CountingDown's David Server recently sat down with Darren Aronofsky, Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz to discuss their upcoming movie The Fountain. Check out the transcript below!
By David Server
DARREN ARONOFSKY
Q: After the screening last night, I got into conversation after conversation about this movie. Is that the ultimate compliment?
A: Absolutely. One of my greatest memories was after Pi, being in a coffee shop next to the Nuart, which is a movie theatre here in LA, and Pi was playing around the corner and I just happened to be there, a father came in with his sixteen year old daughter and a few of her friends, and they sat there and they were all debating what the ending was. And I just sat there listening, and it was great to hear a whole conversation, y'know. It's so often that you're home the day after you saw a movie, and you can't remember what the hell you saw the night before. But then there's sometimes you see movies that just stay with you and create conversation, and I think that's always been a goal, to try and do something like that. So I'm glad to hear that's what went down.
Q: Last night, before the movie, you spoke and you said, "Don't think too much?" Was that not being fair? I think this is a movie you have to think about.
A: I don't know, I mean, ultimately, I don't think so. I think it's a really simple love story at the core. It's really about a man and a woman, in love, one of them is going away, and the other one is not coming to terms with it, and eventually does come to terms with it. And there's sort of a big 'anti-thinking, anti-intellectual' message in the film, even though it's told in a very different way that you think it makes you think, it's really very simple in the film. And that's why I kind of messed with the structure, taking a very simple idea but then encasing it in a puzzle structure that makes people think about how it all fits together, talk about how it fits together. But at the core, it's a very simple emotional story I think.
Q: For the most part of the last decade, this film has been a very big part of your life. So now that it's about to debut, how has that changed you? Darren Aronofsky ten years ago vs. Darren Aronofsky today?
A: Well, ten years ago, Pi didn't even exist, so it's less than that. It's only five or six years or so. But Darren Aronofsky ten years ago, I was trying to get into Sundance. So that was a very different world. I imagine I've changed a lot, but mostly I think my personal life's changed a lot, but professionally I think I'm the same person in just being passionate about a project, believing in it, and then not letting go, and just keep pushing it no matter how many people say no. We did that with Pi, we did that with Requiem, two films no one wanted to make, honestly no one wanted to make, and the same thing happened with The Fountain. My producer always says, 'when everyone's saying no, you know you're doing something right'. That's kind of been my mantra for a long time, because I think we've always tried to do new stuff with cinema. Me and my fellow filmmakers, we've been a team now, we keep trying to do something a little bit wild, a little bit different, and really just push the edge of what's acceptable.
Q: How much have you changed in this final cut from what you screened earlier, or have you changed it at all?
A: I'm an endless [tinkerer], in fact a good friend of mine, another filmmaker friend of mine, said, 'You never finish a film, you abandon a film'. And I think that's very true, y'know, it's always going through your head. I mean, that's why one of the reasons I don't watch Pi or Requiem again is cause I'll just see all the things I'd love to fix and change. And with The Fountain, there was this one thing that was sort of bothering me that we knew wasn't right, and it's a very small thing, there have been people who saw this version and saw the version in San Diego who didn't even notice it. So it's a very, very slight thing, but I think for people who are coming to it fresh are just a little bit better. It's actually exactly how the script was, what happens often in editing is you get away from the script, and then you never get a chance to go back. It's the scene at the funeral, there's one line that Hugh really wanted, which in that version he kind of walks off into the snow, and in this version there was a line there that we cut out, which was, 'Death is a disease, and there's a cure, and I'll find it'. I always loved that line, I love that performance, but I couldn't cut it in, because I couldn't make it work with Ellen's performance, and there were a few complications. And three, four months ago, in the middle of the night, I kinda was like, 'Oh - that's how it should go'. And I called up Jay, and I told Jay, and we sketched it out on his laptop (Jay's my editor), and we're like, 'Oh, this works better'. And Warner Brothers agreed, and they let me change it. It's a slight thing, it's something people won't know, but if I had another eight months to release the film, I'm sure I would be 'Well, I'm not really happy with the volume of that', y'know, there's always things you're catching. So, you just try to really perfect everything.
