WRITER’S NOTE: The following interview took place on September 26, 2013.
“A.C.O.D.” is an abbreviation for Adult Children of Divorce and the movie stars Adam Scott as Carter, a man who suffered through his parents’ bitter divorce as a child. Now as an adult, he owns a restaurant and appears to be a well-adjusted person despite what he has been through. But then his younger brother Trey (Clark Duke) informs him that he has just gotten engaged, he asks Carter to see if they can get their parents, Hugh (Richard Jenkins) and Melissa (Catherine O’Hara), to come to the wedding. This proves to be quite a challenge as neither Hugh nor Melissa can stand to be in the same room with one another, and this leads to a number of surprises that no one sees coming.
Scott started off as a dramatic actor, but in recent years he has proven to be quite adept at doing comedy. He starred in the movie “Friends with Kids” opposite Jon Hamm and Kristen Wiig, and he has given memorable performances in “The Aviator,” “Knocked Up” and “Torque.” Many still remember him best for his roles on the television series “Party Down” as failed actor Henry Pollard who rejoins a catering company and on “Parks and Recreation” where he plays the competent but socially awkward government official Ben Wyatt. The star of that show, Amy Poehler, also appears in “A.C.O.D.” as Carter’s stepmother Sondra.
I got to participate in a roundtable interview with Scott when he was at the SLS Hotel in Los Angeles, California for the “A.C.O.D.” press conference, and he talked about working with Clark Duke and Amy Poehler, and he also gave us an update on Ben Stiller’s upcoming adaptation of “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.”
Question: Adam you were terrific in this movie as the exasperated older brother. What was it like working with Amy Poehler who plays your bitchy stepmother?
Adam Scott: Thank you. It was really, really fun because usually we’re just making googly eyes at each other on “Parks and Recreation,” so it was just fun to hate each other’s guts. I remember when I asked her to do it. I just said, “Would you like to come play my stepmother? Don’t worry, we’re the same age” (we are the same age in real life). Luckily, she said yeah. It was really, really exciting that she would even consider doing it. It’s just always fun working with Amy in whatever capacity. Sometimes I do yard work for her (laughs).
Question: How much of this movie was improvised and how much of it was scripted?
Adam Scott: The movie is pretty much all scripted. There’s not much improvisation at all in the movie. It was just a really strong script. There was no need for improvisation and there wasn’t much time to mess around just because we had to shoot the whole thing so quickly.
Question: When you are playing a character like Carter, how do you keep him grounded in reality?
Adam Scott: I think the script is very grounded in reality. We could all relate to certain bits of it so I think it all starts with that. And the atmosphere and tone that Stu Zicherman (the co-writer and director) was setting with the movie was a very real and grounded one.
Question: There is a lot of family dysfunction to be found in this movie, but the relationship your character has with Trey is one of the more tame, genuine relationships of brotherly love. How did you go about establishing that chemistry and working together?
Adam Scott: We never even talked about it, but I think that Clark and I just sort of get along in regular life so that just kind of carries over.
Question: And does Clark also help out with Amy Poehler’s yard work?
Adam Scott: Yes, we all work full-time for Amy at her mansion. Clark and I are in charge of all of her wigs (laughs).
Question: How did this project come to you and what was it about it that spoke to you?
Adam Scott: I just read it and immediately wanted to do it back I guess it was now a couple of years ago. I just thought it was really funny. It reminded me of “Flirting with Disaster” which is one of my favorite movies. I thought it was really smart and really funny, and I was already a fan of Ben Karlin (the movie’s co-writer) and Stu. I didn’t even hesitate. I just tried to get the job immediately and at that point there was no cast signed on to it, so it was sort of a steady stream of these wonderful surprises of amazing people they were getting to fill out the rest of the roles.
Question: Ken Howard plays Melissa’s current husband, Gary, in the movie. What was it like having the President of the Screen Actors Guild on set?
