Paige and I have both uploaded a few new photoshoots of Mary from day 2 at the Sundance Film Festival while promoting Swiss Army Man. Be sure to head to the gallery to check out the latest uploads, or click on any of the thumbnails. I’ve also added two new video interviews with Mary which you can view below:
Swiss Army Man Portraits
THR Sundance Shoot
Variety Portraits
The We Are Sweet snapchat channel did an interview with Mary about her upcoming movie Swiss Army Man which is premiering at Sundance. The film also stars Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano. In the interview, we also learn that Mary will be staying in Brooklyn for a bit as she films her new show BrainDead. Here is what Mary had to share:
On her character Sarah: She tries to present herself as having this perfect life on social media, but when you chip away at her exterior, she’s a stressed out mother who’s trying to figure out what she really wants. Sarah was a unique role for me to play because every time I talked to the Daniels about who she was, her backstory would change a little bit. For example, one day she became obsessed with the band Creed.”
On working with the directors The Daniels: I was pretty much caught when I heard Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan were writing and directing a new movie. I’m a huge fan of their short films and music videos, and I think they’re just two ridiculously talented, weird dudes. The script for Swiss Army Man was unlike anything I’ve ever read before.
You can head to the gallery to check out the new set of photos and if you’re on snapchat, find the WeAreSweet profile to read Mary’s full interview.
The Wrap has released a brand new video interview where Mary talks about her upcoming show Mercy Street, debuting this Sunday at 10 pm on PBS. Here’s what she had to say:
There is so much drama inherent in the story, inherent in the Civil War itself, and just the directions they go with the storyline — when I hear what they are based on — it’s kind of shocking, like, ‘Oh no, this really happened.’ It’s so fascinating and entertaining to watch.
The six-episode series follows the lives of two volunteer nurses on opposing sides of the Civil War in Alexandria, Virginia, and co-stars Shalita Grant (“NCIS: New Orleans”) and Josh Radnor (“How I Met Your Mother”).
“I’m pumped for people to see it. It’s such a talented group of people, such a great story, a great bunch of stories kind of interwoven together … I think it’s really entertaining but also sort of educational.
With Mercy Street less than a week to go before it debuts, both The Washington Post and USA Today caught up with Mary and her co-star Josh Radnor to talk about the show. First up are some highlights from the WP interview:
For Winstead, part of what was exciting about playing Phinney was the opportunity to portray a character whose views are commonplace today but were considered radical in their time.
“I almost felt like I had it easy, because women like Mary Phinney and Louisa May Alcott [both of whose nursing experiences informed Winstead’s character] and women of that time had these personalities that were so modern, and so like they were plucked and sent back in time and landed in an era that was unfamiliar to them,” Winstead told me last fall. “They’re sort of like ‘Everyone is so crazy, there are these basic truths.’ They believed that so passionately that it feels like a modern sensibility, so so much of the dialogue and how the characters sort of behave— or my character specifically — felt very relevant to now for me.”
Phinney, trained by Dix, finds herself in conflict with Anne Hastings (Tara Summers), who worked with Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War, when Dix appoints Phinney to be the head nurse at Mansion House Hospital.
“The number of dead, the number of wounded, you would think they would want to take help from anyone who would give it,” Winstead said of how hard women had to fight to be allowed to serve. “But to think that women were still kind of turned away, or treated with disdain, or treated like they couldn’t be helpful; the women who actually did gain some respect and gained a place, you can see how they would be threatened at the thought of losing that.”
And speaking with USA Today, Mary had this to say on what drew her to the project– the women of that time:
“All the nurses before that point had been men. This was kind of the first time that women went out there and said, ‘No, I’m going to be a part of this. I’m not just going to sit at home. There’s too many people out there dying and we need all the help we can get,’ and they basically demanded to be a part of this war.”
Mercy Street premieres THIS Sunday on PBS following Downton Abbey, and The Huffington Post caught up with Mary and two of her co-stars, Josh Radnor and Norbert Leo Butz to talk about the upcoming historical drama. All of the actors agreed though, they all signed up for the show because of how great the story was.
Here’s what Mary had to share:
“You have Union and Confederate characters together,” says Winstead, who plays Mary Phinney, a high-minded abolitionist nurse from Boston. “Mary wants to help people. But she immediately falls into a great sense of confusion by what she finds in this hospital. She’s thrown off her game.”
You can read the full interview by clicking the link above.
I’ve also added two new stills which you can view in the gallery.
With Mercy Street premiering Sunday on PBS, a lot of new interviews with the cast will be making its way online in anticipation for the series premiere. The Fresno Bee caught up with some of the cast and execs of Mercy Street, and Mary shared some thoughts on her character:
Many of the characters are based on real people. They’re not the famous names that dominate most tales about the conflagration, but ordinary people like Mary Phinney, who kept a memoir of her experiences as a nurse in the hospital. Mary Elizabeth Winstead (“The Returned”) plays Phinney. “I was sort of cast somewhat last minute, and flew in and got started right away, and kind of dived into her memoir,” she says.
“So I was shooting this at the same time as I was discovering things about her. And I sort of gave everything over to these guys who were creating such an authentic environment, that I really felt like I was experiencing what she was experiencing when she first came to this hospital, and met all these people.
“And all of it is in her text as I’m acting it from day to day. And it was kind of a wonderful, special thing to be a part of and to bring to life. And I also felt I related to her so much and felt that her ideals and her views and what she was trying to accomplish and the way that she behaved was so contemporary – and so much like myself and people that I surround myself in my life now with.”
You can read the full interview by clicking on the link above.