Q: As you've said, at it's core, this movie is really a love story. So was it always your intention to include the other elements, the science fiction, the historical elements, or was that something that came later?
A: The love story came afterwards, actually. The first thing was trying to do something new with sci-fi. To return science fiction from the outer space journey to the inner space journey. Because, sci-fi has just sort of been high jacked by techno-lust and hardware button science fiction, in fact, people on the road with me have been like, 'This isn't science fiction, cause there's no ray guns and there's no little lasers.' And it's hard for people who aren't fans of the genre outside of movies to understand that science fiction has a long history of being internal journeys as well as external journeys. And so it was always about trying to do something new with sci-fi, it's where it started. And then as we started to develop these themes about everlasting life, it became pretty clear that one of the main things that we as people can do while we're here on the planet is love, and one of our big things is the loss of love, and it's one of the great things that makes us alive, so that became a big theme. And then we realized that that was going to be the heart of the film.
Q: Is the movie meant to be any kind of examination on the nature on fantasy, between using the Tree of Life in the conquistador sequences and the fantasy elements in the scenes in the future?
A: I've always been into taking a story and going a step forward and to heighten reality. I'm a big fan of Cassavetes, but I've always moved towards the Terry Gilliam camp, because that's sort of the type of movies I've liked a lot, I've just always been attracted to move towards. So basically, I like to ground things in reality and then just take it a step forward, so there is a little bit of fantasy. But The Fountain, for me, is a fairy tale. For adults, but a fairy tale, it's always been a fairy tale. In fact, when I went to Spain, I was just in Barcelona at the Sitges film festival, which is a great film festival, if you can get sent there or get there, go there, it's a great time. But I was really concerned, because the Spanish stuff is very loosely based in history, and it was purposefully so because it's a fairy tale. Y'know, there's this magical Mayan tree, but I was concerned what they were thinking. None of the Spanish press was asking me about it, 'Which Isabelle is this', or any of that, so I start asking them, 'What do you think?' And they're like, 'Oh, it's a fairy tale'. They got it instantly, what I was doing. And I was like, 'Oh! Phew!' Y'know, interviewer after interviewer kept saying that, 'Yeah, it's clearly fiction'. And everything is slightly heightened, I mean, what's happening in the lab. Although this stuff is happening, which is amazing. If you think about it, life expectancy I think in 1900 was something like 47 or something. So we are living twice as long. So for now we look forward for life expectancy for rich people or something in the 80s or something. So in 100 years, who knows, it might be 160, 170. What would it mean to live to 160 or 170? It's an intense concept that it's a reality, that it's what's happening. And it's gonna change the way we think about how we live, and what a life is.
Q: Recently, you've said that your next movie will be something biblical? Does that mean something literally from the Bible, or...
A: No comment [laughs]. We are working on something that is biblical in nature, and luckily that can mean a lot of different things, but I'm actually working on two things. I'm working on this super-big thing, which is what you're talking about, and I'm working on a really tiny thing. My goal is to start shooting in '07, so whichever one gets me to the starting line first is the one I'm gonna shoot, because in the last 5 years I've worked with actors for 60 days and that's my favorite part of the process so I just want to get back on set and working with actors again. So whichever will happen, but I'm not really talking more about that because it's in embryonic phase, and it's brand new...Well, it's actually now brand new, I've been working on it for a long time, but once you start talking about it, it kind of dissipates, so...
Q: Is the little project a fantasy?
A: The little project isn't, the little project's more like a Cassavetes film. It's very very real and small.
Q: In terms of what happened with the experience on this project, have you learned anything going forward?
A: Well, being the initiator and the main force behind the reason something gets made is a hard place to be. But I've always been that way. No one wanted to make a black and white movie about God and math. Then after Pi and the success of Pi, everyone was like, 'Whatever you want to do', and then I sent them a copy of Requiem and no one even called us back (laughs). So Requiem, again, we had to go out and raise the money independently. And basically, The Fountain was a really hard film to put together as well. So it's not a pleasant place to be from, I think that unless I had the support to do the bigger film, I probably couldn't get it made, because it's the type of money that you just really need a studio, and so it might end up as a graphic novel and that will be that. But we'll see, hopefully we'll be able to make it. For me, it's about getting back to work, because it's been a long trip and doing something that just lets me direct again. Because to have sixty days of directing has been hard, it's been hard.