Adam Scott: Super scary. He carries a pistol (laughs). He deputized Clark and I during filming and we each got a firearm.
Question: What are you working on next?
Adam Scott: I’m doing “Hot Tub Time Machine 2” with Clark, “Parks and Recreation” starts this month, and then I’m in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” which comes out on Christmas.
Question: Regarding “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” have you seen the original movie before coming into this one?
Adam Scott: Yeah, I saw it years ago and loved it. This is very, very different from the original for sure. The story itself (written by James Thurber) is so short that any movie that’s made out of it is going to have to wildly extrapolate from what it was. It’s a really, really, really good movie.
“A.C.O.D.” is now available to own and rent on DVD, Blu-ray and Digital.
Actor Clark Duke made his big breakthrough with his own web series “Clark and Michael” in which he played a fictional version of himself opposite Michael Cera. Since then, he has gone on to give a number of hilarious performances in movies like “Sex Drive,” “Kick Ass” and “Hot Tub Time Machine.” This past summer, he stole some scenes in the eagerly awaited sequel “Kick Ass 2″ in which he reprised his role of Marty who has now taken on the superhero identity of Battle Guy.” Clearly, he has become the guy to go to for memorable supporting roles.
In his latest movie, “A.C.O.D.” (Adult Children of Divorce), Clark plays Trey who lives in the basement of his older brother Carter’s (Adam Scott) house. Both Trey and Carter managed to survive their parents’ bitter divorce as kids, but it looks to have forever soured Carter on the thought of marriage. Trey, however, ends up getting engaged to his girlfriend and begs Carter to get their estranged parents to come to the wedding. Knowing how their parents can’t stand to be in the same with one another, Carter knows that this will be a challenge to say the least, but he goes through with the improbable reunion because that’s what his little brother wants. But as things get underway, Trey has yet to learn the real truth of what is going on behind his back.
We got to catch up with Duke during a roundtable interview which was held at the SLS Hotel in Los Angeles, California as part of the “A.C.O.D.” press conference, and he proved to be as funny off screen as he is on it.
Question: When you’re playing a character like Trey, how do you keep him grounded in reality as an actor?
Clark Duke: Well, this script was pretty grounded. We didn’t have to improv a lot. A good script makes our job a lot easier.
Question: You and Adam Scott play brothers in this movie. How did you go about establishing that chemistry and working together?
Clark Duke: Well, it probably helped that we knew each other beforehand and we were friends before the movie so there wasn’t much of an acclimation period, I guess. I have one sibling, a younger brother, so I kind of tapped into that. As to how to play it, I related more to Adam’s character while reading the script. When you have a cast that’s good, nothing’s too hard.
Question: How did this project come to you and what made you want to do it?
Clark Duke: I just read the script. You get sent scripts all the time, but ninety-nine percent of them are just unreadable and terrible. So, when you get a really good one that really stands out… That’s just the truth; most of them are just god-awful. I went to the table read in just actively wanted to do the movie, so I did (laughs).
Question: Ken Howard, the current President of the Screen Actors Guild, co-stars in this movie as well. What was it like working with the union boss?
Clark Duke: No riffraff on the set. No grace periods for lunch, just ended right on time every day (laughs). He’s a licensed deputy as the SAG-AFTRA head.
Question: Adam Scott joked that Ken Howard deputized the both of you and gave you both firearms…
Clark Duke: We immediately abused it (laughs). I would waive mine at cars. We were in Atlanta so I would go to a lot of strip clubs with the gun, and then I’d float my SAG card and they are like OK. They just had to put up with it (laughs).
“A.C.O.D.” is now available to own and rent on DVD, Blu-ray and Digital.
WRITER’S NOTE: This interview took place back in 2013.
