INTERVIEW WITH UMA THURMAN
HBO
Can you tell us the story of how this project evolved?
UMA THURMAN
Well, it was what, I guess 1998? And we went to see, my husband (Ethan Hawke) and I, an off-Broadway play, way way way off-Broadway and up several flights of stairs, and it was the last night that the play was open, in this tiny little room. A friend of his was in the play, and I didn't expect much, and I just sat down to watch this piece of writing, and there were wonderful actors, all unknown, in it.
And I found myself just laughing and then crying, and I was so touched by the characters that it stayed with me. And I walked out of the place, and I thought, oh, someone's gonna snap that up, somebody's gonna do that. And I kept thinking about it, and thinking about it, and it, it never left me. And I just kept tabs on it, and I found that no one had done anything with it, in fact it got a great review in The New York Times that night, and then closed the next day.
So it kind of disappeared, and the writer Laura Cahill just had the play there just sitting on her desk. And finally, a couple of years later, I called her and my husband helped me, 'cause I was shy to do it, I had never bought a piece of material before, tried to develop anything before. And we went out to lunch, and I convinced her to let me have a try to make her play into a movie.
HBO
You produced this film?
UMA THURMAN
Yeah.
HBO
Can you give us a step by step description of the process of getting the film made?
UMA THURMAN
Well, it started that at first I sort of thought I would just try to develop it with her. So we sat down in a restaurant and had long lunches and tried to break down the play, see how it could be turned into a movie. There were a couple of challenges to transposing the play. And we sort of went through this long process, and she came up with a first draft from that, which was wonderful. And then I didn't know what to do [LAUGHTER] 'cause I just- I'd never done it before. And it, it kind of sat around, and we tried to have a reading of it, and um... it was sort of floundering.
And then a friend of mine, Jason Blum, who had set out on his own as an independent producer with his partner Amy (Israel), I kind of had the idea to ask them if they could help. And they did. They got involved, and then they kind of knew what they were doing. And the next thing you know we were doing it for HBO. So it was pretty great.
HBO
Can you explain the story?
UMA THURMAN
It's a story of two best friends, both of whom are sort of still trying to hang on to their high school glory in Jersey. And one, the character I play, Deb, lives with her mother. And Beth (Juliette Lewis) is a single mom and takes care of her daughter.
And pretty much it's about girls who go bar hopping, looking for love in all the wrong places, and kind of the last twist of growing out of your teens, which, if you're unlucky, might happen in your late twenties or your thirties. [LAUGHTER] If you really hang on to your high school days.
Basically it's about these girls having to realize that they're not kids anymore, and figure out where they belong in the world, and what they're gonna do, and it's, it's very touching in that way.
HBO
Can you describe the role you play?
UMA THURMAN
My character, who I think I probably had more fun playing than practically any character I've ever played, is super-neurotic, incredibly selfish... [LAUGHTER]... um... very sort of distraught person, who actually is quite sweet inside, but kind of thorny on the outside, and she's... I'd say pretty deluded [LAUGHTER] about, about her uh... about her life, but trying to find something to live for.
And she falls hopelessly in love with this guy at a bar, who kind of has his way with her, 'cause she throws herself at him shamelessly, and then convinces herself he wants to marry her. [LAUGHTER] And that's kind of the, the twist of the drama.
HBO
Deb is seemingly very different from you as person. How did you get into this role?
UMA THURMAN
You know, I think there's a little bit of Deb in every girl. I don't think I'm as insecure as she is, but I really identified with it. I identified with somebody who wants so much, the same normal things that everybody wants, but has such a bad way of going about getting them [LAUGHTER], that she ends up kind of making life very hard for herself.
And I was touched by her, and by the humanity in Laura Cahill's writing. I just think that she has an incredible sort of very dry observation and humor. It has this very naturalistic black comedy quality to it. And I find that as an actor, when a character moves you, that it's because you understand something intrinsically about that person, and it's the best way into a character for me, is to be touched by them. And I was really touched by her.
HBO
She has such pain and desperation. What did you use for inspiration, to make us feel that pain?
UMA THURMAN
Yes, the character is, is... in agony. [LAUGHTER] She's in, in sheer agony. I think that uh... it's, it's all that stuff that happens to all of us in high school. I mean, I feel very close to the kind of humiliation that the character goes through. [LAUGHTER] That sort of female uh... embarrassment that she experiences. I just relate to it. I don't know how else to explain it. I guess maybe I had a rough time in high school. [LAUGHTER]
HBO
Why do you think that she's like she is?
UMA THURMAN
Well... would what possibly make a person to be such an open wound, I don't know, but I, I certainly see that in everybody I love, that kind of vulnerability. In her case, it's a little bit exaggerated, and she's quite aggressive. And then not really aware of how her behavior comes out.