Q: You made a movie that's all about love, and then you fell in love yourself with star Rachel Weisz - how did that happen?
A: Well, I fell in love before I made the movie. The script existed before I met Rachel, and it was cast before I met Rachel. Then the film fell apart. And then after Hugh was cast, we started making a list for the women. And he was like, 'What about Rachel?' And I was a little bit not sure about it, because I had never crossed the line of working with that professional-personal life, but Hugh asked to have a meal. And then when they met, it's like one of those moments that as a director, you hope to see in the casting room, even though this wasn't the casting room, where there's just a link. And it was just clear that they were communicating, that they were connected, they were simpatico. And that's what happened.
Q: How did you meet Rachel?
A: I saw her do a play. She was doing The Shape of Things in England, and I was there working on a project over there. And I went to see the play, and I was a big fan of Neil LaBute, so I went to see the play. And I went backstage afterwards, and y'know. Hijinks ensued (laughs).
Q: Can you talk about casting Hugh Jackman, and what he brought to the role?
A: Well Hugh, when I met him, I saw him in The Boy From Oz, which y'know, is very very different from The Fountain. (laughs). I was like, 'Well, we could make the conquistador having been married to Liza Minnelli...' (laughs) But he was so incredible, I mean, there was just so much clear talent. So much talent. And no one had used it. I love hungry actors. Y'know, you look at Ellen Burstyn, and Jennifer Connelly, and Marlon Wayans. They were actors that were waiting for an opportunity to show what they could do. And that's, to me, the best secret as a director I can give, is get actors who want to be there. And both Hugh and Rachel were like that. And that goes so far, because all that time you have to worry about negotiating people's feelings was out the window. Hugh was ready to jump in, and then we had a nice long preproduction to really learn about each other and get to know each other and he was confident that he could trust me, which is the other biggest thing that as a director. And of course Rachel trusted me...pretty much (laughs). So y'know, that all worked out well.
Q: The film has an incredibly organic feel. I was just wondering how you went about creating such an organic feel.
A: Well, everything is organic in the film. We moved away from [computer generated imagery], 98% of the film is CGi free. Kinda like Crest...[laughs] I dunno what that means, something about 99%...or is that Ivory soap? [laughs] And that was because when we started this, one of our lofty goals was to try and reinvent sci-fi, because we felt for the last 50, 60 years, sci-fi has gone down this path...For the last 50, 60 years, we've all seen trucks in space, y'know, these basically cars better and bigger in space. Which was mocked by Spaceballs, if you remember that long shot of the ship that didn't end? So we kinda wanted to throw that out completely, and be like, 'Ok, re-think the spaceship'. And I think we went so far that some people who aren't versed in sci-fi don't even get that it's a spaceship. They just see a bubble, and they don't really quite get what's going on, but it was about moving outer space towards inner space. And then the other thing was that for the last 15-20 years it seems like everything's been moving towards CGi, where basically things look a little bit better than the opening titles of Star Trek, but not much better. And we wanted to do something completely different, give it a whole different feel, a whole different look. And I just basically sent my VFX guys and said, 'There's gotta be someone out there in the world who's shooting explosions, or shooting something at high speed', I just had this fantasy that someone was experimenting, coming from an animation background, I just knew you could do things with cameras. And eventually we found this guy Peter Parks, who lives outside of Oxford in the UK for the last 25 years, whose work used to be in films, but for the last 25 years his work has sort of gone out of style and out of favor. People used to do like cloud takes, y'know, all the poltergeist clouds. And that was an amazing effect. Now they all do it in CG, but I think it actually looks better when its true organic systems with real particles interacting. So everything you see in the movie was actually shot, all that footage, the nebula, the dying star, was actually shot through a microscope. And it's all chemicals, chemical reactions, chemicals interacting, or actually some of it is actual microorganisms. A lot of what you were looking at was yeast growing in time lapse. And he's been photographing stuff and no one's used it, and the raw material wasn't great, but we took it and then we scanned it, and then digitally we did collage work on it. But basically it was all real footage. So that's what gives you this total organic feel to it I think.