Who doesn’t love Jane Lynch? We see her everywhere these days either as Sue Sylvester on the hit show “Glee” or hosting the NBC game show “Hollywood Game Night.” Lynch is an endlessly talented actress who never fails to give a tremendously entertaining performance in anything she does. While we may not have recognized her right away as a doctor working alongside Harrison Ford in “The Fugitive,” she would later go on to steal scenes in the Christopher Guest mockumentaries “Best in Show” and “A Mighty Wind.” After that, she made her big breakthrough opposite Steve Carell in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” as Paula, the electronics store manager who offers, in a rather bizarre way, to have sex with the man of the movie’s title.
We got to meet with Lynch during the press day for the comedy “A.C.O.D.,” its title meaning Adult Children of Divorce. In it she plays Dr. Judith, a therapist who was there for Carter (played by Adam Scott) as a young boy when his parents go through an incredibly messy and bitter divorce. Now Carter has come back to Dr. Judith after hearing that his younger brother has just gotten engaged to get her advice on a few matters. But what Carter soon realizes is that Dr. Judith was not actually his therapist when he was a child, but instead a writer who used him and other kids for her study on children of divorce, and it ended up turning into a book which is now in its umpteenth edition.
The press day for “A.C.O.D.” came just a few days after the Emmy Awards in which Lynch got to share the stage with a number of entertainers including Neil Patrick Harris.
Question: The opening of the Emmy Awards this year was fantastic. What exactly were you going to do to lynch Mr. Harris?
Jane Lynch: I was going to throw him down and show him what kind of a woman I can be, but that’s something he would not enjoy unless I said that I would enjoy it less (laughs).
Question: You did have the somber tribute to your “Glee” co-story Cory Montieth, but then you are also celebrating and get to have this great comedic moment.
Jane Lynch: Yes, that was great and to see the company I keep on being one of the guys with Jimmy, Jimmy, Judy and Neil and Conan. I was just out of my body going wow, this is pretty amazing!
Question: Many were surprised that you didn’t have a singing and dancing number given that you have been on Broadway a number of times.
Jane Lynch: Yes, exactly! Well, I’m kind of glad that it was confined to what it was (laughs).
Question: What attracted you to the role of Dr. Judith in “A.C.O.D.?” You have actually played many therapists throughout your career.
Jane Lynch: Many times, and I’m playing one on Saturday in a little spot for a friend of mine. I think I’m fascinated with therapy and I’m fascinated with my own therapist (laughs). I have a terrific therapist who I have seen over the years and I would say that we’re probably friends now. We’ve come to the point where we’re friends. I always take a little bit of her and blow it up because she’s a very interesting person.
Question: Has your therapist ever been offended by your portrayals?
Jane Lynch: NO! She’s like ha, ha, ha! She loves it!
Question: It seems that many actors do go to therapy for years and years. Why do you think that is?
Jane Lynch: Well, I don’t know if that’s absolutely true, but I wouldn’t be surprised. What we do is we examine ourselves because we’re interested in all aspects of humanity, and the place you have to start to be any good at acting is with yourself. Everything is inside of you, all of it; the murderer, the great mother, the therapist, the husband, everything is inside of us. Because we’re human beings, we can relate to almost every emotion and I think that kind of exploration you do in therapy makes you more open and creative and more empathetic. You are able to see a character from the point of view of the inside out as opposed to, ooh, I’m playing a bad guy! Let’s get deep inside this person so we know what makes this sociopath tick. What in me is sociopathic? We all have it. For me, my therapy has always run parallel with the characters I play. I’ll find something that I’m dealing with that will come up in a character.
Question: For the longest time there was a lack of roles for women of age but now that seems to be changing. Do you believe that the tide is turning?
Jane Lynch: I don’t know if you will be able to point to a moment in time where the tide did turn, but I think that it definitely has. I love this new generation of girls coming up. It sounds so old when I say that, but there’s an entitlement to people like Amy Poehler and Tina Fey where they just expect to have a seat at the table so they have a seat at the table.
Question: Do you ever think you will step behind the camera to direct?