She thinks she's really cool, which makes her even more tragic. [LAUGHTER] You know, there's nothing quite as embarrassing as thinking you're cool while you make a fool out of yourself.
And her father left when she was young, and that'll undermine your sense of self pretty quickly. At least inhibit it from developing naturally.
But why would someone be that vulnerable? I think it's just a natural part of how some people are. I mean why are some people callous? I'm not sure, and usually nobody's all one way or the other, so this particular person just is kind of an open vein.
HBO
Her best friend, Beth, is played by Juliette Lewis.
UMA THURMAN
Yeah.
HBO
Can you briefly describe the relationship of these people?
UMA THURMAN
Well they have kind of a funny relationship. Juliette plays Beth, who's supposedly the less smart one of the two of them, like that's the dynamic in the relationship. But actually, Juliette's character is far more self-confident and natural with herself than Deb, my character, who thinks she's really really smart, but is so deeply wound up with her neuroses that she - she's very much tuned out compared to Juliette.
But they have a very sweet relationship. It's like girls who've known each other from high school. You know, you never get to make new old friends. And they have that sort of history.
HBO
Is there a rivalry between these two women?
UMA THURMAN
There's a kind of biting rivalry between the two of them. My character's so insecure, I think she would have rivalry with an ashtray if it was getting more attention than her. [LAUGHTER] I think there's no competition that she wouldn't take up, 'cause she's just, just has such low self-esteem.
But I think what's nice in the writing is that as much as there's a playful rivalry, and the teasing, there's a sense that the girls really understand each other, and know who each other are. And love each other.
HBO
HOw would you describe this character?
UMA THURMAN
She's an optimist. I guess that's the real difference between them. I mean, I think my character is just a total pessimist, and she's very optimistic and bright and light, and one of the neat things about it is that it's very clear in the story, that, that it pays to be positive. [LAUGHTER]
You know, she just sort of looks on the bright side, and she has it tougher than Deb does, really. I mean she's bravely raising a child alone, on no money, with a lousy job, and she doesn't feel sorry for herself. And as a result, people are attracted to her, the guy that my character's trying to sort of stalk and hunt down, when he meets them, he immediately looks at Beth, [LAUGHTER] at Juliette, and totally overlooks the neurotic one until of course she throws herself in his face. So she's sort of bright and sexy and fun and, and very sweet.
HBO
Can you talk about the bar, Ollie's.
UMA THURMAN
Ollie's. Ollie's is the hangout, Ollie's is the place. And I guess when I was a teenager, we all used to go sit on the town commons. So Ollie's seems to be the town commons kind of hangout. It's the place where everybody goes to blow off steam after work in a very kind of blue-collar Jersey town.
HBO
Beth has a little girl, and Deb sort of seems to resent her a little bit, maybe because she takes away her best friend. Do you think that's true?
UMA THURMAN
I think that she's just very self-involved and very selfish, and that her relationship to Beth's child, she actually really likes her, I think, but she's just, she's so frustrated and so short-tempered, that she doesn't necessarily play nicely with her. [LAUGHTER]
HBO
I know you started to talk about Juliette. The chemistry between the two of you is just amazing. What was it like working with her?
UMA THURMAN
Well, it was a dream of mine always to work with Juliette Lewis. Ever since I saw her in CAPE FEAR, when she was younger, because I was a teenage actress myself, and I watched her. She's a couple years younger than me. And I was blown away by her. She just seemed to be so free and so alive on screen. I was riveted to her. I feel that way about all of her work, really, I think she's just an amazing actress, and I had really hoped that she would be in the movie.
The cast is kind of a dream cast to me, to get to work with Gena Rowlands and have her play Virginia, my mother, and do scenes with her was a lifetime goal, and an honor. And with Juliette too. We had such a good time. And what's also nice is with a movie like this, that's based on a play, it's a real actor's piece. It's a wonderful acting exercise. It's like a party for the actor really, on screen, even it looks like it might be sad at points. It was a thrill.
And everybody who was there was there because they were really attracted to their part, authentically. And they were really dying to work with Mira Nair, who's such a wonderful director, who I think gets so into the humanity of the characters with such respect. And such a tasteful director when it comes to acting, and really knows what she's doing. And the combination of those things, having everybody together for all the right reasons, just made it a complete pleasure every day on the set.
HBO
One person that you didn't mention was Ben Gazarra, also was an old friend of Gena's.
UMA THURMAN
Mm-hmm.
HBO
He plays her love interest.
UMA THURMAN
Yeah, and they have a great history of working together in the past, Ben Gazarra and Gena Rowlands. To have them together, again, in this movie, there's a wonderful romantic scene between the two of them that's just breathtaking. And it's sort of a little piece of cinema history, to see their relationship onscreen continue.