Q: You mentioned that you want people to talk about this movie. There have been some early showings that have had some mixed reactions. Were you expecting this?
A: I dunno, I have to say I was surprised at what I first out of Venice, of what happened. When the true story emerged, cause I've been in Europe a bunch and I've talked to a bunch of journalists who were in the room, what Variety reported was kinda true, and what the AP picked up was kinda true, but it didn't tell the whole story which was that there were people hissing, and there were people applauding. And they were basically even. And then afterwards, they cleared the room, and they actually had to separate two journalists, who actually got into a pushing match. And I was excit...well, I mean, I don't want to cause violence, but I've always made films that are very divisive. I mean, Requiem for a Dream...I mean, I've already met journalists who have sat across from me and had said how much they, basically assuming that they loved Requiem, when I knew that what they first originally wrote was extremely negative (laughs). But I think The Fountain is a strange film, because there's a big love story in it, but it comes out of some serious hardcore science fiction fans. And I think that people who aren't that versed in science fiction may not get what's happening for the first 20 minutes, and some of you might have had that experience for the first 20 minutes of the film. You're afloat - you don't know really what's going on. And it comes out of a lot of sci-fi novels that we read in the sense that you read a sci-fi novel, and for the first 100 pages you don't really know what's going on, and then suddenly some clues start to click, and you understand what this language is and the whole world comes into focus, and suddenly you're immersed in Neal Stephenson's head, and it all makes sense. And I wanted to give that experience to a film audience in the sense that all that information at the beginning, the battle scene, and the floating in the bubble, all makes sense, but you don't really know what it means until, 'Oh, here's the actual heart of the film - there's a love story between this man and a woman, and this is what these other time periods may or may not mean', and the hope is that by the end, your brain is firing, while emotionally, you're feeling something, but your brain is firing, putting it all together. And it's also very much a puzzle. Because I think, when I first started making films with a film like Pi, Pi was one of the earliest DVDs. And people watched the film once back then. But it's a very different world right now, with people collecting DVDs, and now people downloading movies on their computer, and now downloading films on their iPods, we're all going to start to see a lot of that now. People are watching films, and are looking for a deeper and deeper experience, and I promise that the more you look at The Fountain, there's five years of lots of people's labor in that, and there's so many connections between the different things, that I think that's one of the benefits of the film. You can get something out of it the first time, but the second time you'll get more, and the third time you'll get even more. And I mean, for some people, they'll be like, 'Uh, whatever', they'll dismiss it, after that first 20 minutes they'll cross their arms. But the end of this movie takes people to see something you just haven't seen before on the big screen, and if you can't enjoy it, you can be a party pooper and just cut it off as being nothing, but the fact that people are getting exactly what we meant to do, in its complete specificness and abstractness, but they're getting it, for me, shows that it is gettable. It's just a different experience for people.
Q: We know that you were involved once with Batman: Year One. Are we ever going to see you cross over and do a comic book movie?
A: That was a lot of hype, Batman: Year One. I know it got into this big thing. It was a writing assignment for me and Frank Miller. So I was never really...I was doing that while working on The Fountain, because my interest was always to do The Fountain, and coming off of Requiem for a Dream, which was a four million dollar drug movie, when the studio offered me that franchise, I was like, 'Oh, well maybe if I write this and they do a good job, maybe they can perceive me as someone who can do something like The Fountain'. But it was always about doing The Fountain. But as far as a superhero story? I don't know. I mean, I'd be open to it, but I'm not sure what's left to look at...
Q: Wolverine?
A: I'd like to work with Hugh...[laughs]
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HUGH JACKMAN
Q: I think people are going to see you in this film doing stuff you've never done before. I'm curious, where did that all come from? How did you get there? I mean, some of these scenes are so raw...