Jane Lynch: I don’t know. I don’t feel that I have to, but I have a feeling that I will at some point. But it will come out of something that will have me saying, ooh I want to do that. But I don’t think I can sit here and go, I would like to direct one day.
Question: Do you think you could direct yourself?
Jane Lynch: Yeah. Sometimes I wish I could, you know? One of the worst moments on set is when the director says, “Jane I have an idea…” I hate that! I will have the ideas thank you! I think a great director sees what you can bring to the table and they go okay and maybe they build on that. But to take you in a completely different direction… If Christopher Guest does that then fine, but not Joe Schmo.
“A.C.O.D.” is now available to own and rent on DVD, Blu-ray and Digital.
WRITER’S NOTE: This interview took place back in 2013, and I have indicated the specific question I asked during it.
Catherine O’Hara is one of the best comedic actresses working today, and she never fails to give a hilarious performance in anything she does. After making a name for herself on “SCTV,” O’Hara went on to a career in movies that included unforgettable roles like the self-centered Delia Deetz in “Beetlejuice” and the forgetful mother Kate McCallister in “Home Alone.” But some of her best work to date has come from her being in the hilarious mockumentaries of Christopher Guest such as “Waiting for Guffman” and “Best in Show.” O’Hara even received a number of nominations and awards for her role as Marilyn Hack in “For Your Consideration.”
In “A.C.O.D.” (an abbreviation for Adult Children of Divorce), O’Hara plays Melissa who, as the movie starts, is undergoing an extremely bitter divorce from her husband Hugh (Richard Jenkins). Since their marriage ended, Melissa has made it clear that she hates Hugh with every fiber of her being. Then she gets the news that her youngest song Trey (Clark Duke) has just gotten engaged to his girlfriend of a few months, but what she has yet to discover is that her other son Carter (Adam Scott) is working on getting her and Hugh together so that they can attend Trey’s wedding in a peaceful fashion. While you may think you know what happens from there, “A.C.O.D.” proves to have many surprises and takes you in directions you don’t see coming.
We got to meet up with O’Hara during the “A.C.O.D.” press junket which was held at the SLS Hotel in Los Angeles, California. She still looks very lovely after all these years, and her hearty laugh is more than enough proof that she hasn’t lost her sense of humor in the slightest.
Question: “A.C.O.D.” was written by Stu Zicherman and Ben Karlin who have great pedigrees as writers, and you also have Zicherman directing this movie as a first-time director. How did he do as a first-time director and what was the atmosphere like on set?
Catherine O’Hara: I wasn’t aware of him being a first-time director while we were working because he wrote it for one thing. He and Ben wrote it and they are great friends, and Ben was there all the time so you had a good support system. Stu seems like a levelheaded kind of clear, confident guy and he’s funny. When people are smart and good at what they are doing like that and have a sense of humor about everything outside of themselves and even themselves, they are not threatened by anyone giving ideas or working collaboratively. It is a collaborative venture and you can’t lose by being open to the people you’ve hired. Not in the way that it was like a free-for-all, you just knew there was a chance to discuss everything there and he’s so open and he’s a great writer. It just felt like I was in good hands.
The Ultimate Rabbit: The thing I really liked about this movie is that you really don’t know what’s going to happen next. Most comedies you kind of get a sense of the formula and where it’s going to go, but this one really had surprise after surprise. Have you read a lot of scripts like that recently?
Catherine O’Hara: No, you would have seen me in them (laughs). If I was reading them, hopefully I had a chance for them. No, there aren’t enough. They (Stu and Ben) took their time writing this and it’s based on their lives and they have been friends since they were six or seven years old. They know all their extended families and their stepparents, and they really took their time and did a great job and they really thought it out. Every character is taken care of, that’s what I love. It’s not just one or two leads and everyone else is just barely there. Where are you going now? Out of your movie…
Question: That seems to be the case with most movies, but this one gives each of its characters the attention they deserved.
