Is this your first time at Sundance?
My first Sundance, here's what I've learned - if you don't make your dinner
reservations 3 months in advance, you're not eating. Not much room for spontaneity
in a town this crowded.
It's packed on Main Street, I'll tell you that. Are you enjoying it here?
I'm having a great time, and that's another thing about Sundance. It is packed,
but everybody here is excited. Everybody here is either connected or invested
in a movie one way or another, or an event, or something having to do with the
festival. There's a heightened sense of excitement here. You can tell when someone's
walking in the street, if you see a celebrity it's like, ‘I can tell his
movie's done really well because he's happy as a clam.’ And you usually
see a lot of people that you're fans of. I'm a Canadian, I'm a kid from Edmonton
[Canada], I was going to be a high school teacher, here I am walking around
Sundance and meeting all sorts of folks of whom I'm a huge fan. I'm having a
great time.
What was your reaction when you first heard that Waitress was going to premiere
here?
I was ecstatic of course, I was very, very excited - however we found out that
we were accepted right after we found out that [director/writer] Adrienne Shelly
had passed. So, everything that's been very, very positive and very, very exciting
and everything that's given us cause to celebrate, at the same time is a bit
of a pang about if only Adrienne could be here to share it with us and be excited
with us.
So do you think its paying homage to her to be able to show it here and hear
crowd reactions?
You know what, this is a beautiful movie, it's a really sweet movie. I read
it and I thought ‘this is great, I'd really love to be part of this movie.’
Then I heard about the cast that was going to be involved and I'm fans and I'm
thinking, ‘I need to be in this movie, and if I get that chance, I'll
be happy.’ And there I am, you know you do the best job you can. But from
the [script] to the cast, you can't put that together and say ‘I know
what this movie's going to be like, I can tell what it's going to be like.’
So seeing the movie for first time yesterday, I was amazed, because I wasn't
around for any of the process. I forced them to show me a couple scenes when
I had to go do my looping. I'm amazed, proud, very, very excited about how well
it's done. And of course I think it becomes a little more important that it
does well and that more people see it simply because now it's become a legacy.
I truly loved it, I have to say. I was astounded by it, I didn't know what
to expect going in and honestly I loved it.
Thank you for that. Cheryl Hines I thought was so frickin’ great. Keri
Russell - you have this woman that has no love in her heart anymore, there's
no love in her life, in her environment. Nothing intimate - not that she's unlikable,
not that she's, ‘feel sorry for me, I'm sad.’ She was just so…
she had a dry heart. Jeremy Sisto - one of these things where, I understand
he's the bad guy, I understand I'm supposed to hate him, and I do. But then
as the movie goes on, because of what Jeremy's doing, I don't hate him. I feel
sorry for this guy, I pity this man, I have sympathy for this idiot. He's got
no clue. It hit me on a lot of levels. And even seeing Adrienne in there - I
thought it would be a lot harder watching the movie than it was, because I was
taken, I was transported, I had to see these characters. I think also by virtue
that I hadn't seen the movie yet. I wanted to see how it ended. Until right
at the very end the little walking into the sunset, that struck a chord with
me. It had extra meaning, so to speak.
**SPOILER AHEAD**
Speaking on the ending, do you know why your character didn't come back and
try again and again to get with Keri's character?
As soon as Keri's character has her child, she has an epiphany, she takes control.
In that instant, everything changes. She looks at her husband and says ‘you're
out’ and there's no mistaking it, he's out. In a kinder way, she said
the same thing to me, ‘you're out.’ This is not something where
you're going to try and change her mind, she's making a fresh start.
Did Adrienne have a doctor like you that she modeled your character after,
given that she wrote this off of her own experiences.
I don't know - you know, I have no idea. I hope she didn't!
Well I was just thinking about that when they were talking about that this
is all modeled after her own life. And I'm thinking, did she have a doctor like
that or?
I think more so what they were talking about, and I was talking with Cheryl
Hines about this, she was saying how it's unapologetic as far as a pregnant
woman. You get this idea ‘oh, I'm pregnant, it's so wonderful, I'm so
happy, I can't believe it, it's going to be great, it's wonderful!’ rather
than ‘I'm really scared, I'm really tired, this thing, it doesn't feel
good.’ There's a lot of fears, and a lot uncomfortability, if that's a
word, that goes along with being pregnant. And she just basically said so, she's
speaking those fears, she's saying everything out loud, and without apology.
There were a lot of scenes where you and Keri [Russell] went ‘all out,
making out.’ Were you at all nervous going into these?
This is Keri Russell we're talking about, so, are you asking me, did I watch
‘Felicity’, did I have a crush on her for the better part of 10
years? Yes, but, what's important is - I made out with Keri Russell. She's a
wonderful lady, number one, and an amazing actress, very, very talented. All
you can hope for is when you have a scene such as this is that everybody's going
to be cool, and you can trust these people. You're just there to tell a story
and try to tell it as best you can.