A: Yeah, they're raw, but we worked a lot on it and I think that I had a great relationship with Rachel, and with the director. And he wanted me to be a guy dealing with the death of his wife, it's pretty full on. And the script was very weighty, so I feel finally I had a script that took me emotionally to my limit, and the script was equal to that, there's no point putting it all out there on a script that doesn't really demand it. And this one did, and that's really what the character's about. In every way, he fights to the end, he's that conquistador mentality, nothing will stop him. And so I dunno, there are a couple scenes in there that were really full on, and I find it uncomfortable watching them. When you're in there and you're doing it and you create an atmosphere, and hopefully with Darren he'll create an atmosphere that's very private. Just how films should always be. And all the stuff with the cameras and the people go away, and then you're just...private. So when I watch it...like, tonight I'll see it at Mann's Chinese Theatre, I'm sure I'll be like....err.....
Q: It can get pretty out there...Like in that one scene, where you're tattooing your arm...
A: Darren said to me, he was watching the dailies, and he goes, 'Oh, I've got this great daily, but I don't think I can use it...You're crying so much, that you have snot coming out of your nose and it goes into this bubble!' And I said, '...you're really happy about that?' And he goes, 'Yeah, it's AWESOME! It's never been seen on film before! A snot bubble!!!' (laughs) It didn't make the film, luckily...
Q: Much of the film is scenes between just you and Rachel. What's that like? Is it more like a play in that sense?
A: No, because if you think of it, almost a third of the movie I'm on my own, for a lot of it, in the spaceship. It's actually very unlike a play, in structure, or even in dialogue. It's fairly sparse in dialogue in fact. And we repeat a lot of the same scenes, so it is, however you're right, ultimately a two hander. It's a love story, it's very romantic, and I think it's a very romantic movie between these two. And I love it, when I finished filming it, I hope when people see it, when they leave the theatre with whoever they're with, or they go home to their wife or partner or...dog! Or whatever it is, whatever matters to them, that they think more about that connection, connecting, which is a lot of what the film's about. We're busy, so we don't always just connect and see the real person.
Q: Darren mentioned that you were the one who suggested Rachel for the part. What about her made you suggest her instead of other actresses?
A: She seemed perfect for me. I've met her a few times, I've seen a lot of her work on film, but I'd seen her on stage as well, and I think she can just do anything. Before Constant Gardner, I just thought, 'People just haven't seen all the things she can do yet', I think she is very much a heart based person. She's very caring, she's very present and very there, and I always saw that part as having a lot of weight to it...Uh, please don't transpose that literally (laughs) She's the emotional core of that movie, she's the heart of that movie, and the movie would not work unless she did what she pulled off, that feeling of being OK with dying. I mean, this is not easy stuff to pull off for an actor. And I just knew she would do it. And we were talking about names for quite a while, for like 2 or 3 days we talked about names, and finally I said, 'Darren, what about Rachel? Why not Rachel?' And he kind of said, 'Well, I didn't want to go there because we're together, I didn't want you to think, 'Aw, he's just gonna cast his girlfriend', I didn't want the studio to think that'', and because the two of us had to have such a connection and closeness on screen that he didn't want me to freak out, like, 'How am I gonna do that if her boyfriend's right there', but I knew that was fine, so. I think in his heart of hearts he always thought she'd be right, but probably it always felt like, 'well, that's never gonna fly...'
Q: In terms of preparing for the role, not only was there the script, but Darren had also made this graphic novel with DC and Vertigo Comics. Did you look at that at all in preparation for the part?
A: I'd seen the artwork, but the actual book was finished after we finished. When the movie fell over [when the original cast left], he said 'Oh well, at least I'll have the novel.' And the graphic novel is beautiful, but if you look at the graphic novel, you can see how the script evolved over time, and over those three years, it evolved a lot.
Q: This movie involves a lot of both emotional and physical performances from you. Do you find one to be more draining than the other?