HBO
Can you talk about Deb's relationship with her mother a little bit.
UMA THURMAN
I think it's kind of the heart of the material in a way, to me, the relationship between Deb and her mother. I think for a character, for a person who, who needs so much love that it almost hurts them to try to get it, she is so rejecting of her mother. And you can see in the story that clearly the relationship between them, the communication has totally broken down, and that the mother can't really reach the daughter anymore.
And yet the daughter feels like she has to take care of the mother, even though I think it probably is the other way around. And part of the journey for a person who's always looking for so much and who feels so empty, and is unable to see all the good things available to them, the love that they do have, the love of their mother, the love of their best friend, and so unable to enjoy any of it.
It's the journey back into realizing what's right on your doorstep. And that home is where you are, not over the rainbow, and not in a bar. [LAUGHTER] And not in the possession of some guy. That's kind of the journey of the piece.
HBO
The scene when she crawls into bed with her mother just... blew me away.
UMA THURMAN
Well, 'cause she's just a little girl, you know. And it's, it's, I think, maybe that's why I relate to it so much, 'cause all of us have - whether it's a little boy or little girl - all of us have the child inside of us. And in some, this character's case, she's slightly more arrested than one would hope to be or work to be.
She's a little girl who just desperately needed her mom a little longer, desperately needed her father to have stayed a little longer, and didn't get it, couldn't have it. And so, you know, tried to do without, and is just suffering.
At the end of the piece, she's able to sort of crack and be that little girl again, and that's what makes it possible for her to be happy with herself for the first time. And I think the movie makes a very subtle turn. It's not one of those movies where people have an epiphany, and all of a sudden they're gonna get a new job, and be a different person, or get married. It's not about great changes in life.
And it's one of the things I loved about the writing, 'cause it's more life-like in that way, it's about how life changes in these tiny infinitesimal, intimate ways that actually make all the difference in growing up.
Some people might find it uneventful, but to me it's what's true about life. So I guess that's why I liked it so much.
HBO
What is the physical condition of hysterical blindness?
UMA THURMAN
Well, I did research it, hysterical blindness. It's related to blood pressure, and it actually exists. It's more symbolic of the emotional hysteria of the character. But it can happen when a person becomes so stressed out that it affects their blood pressure, which, I think, changes the pressure on the optic nerve or something.
It creates like a flash blindness. It goes away. So it actually does exist. She does experience it. But it's not so much about a medical condition, as it really is about an emotional condition.
HBO
Why do you think she has this condition?
UMA THURMAN
Why do we all have these emotional conditions? I don't know. Because she's a human being. I think because she's so self-involved that, if you're looking into yourself all the time, it'll make you sick. [LAUGHTER] And that's part of what happens, is that she's unable to see outside of herself, she's unable to see that this man that she goes home with doesn't really like her.
She's unable to see that her mother actually loves her. She's unable to see that her best friend is wonderful, and she could have such a good time if she wasn't always wondering about what's gonna happen next. And that kind of dissatisfaction will kill ya. So that's kind of her pivot, to sort of bust that self-involved bubble and be able to see outside of it.
HBO
I love what Bobby the bartender said about `maybe you're just not able to see'...
UMA THURMAN
Yeah.
HBO
Deb has a love interest in the film, which ends disastrously. Why do you think that went so wrong?
UMA THURMAN
Because she's a total nutcase. [LAUGHTER] I mean, if I were him, actually it was one of the things that I really liked about the way Laura did that, was that... it's not just a case of girl goes out to a bar, meets a guy, and he's just a real jerk. And that's why it goes so badly.
He's kind of a lunkhead, the character, but it's kind of understandable. You know, it's a classic male nightmare. You take a girl home, and you assume, since she throws herself at you, that she's fine with that, but meanwhile she goes back there and goes completely insane [LAUGHTER], and starts looking at wedding rings and thinks you've met her in a past life. She is a classic male nightmare. That type of incredibly needy, sort of emotional car accident waiting to happen.
I mean, it's painfully funny, really. Most people, as they're watching the movie, and see her just pushing him harder and harder and harder, just start to cringe, 'cause everybody kind of sees a bit of themselves in that sort of relationship disaster, when you want someone so badly and the more you try to get them, the more repelled by you they are. [LAUGHTER] And it's uh... it's just ugly.
Why does she not know how unattractive it is to desperately claw after a man? I don't know, why does anyone? It happens to us all. We get vulnerable, we lose track of ourselves, and we humiliate ourselves. And hopefully it doesn't happen to you too many times, you learn how to play it cool and not go nuts. But I don't know, if I knew the answer to that, I could probably do a lot of people some favors and give you the answer, but I, I don't know.
