studio roles now. Was there anything bigger on the studio level that you had to turn down in order to do this much smaller project?

No, the studio roles came because of this film. I had been steadily working and getting good feedback. But I consider this a gift from Debra. She entrusted me with this. There was no reason, box office-wise, that I should have been given that opportunity. But she did. We laid eyes on each other and trusted each other and there was an ease between us. We had the same philosophies and ideas about filmmaking, I think. This film is why I'm getting the higher-profile films. It's interesting, because no one's seen it other than a few privileged industry people and a few eager festival goers in Marrakesh and Utah [laughs]. But the performance has made an impact in the industry. Working with Marty Scorsese and Anthony Minghella has obviously been great, but the film I just came off of was very much in the spirit of Down to the Bone. It's called Quid Pro Quo, directed by Carlos Brooks. His writing is just impeccable. You know who your character is because it leaps right off the page. It's rare to find that, and it's usually where people want to take risks. That's where my heart is at.

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Robbie Robertson: The Hollywood Interview

Musician and actor Robbie Robertson.


ROBBIE ROBERTSON IS MAKING SOME NOISE
by
Alex Simon

Editor’s Note: The following article originally appeared in the December 1998 issue of Venice Magazine.

Robbie Robertson achieved international fame and prominence with his groundbreaking work in the legendary 60's and early 70's rock group The Band. Known for their innovative blend of roots rock n' roll, blues and country, The Band forged the way for such eclectic groups as The Eagles, R.E.M., and Hootie and the Blowfish with their blend of musical styles and genres. Born Jamie Robbie Robertson on July 5, 1943 in Toronto, Canada to an Anglo father and Native American mother from the Mohawk tribe, Robertson was taught to play the guitar by relatives living on the Six Nations Indian Reservation where his mother was raised, outside Toronto. He spent his teens in various rock groups around Toronto, finally joining up with Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks in 1960. The group also included future Band members Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson. During his time with the Hawks, Robertson found time to work with other musicians as well, most notably Bob Dylan on his classic Blonde On Blonde album. The Hawks became The Band in 1968, and gained instant fame with their debut LP, Music From Big Pink. The group disbanded in 1977, documented in Martin Scorsese's now-legendary film The Last Waltz (1978). Robertson has led a troubadour's life since The Band's break-up, continuing to record new music, act in films, and work with pal Scorsese on the music scores of some of his most famous works, including Raging Bull, King of Comedy, Color of Money, and Casino.

Robertson has never let his fascination with different types of music leave him, this being evident with is newest album release, Contact From the Underworld of Redboy, which finds Robertson re-embracing the music of his Native American roots, and the hour-long documentary Robbie Robertson: Making a Noise, which airs on PBS this month. The film documents Robertson's return to the Six Nations Indian Reservation outside Toronto, Canada, reuniting with friends and relatives, many of whom he hadn't seen in over 30 years. Robertson is joined by other notable Native American musicians, such as Rita Coolidge, Buffy Saint-Marie, John Trudell, and Ulali. Robertson sat down recently to discuss his work, past, present, and future.

I thought Making a Noise was really terrific. It gave me an appreciation of Native American music that I didn't previously have.
ROBBIE ROBERTSON: Yeah, (the filmmakers) did a really terrific job. Making something like this is a little more delicate and complicated than it might seem from the outside. Several people in the Native American community couldn't do it, because they have to answer to their elders, and in Indian country, you do not cross that line. It's a very, very sensitive place. You don't want people from the outside there. It's like it's bad jiu-jiu.

So it's a very closed culture in that sense.
It is, and you have to keep in mind that for so long, a lot of this musicality and the culture has been very private, and in some cases sacred and secret. Like in the case of the peyote ceremony, it's been illegal for 100 years and now has just kind of opened up...after people have been punished and thrown in jail for the past 100 years, just for practicing their religion, that takes kind of a long time to believe again that it's okay to practice it openly. The Native American Church is still very sensitive about it.

When you say the Native American Church, is that a Native American religion that's actually organized like a white church would be?
There's this thing called the N.A.C. and it's an organization that goes from up in Canada, to Arizona, over to Oklahoma, all the way down to Mexico, it's called the "Peyote Belt." There are many nations in this area that are part of the N.A.C. which is another way of saying the peyote religion. I went to a peyote ceremonial a couple months back with this friend of mine, John Trudell, who's a poet and activist. And we went to meet Primo and Mike, these two young guys that I work with. And their attitude is "Come on, it's a new millennium. It's time to share these things, to let people know how beautiful and simple this whole thing is, that it's not threatening. That it's a beautiful way for us to take this sacred medicine and connect with our creator. And this is the way we've been doing it for hundreds and hundreds of years." The older people who may have gotten in trouble for it, are a little less trusting. So right now it's a little in between the two beliefs...There's this guy up in Canada who's the head of the peyote church. He has to approve everything to do with the ceremonial. And during the ceremony, they have a log, where they write down everyone's name, what their affiliation with the church is, what your native connection is...So it's not a lose thing because of the repercussions that vary from state-to-state and district-to-district. At this point, the doors to this world have opened just a little bit for the first time. But even me, going back to where I come from, I have to get permission from everybody to do this. They're gunshy.

Let's talk about your own personal journey. You grew up in Toronto, right?
In my early years I grew up going back and forth between the two worlds. But when I got older, I didn't go as much into Six Nations because I was starting to go deeper into my own existence and own discovery.