A: This was probably the most physical role I've ever done, I know it probably looks easy, but I don't know if you've ever tried to get into the lotus position...(laughs) And Tae Chi, I did Tae Chi for a year in order to pull off what is ultimately about ten seconds in the film (laughs) And the last three days of shooting, I was in the lotus position, 20 feet underwater, locked in, I was underwater for like 8 hours a day. And the lotus position took me 14 months to get. I did an hour and a half a day of yoga to get there. Because your knee can go just like that. So it took me a long time to do it. However, to go back to your question, there were some days, I remember one day going to my trailer at lunch time, so tired I couldn't even eat, just falling asleep on the carpet, just laying down on the floor. And I didn't have my family with me because I'd get home at night and I'd just go straight to bed. And I'd be up at four doing yoga for an hour and a half and then go work. It was a very monastic life during the filming, it was very monk-like.
Q: About a month ago, you said you might have news on who would be directing Wolverine. Recently, Bryan Singer said that he'd been offered to direct Wolverine, and then doing some more research, I'm hearing that it's been you hoping to get Bryan to direct Wolverine. Is that accurate?
A: Well, the...(laughs)...the thing is, it's all in negotiations, so I can't really...there is a list, and Bryan is sort of at the beginning of all this, so of course he's in the loop, so it is too early for me to say. We'll see the way we go. Now we have a script and now we really need to work out the best person for it, but y'know, Bryan's always been in the loop for us.
Q: Is the plan still to shoot it sometime mid-year next year?
A: No, I'd meant to finish Baz's movie end of August...My guess is, y'know Baz might just go a little bit longer. But I think we'll go for beginning of '08. My idea for Wolverine is that I wanna have four months clear before I start shooting, because I want to be in the physical shape that I've never been in before.
Q: Does Baz's movie have a title yet?
A: No. I read a script yesterday, 'Untitled Australian Epic' (laughs). So, no.
Q: When will the Baz film start shooting?
A: We start shooting in March, and we work together...There's a name he calls it, it's not workshop, it's not rehearsals...but anyway, that period is about 4, 5, 6 weeks, we'll all be working together. We'll be well prepared.
Q: In this film, your character in the present day is very different from the version of your character in the future, physically and emotionally. Did you shoot those sequences in order, and how did you prepare for the two different versions of the role?
A: Present, Conquistador, and then future. All because of the look, we really had to create very different looks. It was a shame, because I was growing the beard, because I remember seeing all those pictures of Brad, and I thought, 'Well, that's great! It'd be great to have that beard'. And then of course we had to shoot the present, so I was given about 10 days to grow a beard, and I was like, 'Nah, I can't do that'. I dropped quite a lot of weight for the whole thing, but particularly the future, Darren really wanted me to be lean, as lean as I could be. But that was ok, I was working so hard, I wasn't really that hungry. We had a year; we physically worked out all those three characters. So I knew when we started filming all those characters. Physically, I wanted to make a statement with them all. Like, Tommy's a bit like a question mark, he's always hunched over, always working underground, his lab is underground, that feeling of weight, always looking down, the world on his shoulders. And Conquistador is physically very upright, but his head is forward, like the blinkers are on, nothing will stop him. Whereas Tom, in the future is much more zen-like; he's worked out, even though he's still haunted by all this, he's got the same motivations in a way, but he's worked out how to maintain his body at the optimum level. He does Tae Chi, he does Yoga, he meditates, and hes more zenned out. But he's still fighting.
Q: When you start doing a role, do you start by creating the physical look of the character, or does that come as you begin?
A: I do both. When I started acting, I learned the Stanislavski Method, which is by the way very different from Lee Strasburg, which is an offshoot of the famous Stanislavski book, which was all about the internal, building a character from the inside, understanding the emotions and the psychological aspects of a person. 20 years later, because of the difference in the country, 20 years later in America another book by Stanislavski was published called Building a Character, which is literally putting on funny noses, having a cane. And so Stanislavski was in fact a proponent of 2 methods - from the inside out, and from the outside in. And I've used both methods in varying degrees, and always used both, but it's funny, when I see a lot of method acting, which was totally based on Stanislavski, and it's like, 'You've only got half of it!' [laughs] It's much more effective to use both. And each character you do has a different mix.
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RACHEL WEISZ
Q: So after being involved with this project for so long, is it a big relief and weight off your shoulders now that it's done?