Catherine O’Hara: It is, far too many. This one was really well thought out.
Question: Ken Howard who plays your second husband Gary is also President of the Screen Actors Guild. What was it like having the union leader on set?
Catherine O’Hara: There was that whole merger thing coming up (with SAG and AFTRA) and I personally was against it and he was for it.
Question: Did you talk with Ken about it?
Catherine O’Hara: I did. I asked him why is this good. He seems like a good, smart man, but I just didn’t get it. His explanation was… You could tell that he really cares about the unions and wanted the best for everyone so that was nice to hear.
Question: But you still disagree with him?
Catherine O’Hara: I’m really so not involved with the union in any way, so I had to trust him. He actually is really involved and knows what he’s talking about, so I thought okay. I just like to work and get paid (laughs).
Question: You have been in show business for a long time now. Have you seen a change because for the longest time there was this great void of roles for women over 40 and 50. Do you believe that the tide is now turning?
Catherine O’Hara: There are more and more women writing, and there are more and more good male writers who decided and learned that it’s worth writing for women. I guess the more women are present and out there in life, the more their stories will be told. Our stories have always been told on Lifetime (laughs).
Question: Have you ever thought about stepping behind the camera to direct at some point?
Catherine O’Hara: I only want to write. I don’t care about directing really. I’ve tried it and it was fun, but it’s not like something I have to do. I hate losing trust in a director, that’s awful.
Question: So, what’s coming up for you next?
Catherine O’Hara: I have a movie at the Toronto Film Festival which will hopefully come out soon and it’s called “The Right Cut of Wrong,” and I think I’m reshooting a pilot that didn’t get picked up.
Question: That’s good, and they’ll pay you to do it.
Catherine O’Hara: There you go! Work and pay. Work and get paid, and good for Ken Howard looking after us (laughs).
“A.C.O.D.” is now available to own and rent on DVD, Blu-ray and Digital.
“Gimme Shelter” gives audiences one of the most intimate looks at life inside a shelter for those in need they could ever hope to see. It stars Vanessa Hudgens who turns in an astonishing performance as Apple Bailey, the child of an abusive and drug addicted mother. At the film’s beginning, Apple runs away from home and seeks out her biological father, a Wall Street banker named Tom Fitzpatrick (played by Brendan Fraser) who does what he can to help her out, but she ends up running away upon discovering she’s pregnant, and because Tom isn’t excited about her wanting to keep the baby. After a couple of nights on the streets and a nasty car accident, Apple finds her way to a shelter for young pregnant women run which is run by a spiritual woman, and it is there that she begins to feel a sense of hope for the first time in her life.
“Gimme Shelter” was written and directed by Ronald Krauss who actually spent some time in an actual women’s shelter run by Kathy DiFiore, a once homeless woman who eventually turned her life around and founded Several Sources Shelters which is dedicated to helping women in need. Krauss’ original plan was to make a documentary out of all the interviews he did with residents of the shelter, but in an attempt to show the world of the importance of the work DiFiore has done and to keep her legacy going, he decided to make a feature length movie instead.
I got to meet with Krauss and DiFiore during a roundtable interview at the “Gimme Shelter’s” press day held at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. It was especially nice to see DiFiore there as she does not do a lot of publicity. DiFiore talked about why she decided to let Krauss make this movie which was inspired by her work. Krauss went into detail about his experiences at the shelter, and he also explained how he came to cast Hudgens in the lead role.
Question: How are you?
Kathy DiFiore: Good but a little tired. I’ve never been to so many interviews (everyone laughs).
Question: Welcome to our world. So, what did you think when this guy (Ronald Krauss) shows up on your doorstep? I guess you’re used to having people show up on your doorstep, but this guy…
Kathy DiFiore: Usually they’re pregnant women (laughs).
Question: Yeah right. This guy shows up and I doubt it went like, “Uh, can I stay here because I’m doing research for a movie.” But how did you feel when he proposes the idea of doing a movie based on your thing?