The Daily Beast caught up with several of the Mercy Street cast earlier this year and went behind the scenes with them to share their experiences on filming, what they’ve learned and more. Below are some highlights on Mary’s thoughts where she shares most of her scenes with How I Met Your Mother actor Josh Radnor:
“Mary and Dr. Foster have a bit of an antagonistic relationship,” Winstead says. “Even though Dr. Foster is on the Union’s side, he doesn’t necessarily share her views on slavery. She’s a very staunch abolitionist, so she’s shocked by his cavalier attitude towards slavery, and his lack of commitment to the cause of ridding it.” The two also have “completely different views on medicine and how to go about doing things,” Radnor says.
On filming the show: “It’s been quite a challenge, but it’s been really exciting. I feel so inspired every minute by all the actors, and the direction, and the camera team, the art department. Everybody is working at such a high level that it really makes us all feel like we want to rise to the occasion.”
The actors also prepared for their roles by watching Ken Burns’ PBS documentary The Civil War.
“I love how human this series really is,” Winstead says, “and how you’re able to see characters on both sides of the war, and how they justify their actions in a way that we can relate to.”
Mercy Street premieres on PBS Sunday, January 17 at 10pm.
Following a review and new photos, Owl Mag has published their interview with Got A Girl following their Los Angeles concert that took place late last month. Below are some highlights from the interview, but she sure to click the link above to read it in full:
The Owl Mag: You guys have been working on these songs on-and-off since 2010. The five dates on this tour are your first live appearances. What’s it like getting to play these songs live after having worked on them for so long?
Dan The Automator Nakamura: Everything’s been really incredible. Anything’s gonna have a little bump here and there, but it’s all worked really well. Mary’s an amazing frontperson with charisma. The show just speaks for itself, in terms of the reaction of the fans, which is actually the true judgement. I think it’s been going very well.
Winstead: Yeah, we’ve gotten good reactions so far, which has been great, because this is something totally new for me. I’ve never performed like this in any capacity until a week ago when we first started these shows. It’s a big relief for me to feel like it’s going as well as it has. It’s kind of a good thing, in a way, that it’s taken this long. We would have loved to have done shows three years ago, but since we were both doing other stuff, it didn’t happen. I know my confidence has grown a lot since I was 25, when we were first working on these songs.
TOM: Mary, you’re well known for your acting. Since acting is also a creative endeavor, is there a different energy that goes into writing and performing these songs? Or does it all come from the same creative place?
Winstead: It’s interesting. Part of what made it easier for me jumping into this rather than another musical endeavor, is that I feel like Dan’s music is really cinematic and visual. Any time he would send me a track to start writing to, I would see images of movies, I would feel that kind of vibe. The characters that came out of this felt like a role that I really wanted to play that was part me, part an embellishment of me. Those are the kinds of roles I tend to veer towards, anyway, so that was kind of perfect.
TOM: On your record, you guys are influenced by ‘60s pop, music that’s older than you are. Have you guys been listening to this music since you were younger?
Winstead: I’ve listened to ‘60s music since I was a kid. I’ve been a ‘60s fan in general. About a year before I met Dan, I started going down the ‘60s French Pop rabbit hole, specifically. It was fortuitous that we met and he had this idea to do something French Pop-inspired, and I was at the time really into that genre of music. I hadn’t really discovered it until I was in my early 20s or so. I definitely became really into it at that point. It was one of those weird coincidental moments.
TOM: What’s next for Got A Girl? Will there be more shows? More new music?
Nakamura: We’re both in businesses where we’re both very busy. I really enjoy working with Mary. If it makes sense, we’ll do more.
Winstead: it’s all about timing. We both have a lot of fun doing this project. It tooks us five years to get here, so you never know what’s gonna happen.
Nakamura: I feel like, in spirit, we’ll continue to do shows, and make more music. it just has to fall into place.
Winstead: Yeah.
PBS has uploaded a new behind the scenes video featuring new interviews with Mary and her co-star Josh Radnor talking about their characters in the upcoming mini series, Mercy Street. Check out the video below and then head to the gallery to check out the screen caps! 🙂
AvidBlogs caught up with hip-hop producer Dan the Automator to talk Got A Girl, the band he created with Mary. Check out some highlights below and head to the gallery to check out the pics. They’ll be performing at Joe’s Pub in NYC tonight, tomorrow and then in Los Angeles. If you want to buy tickets for the NY performance, click HERE. Los Angeles–click HERE.
Anthony Gordon: How did you end up working with Mary?
Dan: In 2008, Radiohead was playing the Outside Lands festival here in San Francisco and [Radiohead guitarist] Ed [O’Brien] called me up to have dinner with him and Nigel Godrich and a bunch of other people. We were hanging out and these guys I hadn’t met before, Edgar Wright and Bryan Lee O’Malley, and Edgar asked me to do some music for a film they were making called Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and I was like “Yes! Of course!” Mary, who was starring in the movie, was at the dinner as well. She told me she was a fan and wanted to do some music together. We stayed in touch and a year or two later we were like “you know what? We should just try something and see what happens.” It ended up being cool and we had good chemistry together so we kept making songs and just took it from there.
AG: How did you two go about making this record? What’s your songwriting process like?
Dan: I make the music, and sometimes I’d send her tracks here and there, but mostly we’d sit together in the studio and she’d come up with melodies and we’d work out lyrics together.
AG: What are your plans for touring with the record now?
Dan: We just did two shows on the West Coast, then we have a few more coming up in New York and LA. I’m feeling pretty good about it. The band is well rehearsed and the shows have been going well. Right now we’re just dipping our feet into the water to show people we can play live.