And Keri Russell, God bless her, she made every effort to make me - cause that
stuff makes me kinda tense too, just try not to sweat - but she made every effort
to make me comfortable, and everything we did was just ‘let's just go
for it.’ Wouldn't it be better if we just jumped on the desk, I think
we have to use the stirrups, I mean, why wouldn't you if you were in the doctor's
office, why wouldn't you use the stirrups. It can be very awkward, these things,
you think, yea you get to go make out… this is a stranger to me, this
is not my idea of the greatest time in the world as far as - ‘I'm not
nervous at all!’ But then you get to work with wonderful people that are
interested in telling the story, and that's part of it. I'm blessed to have
been able to work with Keri Russell and on top of that for her being as wonderful
as she is.
This is another funny question, did you actually learn to make pies or
get to make any pies when you were filming?
I was making a little bit of a pie and I kept getting in trouble ’cause
I kept sticking my finger in the melted chocolate. You've got lots of food around
you and it's just sitting there. These guys are sitting in the back and they're
just making it in nice little piles and it looks good - it's not looking good
by accident. And they set it down there and it all has to be the same for every
scene and when you walk in and throw a couple of those blackberries in your
mouth, they're going ‘erp, got to go put two back.’ And they're
checking their Polaroid, making sure they're set in the right way. So I get
into a lot of trouble for that, the chocolate though you couldn't really tell
that I was fingering it.
What's been your motivation for taking on more romantic roles as opposed
to action-intense roles?
People ask me that - your choice of roles. I don't have 4 or 5 projects
in front of me and an offer on every one saying ‘what one would you like
to do?’ Things come along one at a time. You either say, as far as, this
really doesn't interest me, or, I'll do anything to be a part of this, just
tell me what I got to do - let me help tell this story, let me have a piece
of the pie, so to speak.
What draws me to roles, I think, are moments - moments that define character,
where so much more of the story is told in just a moment - a look, a line, a
short scene, but something that speaks a volume, something that speaks to me.
Whether that be action roles - great, I get to do that, that's wonderful. I
get to have a good time, I get to shoot guns, I get to run around with space
monsters, let's go, I'll do that! Come and tell this wonderful story about this
awkward but sweet love affair, OK! There's a challenge in that, there's a challenge
in beating up space slugs, and there's a challenge in having this passionate
yet awkward love affair. I choose roles based on moments and based on challenges.
And based on the story, not based on ‘now I think I'll do romance.’
You always have very well defined characters, you just mentioned that -
do you do research, back research beyond the script, to really get a more well-rounded
character.
I've heard other people saying this, too. There's one fella I heard saying
‘you can never pretend to be someone else, you're always just being a
piece of you. You can only act pieces of you.’ I think there's truth to
that. What would I be like if I were cold and bitter and heartless? What would
that do to me? I've had very positive, wonderful experiences; my parents are
still married, I was never at a loss for food, or shoes, or anything like that.
I was always well taken care of, and well loved, I've had a very positive life.
It becomes an intellectual exercise: what would I be like if that were different,
how would that effect me, what would you be thinking about inside, how would
you feel about yourself, what kind of self image would you have? I've been going
on so long now I forgot your question…
It was just back research beyond the script…
What I do is I often go to, who does this character make me think of. There
was an audition I did for this cowboy, this country guy, who, nothing phased
him. He was always this kind of dry, he never raised his voice, never talked
just above a whisper. He said how he felt, but always in kind of a poetic manner,
but a tough, tough guy who seemed to be able to handle whatever life threw at
him. And he was thrown into some really extreme situations.
And I thought to myself, one of my best friends grew up on a ranch in Texas
with his grandfather, and told a story about how they were having to castrate
bulls. You put ‘em into a pen, you close this gate behind ‘em, you
do the castration, and then you send them off on the other side. Open up the
gate, throw another one in there, he's closing up the gate, the bull kicks,
the gate between the post, he has his thumb in there, and it severs his thumb,
so when he takes off his glove his thumb is hanging from just a little bit of
flesh. And he goes, ‘well, we got 6 more to do’ so he just tries
to jam it all back into the glove so he can continue doing his work. This is
a man who's not phased by the adversity that might be brought on by losing your
thumb - the ability to grip an object, didn't occur to him as much as just finishing
the job at hand, we got 6 more to go. You think about characters that you know
of that you can kind of draw on. If there's something technical for sure, you'd
have to do some research.
I was going to ask, do you think fans of ‘Firefly’ or even
fans of Slither and your very differing roles would ever have a chance of being
interested in Waitress?
They better be - or they're no fans of mine!