Kathy DiFiore: Well, it didn’t happen that way. It happened more like he was visiting his brother who happens to live a mile and a half from the shelter, and he had heard about my work through a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, and he volunteered. It was Christmas time and I let people come in to volunteer all the time, especially someone that has the talents he has. He eventually said, “Maybe I could film some of what you’re doing” which I wasn’t fond of because of the $10,000 fine. I didn’t want any publicity. I thought, let me just go quietly. No public relations. Over the course of time, and it took several months as he was doing the work speaking with the young mothers and they got to know him, they would come to me and tell me how much they respected him and how much he respected them. He felt they were giving him private information, but he was treating them with such dignity. You don’t hear those types of words coming out of the women that come to me. They’ve been abused and abandoned and are really confused by so many, particularly men, in their lives. And then I heard a little voice inside my head, I’m a very prayerful woman and I was asking God for guidance, and I heard, “Trust him.” And when I heard “trust him,” it kept going on. Trust him, trust him, trust him. I thought, okay holy spirit, okay, and then he and I talked about some of the things he looked at.
Ronald Krauss: I didn’t really have any sort of agenda when I met Kathy. I wasn’t really setting out to make a film. It just so happened that her shelter was a mile from my brother’s house and it was at Christmas time. Usually during the holidays I’m, like a lot of people, at food banks or something or shelters just reaching out to people who are less fortunate. I remember the first time I was there visiting Kathy and walked into that shelter for the first time and saw mothers and children walking around and it was really fascinating. It’s exactly what you see in the film because we shot the film at the real place. I had learned that Kathy had not done any publicity in her work. For the last 30 years she remained anonymous other than when she started with the $10,000 fine, and that was news of a woman who was homeless and was trying to give back to society by turning her own home into a shelter. The state came down on her, and that’s a whole other story. She reached out to Mother Teresa, and Mother Teresa came by her side and together they changed the laws in the state of New Jersey, and she was honored in the White House with Ronald Reagan. I learned all of this which was fascinating and I was sort of intrigued by her, but I was more intrigued by… the young women that struggled and were finding their way in life and the woman that was sort of selflessly helping them with her work in this shelter and five shelters she has now; some just for homeless women and some for teenagers and different things. My first thing was to sort of really help her organize so that her legacy and her work would continue. I didn’t realize that I was planting the seeds for a film that I was really trying to say that people need to learn about your work. I was thinking at first that I was going to document her work just for her own purpose so people could find out later. With any device that I found there, and I actually borrowed her camera, I started to interview the girls and record the girls and go through her boxes and look at all her old videotapes. It was a lot of stuff. I started filming one girl after the next, one after the next, interview and asking where they were from, how they ended up here, where’s their parents, where’s all these things and the tapes started piling up. I would put them in Kathy’s office in the back, and before I know it there was a whole stack of tapes of these girls and their stories and they were all very similar. They were all stories of abuse and neglect and abandonment. It was both something like a bad mother, bad father, nobody cared and the thing they had in common is that they didn’t pick this life. They didn’t pick these parents. They didn’t pick up parent who was a drug addict or an alcoholic, it just happened. And what do people do when these things happen? They just get abused and they struggle in life, and they think there’s no hope. A lot of times the will of the parents and the people who are bad, it gets thrown onto the kids and they become angry and bitter and they fight and rebel and they run away and become homeless, and so it’s a vicious cycle. I think the turning point of the whole thing for me was I kept going back and back and weeks were passing and peoples’ lives were passing through my life, and they were touching me but I was sort of a little bit removed in a sense. Then one day I showed up at the shelter at about 7 o’clock at night and there was a young girl standing there in front of the shelter; an African American girl about 18 years old. It was about 15 degrees out, she had no jacket on and she was just standing there and I said, “Can I help you? Why don’t you come inside? What are you doing out here?” I thought she lived in the shelter but she didn’t and she thought I worked there and I didn’t obviously work there, so we were kind of misleading each other. Then Kathy shows up and I’m standing in the living room with this girl and Kathy says, “Who’s this girl?” And I said, “I don’t know. She was in front of the shelter.” And she comes over and says, “Never let anybody in the shelter. These are the rules here.” She kind of dug into me a little bit, you know? And I was like, “Okay but this girl, she didn’t have a place to go. She’s by herself, she doesn’t have a jacket, she has nothing.” And she says, “Let me talk to her.” Kathy’s very seasoned obviously and knows what to look for in these people because they could be deceiving, and she interviewed her and she came back to me and said, “It just so happens that we have one bed left in the shelter. Why don’t you tell this girl that she could stay here.” And so I went up to her, her name was Darlecia, and I said, “Hey Darlecia, they have an extra bed here for you to stay. You can stay here” and this girl… I’m sorry (Ronald started to get teary eyed) … Anyway, this girl, she hugged me so hard that she almost knocked me over.