What was it like going between those two worlds? Did you encounter a lot of prejudice?
I didn't encounter a lot of prejudice because I could pass (as all-white)...the only predominant time was when I was playing with a couple of my cousins and they had come to Toronto to visit with me. We were playing up at these railroad tracks by this field. One of the things that impressed me so much as a little boy, was how my cousins could see a tree, a branch and could jump up, snap the branch off, and within moments, make the most beautiful weapon you've ever seen! It's such a boy thing! It's awful, but boys love it! So one of my cousins made a bow for me and I was trying it out, hanging by the field. Then these older kids showed up, and because my cousins looked more like Indians than I did, these older kids said "Hey redboy! Where you goin' with that bow in your hand?" And I saw my cousins, and their heads just dropped. And a chill ran through me, from them. I got to feel something through them this time, and it was this sick feeling. You could feel hate in it. And it's stayed with me my whole life. So when I was making this record, I wanted to be blatantly honest, and thought "This is a time for me to bring this out, and get it out of my system." Because of a certain boldness that I wanted to get across in this, that's why I used ("Redboy") in the title. I thought, "I can say this now, and it's healthy for me to say this." I grew up with a philosophy from my mother, which was "Be proud that you're an Indian, but be careful who you tell." And when my mother was growing up, the idea was "The whole Indian thing, it's gotta go." When my mother left the reservation to come to Toronto to live with her aunt, her aunt told her "Don't you tell anybody you're from the reservation. Let them think whatever they want, that you're from another country, but don't tell anyone unless you absolutely have to."

So they made this whole generation of people ashamed of who they were.
More than ashamed. It was like "It's over. You have to become white."

A lot of the archival footage and photos you used in the film showing these Indian kids in their lettermen's sweaters with short haircuts trying to look like Wally and the Beav', were such ironic images.
That's just it. They were trying to be white. This guy I met while we were shooting the film was telling me that as a kid he was taken away from his parents, sent off to a school to be trained to become a white person. He went to this school and within a couple weeks, he was so ashamed of his heritage, that one day he found himself in the boy's bathroom with this bucket of soapwater and an iron brush, trying to wash the Indian off his skin. He said he scrubbed himself raw all over his body trying to "wash the Indian off." For a little boy especially, that's as horrible a story as you ever want to hear.

We've done that to almost every culture in this country. Everyone's expected to assimilate into this little box.
Yeah. People don't like "different." I guess native people from all countries who were invaded by Europeans, had a horrible experience. There's this place I really love called Acoma in New Mexico. Acoma is the name of the tribe and is one of the oldest civilizations in North America, over a thousand years old. They live on top of this huge mesa in the desert. The original buildings from over a thousand years ago are still there, and are still lived in. There's a church up there that was built when the Spanish came. The Spanish made these Indians into slaves, and used to make these Indians run relay-style, with these logs that they had to get dozens of miles away, in order to build this church. So they had this reminder there. And some were affected by Christianity. And there's a place there that's sort of in between both worlds. The peyote religion is some of that, too. They think Jesus was a good guy. Here was a guy just trying to do his best to fight against oppression. But you look at that church, and just think, "God, how cruel," even though it's a beautiful structure.

When you reached your teens, had you begun to pull away from the Indian world?
It wasn't a pulling away. I was from this city environment. My mother didn't want me to have to grow up the way she did. I had this key to go inside these two worlds freely, with no one to check my passport. That was a wonderful gift. When I was very young, in my mind, I thought the cool action was on the reservation, because you were connected to outside, to a freedom. Your playground was the world, it felt like to me. In the city you were confined to a back yard. I didn't have any brothers or sisters. On the reservation, I had hundreds of them. Plus they were amazingly in touch with nature, in ways that never happened in the city. They'd take you out into this lush field and find this one little plant and pull it up, and yank this thing from the bottom and taste it, and it tasted more wonderful than anything you'd find in the city! It was amazing. They could all do shit that nobody else could do!

How did you get back into Native American music again?
It's one of those things that just creeps into your consciousness and creeps into your soul, and you don't have a reason why except that it's in the air, and it's part of this unknown magical thing in life that you're really thankful for, that these gifts come along. It isn't a calculated move. It isn't clever. It isn't intellectual. It's just something that comes from its own place. In music in general, a lot that you count on is based on accidents and discoveries that you trip over that leads you to do something you never would have been able to calculate and figure out. It's also something to do with the fact that parts of you that (are left behind) are almost always going to come back and want to be acknowledged.

It sounds like you were always drawn to music, from the time you were a kid, at a very deep, "soul" level.
That was due to these people on Six Nations. I was in a lot of bands growing up, many of whom were made up of people who were just sort of (playing around). It was never that way for me. From my earliest memories there was music behind me, music in front of me, music was a part of the celebration of these people being together. It got ingrained in me. When I reached puberty and rock and roll came along at the same time and these relatives of mine are already teaching me to play guitar, it was perfect timing! Then when I met Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, there was something about what they did that really pushed some buttons in me. There was a violence, an anger, a power...there was something that wasn't just happy-go-lucky (sings)"We're gonna rock around the clock tonight..." It wasn't like that. There was something mean and demonic and the music was like people really trying to play some shit and play it harder and faster than it had ever been done before!

Do you see the doors opening a little further to Native American culture in the coming millennium?
That's what something like this film is all about. I'm in the position to help out a little bit and say "There's something here in your own back yard that you don't really know that much about that happens to be the original roots music of North America. It happens to be something that's really quite beautiful and magical and for a long time it was your job to ignore it, but now I'm going to turn you on to it, but not in a stereotypical way. This is not the clichés you've seen in the movies. I'm going to do it the way I know people in the Native community hear it. This isn't about 200 years ago, or how it was 100 years ago, this is about right now. It's how we feel today. It's not over. It's not dead. It's not extinct, close enough, but not gone." People are so inclined to think anything to do with Native North America as yesterday's news. "Oh, that was beautiful. Those people, they used to be so wonderful 200 years ago." It's kind of a disregard for now. So I thought it was really important to say "No, no, no! We're makin' a noise right now, right today!"

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