A: Well, I wasn't really involved with it, it was Darren, it was never on my shoulders, it was never my weight- it was his. I was doing my work during those years, so it's totally his project. I had nothing to do with the writing of it. My relationship was that I was an actress for hire, and I watched this journey, but it wasn't on my shoulders.
Q: Can you see through your relationship that it's a weight off his shoulders?
A: Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say it was ever a "weight on his shoulders", it was his passion. He was burning to tell this story, and it's very unusual, it's very original. Y'know, everyone wants to make genre pictures, and it needed a certain budget because he wanted it to look a certain way, he couldn't make it as an indie film, but it defies genre, so it was very hard to get the $30 million dollars to get it made. And it was a challenge. But I don't think it was a burden for him, he's an artist and that was the story he was burning to tell; I think it's an amazing story.
Q: Darren has talked to us a bit about his apprehension in mixing the personal and the professional in this film. Did you have any similar apprehensions, and how did it work out for you?
A: I'm a very unrealistic person, that's why I'm an actress, so I'm just involved in make believe all the time. So I was like, [unconcerned] 'Ahhh...'. He's a realist, he sort of thinks ahead, and he thinks, 'Well, this could happen, or that could happen...' The future tends to kind of bang me in the face, which I'm trying to get over [laughs]. But I was like, 'Ah, it's gonna be fine...' I mean, obviously we'd heard stories of people working together, and it could go either way, but I didn't have any sense that it would be anything but an incredible professional relationship, which it was, and now in our personal live, we've been through this journey together.
Q: It really feels like these two people love each other - when you meet someone you're going to have as a love interest in a film, is there a moment when you kind of know what kind of chemistry you're going to have on the screen, or does it develop over time?
A: That's a really good question. We rehearsed a lot, for two weeks, which is quite a lot in film, and there were a lot of very emotional scenes in the film, and often in film, the director will say 'Save it for the day, save it for the day'. But we really did the scenes, and it got to the point where Darren said, 'I don't want you to save it for the day, I want you to do it now. We're gonna shoot this scene maybe in three months time, but let's do it now.' And I'd be sobbing and Hugh would be sobbing, and he'd say, 'Let's do it again'. And that's what you do in theater, you do things again and again and again, and Darren as a director doesn't believe in saving it for the day, and both Hugh and I had done a lot of theater so maybe we were OK with coming up with a good many times. But in the rehearsals, I think Hugh and I exposed ourselves to one another emotionally. It's very raw, very emotional; we're vulnerable to one another. And to answer your question, I think you do know pretty immediately, I think you know pretty immediately, and I think Hugh and I definitely had chemistry, but we had heart chemistry as well, we just had a kind of heart connection, y'know, you meet someone in life and you have empathy for them. So I definitely have that with him
Q: Hugh suggested that it must be an extra challenge for an actor to play someone who is coming to terms with death - can you talk about playing that particular aspect, and what did you learn from it?
A: Well, it's something that I think most of us just don't think about, unless we lose someone close to us, or we ourselves have a terminal illness, it's something we just don't think about, dying. I mean, particularly in our culture, it's sort of unspoken. We don't examine it. So I had to do a lot of research, I did a lot of reading, a lot of books and first-person accounts of people who have terminal diseases, and lots of literature written by cancer patients, and I went to hospitals, and I met with people, particularly young people who were willing to talk to me. Surprisingly, many were, people wanted to tell their story often. And I think it's very different to be dying of old age, or to be dying way before your time which this young woman is. And I think that the most inspiring thing was going to the hospices. We were filming in Montreal, and there was a hospice there, I'm sure you all know about this, I didn't know really what hospices were, places where you go when the doctors can no longer do anything for you. And so you go there to die, not to be cured. And so the people who worked there- that's what their job was. They went every day to help people to die, with grace, and with dignity, and with comfort, or with music, or whatever it was that these people wanted. And talking to these people was the most life-altering thing, in perception terms, because they got up in the morning to go and help people to die. So death was just in their lives everyday, and I think it was intense for them, and they were doing something so useful to humanity. It's like Mother Theresa had a place where people would go to die. And a girlfriend of mine went to work there, and people would volunteer and go and hold people in their final days. And these kinds of things, it made me think about things that I would never normally have thought about. And I feel kind of privileged to have explored it.