Question: Is she the one that you based Vanessa Hudgens’ character on?
Ronald Krauss: Yeah. It was a jolt into my heart about that there were many young girls like this out there and that could use help. That’s what inspired me and made me think if I was to make a film it could create awareness for other people. I asked Kathy about it and she said absolutely not, of course. And then time went on and she came to me and said, “You know the girls really respect you and trust you in terms of the care of what you’ve been doing, and perhaps you’re right. Maybe some sort of film could really help to spread the word that shelters like this exist and that other people can be kind, and maybe someone will open a shelter if they see a film like this.” But no one ever anticipated it would be a film like this.
Question: What made you choose Vanessa Hudgens for the role of Apple Bailey and what was it like to work with her?
Ronald Krauss: I never thought that a Hollywood actress could really play the role like this after living there for like a year. I lived there for a year writing this script. And there are a lot of famous actors that wanted to do it and had auditioned and some of them were really well known, and then someone mentioned Vanessa Hudgens and I didn’t really know who she was. I met with her and she was very passionate to play this role. She believed in herself that she could really do it. There was something inside of her. She turned in a great audition, she was persistent, and the turning point was that I had taken all the auditions, there was about seven or eight that I liked, and I sent them to the shelter. I didn’t tell them who I was thinking about. And when they saw the link of the girls, they unanimously picked Vanessa. They said this is the girl who should play this part, and that was the confirmation. She dove into this thing, she lived in the shelter, cut her hair off, she gained 15 pounds and besides the physical transformation, she transformed inside and she bonded with Kathy and the girls and they trusted her and they opened up to her.
Question: Kathy, what did you think of the final film?
Kathy DiFiore: (It’s) perfect. It still makes me cry when I watch it. There are women who have left Several Sources that want to come and see it and I can’t wait for that. It’s a legacy for us.
“Gimme Shelter” is now available to own and rent on DVD, Blu-ray and Digital.
The wonderful Juno Temple has left an indelible impression in movies like “Atonement,” the controversial “Killer Joe,” and as Selina Kyle’s BFF in “The Dark Knight Rises.” Now she gets to move up to a starring role in Ramaa Mosley’s “The Brass Teapot” in which she plays the happily married Alice. She and her husband John (Michael Angarano) are madly in love with each other but also seriously broke, and she is desperately looking for a job but is constantly turned down for other applicants who have more experience, usually in the form of a master’s degree. But one day she discovers a beautiful brass teapot at an antiques store which ends up spewing out money whenever she hurts herself, and from there Alice does everything she can to generate all the money she and her husband could ever need.
I got to catch up with Temple during a roundtable interview at “The Brass Teapot’s” press conference which was held at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. She described Alice as being a “confused creature” because while she is not doing well financially, she does have a wonderful husband to lean on during tough times. Temple talked about the similarities and differences between her and Alice and how they each came to inform the way she played this character.