HBO
So is there hope for these women to find love and happiness?
UMA THURMAN
I think so, and there is hope for them to find love and happiness. But, the moral of the story goes, first you must find it with yourself. I think that's the simple message of the movie.
HBO
Did you have a favorite scene in the movie?
UMA THURMAN
I have a lot of favorite scenes in the movie. I love the scene where I completely degrade myself in the bar. [LAUGHTER] My character gets completely like bald drunk and just utterly, utterly humiliates herself. That was just such a joy to play. It sort of was like an exorcism of some kind of bad experience I must have had that I don't want to let myself remember. [LAUGHTER] Because I felt like I knew it so well, that I'm sure it's happened to me, but I'm just gonna black that out.
You know, I just love the voice of the character. And it's straight from Laura Cahill's play. I love her trying to find a way to keep the guy awake in the morning, to keep him talking to her, and asking him how he's gonna fix up his house. It's just all the little details of attempts a girl would make to try to keep a guy entertained, one sort of sadder and funnier and better than the next.
HBO
How do you think the audience is gonna react to this film?
UMA THURMAN
I think it's such a personal movie that you either recognize it, you relate to it or you don't. And I've seen women recognize themselves in the movie, and be incredibly moved by it. And that's sort of what I made it for, was to kind of provide that release that it gave me. 'Cause that's how I felt when I first saw the story, and I think that it's there in the movie to be had.
I think if you don't relate to it, you'll be like, what is this weird movie about these crazy chicks? [LAUGHTER] What is this, no car chase? There's no big epiphany, I don't know what's going on here. So I think it's that kind of personal story that just either touches you or misses you.
HBO
How about men? How will men react?
UMA THURMAN
I've had a lot of men who've seen it just sort of laugh and hold their heads and cringe and relate to it from the male perspective. What I think is neat about it actually, and I've heard this from some guys, is that it's very much a little window into women. Not all women, I mean, not all women are like these characters, but there's something very private inside this story of what women are really like alone and what kind of insecurities or private dialogues they're having. That they wouldn't really make you privy to, since it's from such a female point of view.
HBO
Was there any challenge bringing the eighties to life?
UMA THURMAN
Well, I went from being ten to nineteen through the eighties. That was my decade of being a teenager and so to me, all that stuff is so nostalgic. All the bad kind of lank hair, and all the flipping. It was just a thrill to get to go back to it. And the music, I guess any time that was your teenage years is always the most nostalgic to you, and that's why I really wanted to do it in the eighties, 'cause there's just such a teenage heart in those characters, and it reminded me of that.
HBO
Can you talk a bit about Mira Nair, the director?
UMA THURMAN
What I love about Mira is that she's a natural leader, and she works with actors, delving into performance with them for the greatest of reasons. She's in search of something truthful, and she demands that from herself, and you feel that from her. And it's what you want too, and it gives you hope and courage. I just felt in incredible hands with her, and I admire her as a woman. I just think she's a courageous and incredibly intelligent, fun, bold human being. And to be around a woman like that, and have her be my, my boss was... a thrill. [LAUGHTER]
HBO
Why did you bring this project to HBO?
UMA THURMAN
Jason and Amy, my producing partners, did. They had a friend there. And they sent her the script. And she cried when she read it. And she just loved it. And so it kind of went from there.
HBO
What was it like working with HBO?
UMA THURMAN
You know, it was wonderful, they just let us make our movie. That was the best part of the whole thing. It was great. It happened so easily. I think they have a real interest in working with filmmakers, like Mira, and they really let her make her movie in a very free, supportive way. I mean, what more can you ask for from a studio?
HBO
What did you love the most about doing this project?
UMA THURMAN
Um... it's so tricky. You know, for me, to get to make something that I saw on stage that I fell in love with, to watch the script being developed, to not even know as I saw that happening, that I would get to play the part. I knew it was a fantastic part, but I didn't necessarily think, oh I'm gonna get to play that part.
I thought, this piece has to be made. That was really what motivated me, more than anything else. And it was kind of only later that it occurred to me, hey, I could play that part, and by the time I got to that, and Mira was involved, I felt so deeply connected to the character and to the material, and so invested in it that every day was a sort of a celebration for me. Every day I felt like I was growing, and that I was just so in love with the material.
That's the most fun you can have, is to get to feel like you're so inside a character, and you know where you are, and you know who you are, and you know where you're going, and it feels so connected to the whole group. It was a collection of actors who all loved their parts and who all were there because they loved the writing, and they loved Mira Nair, and that's the funnest way to come together.
|
|
|
Uma Thurman
(Executive Producer, Debby)
Juliette Lewis
(Beth)
Mira Nair
Laura Cahill
|