Q: And is there an extra challenge to play someone who is accepting dying?
A: Yeah, of course! Because it's an enormously impossible thing to accept, so it's an ultimately challenging role. How do you get to a place where you actually believe, and I did get there, I really did get there, I've lost it now again, now I'm totally afraid and I never think about death, ever (laughs). But during that time, where I was dreaming about it and thinking about it so intensely, I did get to a place when I was Izzy I believed...and I was still frightened, there's that one line where I have to say to him, 'I'm not afraid anymore Tommy'. And that was the hardest line I've ever had to say in any stage or film or anything I've ever done. And I meant it when I said it, but I was still a little bit afraid. But I think that's right. It was right for the character, she really wasn't afraid, but as she said it, there was a little bit of fear. So it was a big challenge.
Q: A few months ago, we spoke about The Mummy 3. Is that moving forward?
A: I know nothing more about it than I did then. There is a script, I haven't read it. I believe they're looking for a director.
Q: You're working with Wong Kar Wai now - are there any similarities between working with him on that project and working on The Fountain?
A: I think they're both auteurs, and my definition of an auteur is that they make a film that no one else could have made, so they're similar, but I don't think Darren could have made that, and Wong Kar Wai couldn't have made that, they just have unique visions. And this Kar Wai film is in America, and he's never shot in America, but if you looked on the monitor, it's like, 'Oh my God, it's a Wong Kar Wai film! How does it look like that?' It doesn't look like America; it looks like the inside of his imagination. I think it's the same with Darren, no one else could have made them, and they're his vision.
Q: Can you tell us what that film is about?
A: The lead is Norah Jones, the singer, it's her first acting role, and she is amazing in the film. And she is traveling across America. She's heartbroken, like everyone in a Wong Kar Wai film (laughs), traveling across America working in bars and diners, and she witnesses these different stories in different cities. And my story is in Memphis, and I'm married to David Strathairn who's an alcoholic cop, and I'm this kind of messed up anti-Southern belle, kind of a good-time girl not having a very good time. And they brawl, David Strathairn and me kind of brawl, we have a very tragic love story, with alcohol, it's all a mess. And Norah Jones is working at the bar, and she witnesses the stories, that was my part in it.
Q: In The Fountain, you essentially play two characters, Isabelle and Izzy. But they're also not two characters, they're also the same person in some ways - or are they?
A: Well, as you probably realized, Izzy is writing a novel called The Fountain. So if you imagine that Izzy is dying of cancer, and she's not frightened of death, but she's been writing a book, a novel about a Queen, who's hungry for eternal life. So the way I saw it was that she's kind of put the part of herself that doesn't want to die into her work, so she's written about that power hungry life-loving power maniac, and she's put it in her book. So in a way, it's an aspect of her, yeah, I think it is, a kind of dream of herself.
Q: How has your career changed since winning the Oscar, in terms of what projects you're offered and what projects you take?
A: Well, I'm sure one gets more interesting directors wanting to work with you, and possibly more interesting scripts, but it hasn't really changed what I want to do, which is just to keep telling different kinds of stories. I've been wanting to do comedy for a long time, so I just did a supporting role in a comedy in New York. So yeah, I really wanted to try and do some comedy. So that was a bit of a newish color for me. It's called Definitely, Maybe. And Adam Brooks wrote and directed it, it was shot in New York, and Ryan Reynolds is the lead actor, and then he has three different girlfriends in it, me and Isla Fisher and Elizabeth Banks. And also it's a story between him and his daughter, and his daughter is played by Abigail Breslin, and she's basically saying to her Dad, 'Tell me the story of how you met my Mom', and he goes back to the 90s, and he tells a story, and the daughter has to guess which one is her Mom. So it's kind of a romantic comedy, but it's about the boy who meets the girl who's gotten divorced, and then the daughter is trying to guess. So it's kind of a neurotic romantic comedy.
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