Juno Temple: It’s interesting for me because she’s someone that I find myself very different from, but that’s the challenge isn’t it? That’s the joy of being an actress. At the beginning she can’t see what is in front of her. She just can’t open her eyes and see that actually, in the grand scheme of the universe, she’s bloody lucky. She’s very ambitious and she expects a lot more for herself, and she’s frustrated that she is not where she thinks she should be at. So, her ego is kind of hurt and she’s almost embarrassed to be who she is which I understand, but it’s almost like c’mon, look at this amazing husband you have! Look at this person who adores you, and people can only dream of people that look at you that way sometimes.
Now once the brass teapot, which Temple described as being “magical, mythical and a devil,” comes into the picture, Alice undergoes a major switch as she and her husband acquire a wealth which has long been denied to them. She becomes insatiably greedy as they stand to make so much money through the pain and misery they willfully inflict on themselves and each other. As Temple continued to talk, I really came to admire the objectivity she had about Alice and how the character fits into the overall story.
JT: It’s interesting because she almost kind of deserves to go through what you go through to open her eyes to reality a little bit because I think she’s being a bit lazy with the teapot. The whole joy of booking a job as an actress, auditioning and then coming back and maybe doing a screen test and then actually getting cast and then getting to shoot the same for real, is you earn it. You earn that moment and it’s joyous. With Alice, she’s getting in a muddle that she thinks that this money is hers, but actually it’s the teapot’s and it’s feeding off some really, really important emotional nasty shit that is inside of this couple and giving them money. But actually, it’s destroying these people and give them what they think is awesome and useful and makes life like a good thing like a big house, posh dresses, nice dresses, etc. In the end, she really takes it too far.
The other great thing about Alice as a character is she does have an arc. In acting classes, teachers tell their students to map out the journey the character they are playing has in a play or script. Each character starts off at a certain point and ends becoming a different kind of person at the conclusion, and as an actor you need understand where your character is going from start to finish. This way it becomes not about the end result but more about the journey you take when you finally come to play your character on stage or screen. Temple took the time to describe the journey Alice has in “The Brass Teapot” and of where it eventually leads her to.
JT: I like the arc that she has because she really does learn about herself. It’s almost like she grows up from being a child to a grown-up, and I think it’s ultimately a story about love and about someone really, really loving someone else and helping someone through this crazy addiction, and love kind of conquering everything, I guess.
Speaking of addiction, Temple did quite a bit of research into drug addiction as she felt Alice was essentially an addict herself. The teapot of the movie’s title is an object of greed as well as a narcotic of the most inviting kind. Once it has a grasp on Alice, it almost completely consumes her and her husband in the process.
JT: What I learned about it was that you cannot control it. Your body becomes completely dependent on it that it almost hurts to get rid of it. So that was a really interesting thing for me of it almost being a painful process to sever the tie between her and the teapot. But the tie between her and her husband wasn’t as painful. Drug addiction destroys a lot of relationships, and sometimes it can create new relationships when people get it out of your lives. That was a major research thing for me and a major thought behind it.
But while “The Brass Teapot” deals with the dangers of an addiction, Temple is quick to stress the movie is really a comedy with a lot of humor. It’s a fable at its heart of how money can change you, but it can’t make you happy all the time. Temple is a joy to watch throughout as she takes Alice from being a frustrated and unemployed young woman to an endlessly greedy human being willing to do anything to keep those dollar bills flying in.
As the interview came to an end, she shared with us what keeps her going as an actress.
JT: We’re all in this business because we love it, because we’re passionate about it. If it’s a 20-hour day, tomorrow could be another one, but guess what? There’s a weekend coming. I think you’re in it for the right decisions if you’re willing to do a 20-hour day, and if you need a few extra tears are just going to ask them to wait for 15 minutes. I definitely want to be at giving actress and that’s something I really, really, really treasure.
The Ultimate Rabbit 