Good news everyone! Mary will be attending two festivals very soon! First up, Mary will attend the San Fransisco International Film Festival on May 8th to promote Alex of Venice, and then on May 10th, Mary will be at the Maryland Film Festival to promote Faults.
You can purchase tickets for the SFIFF to see Alex of Venice by clicking here. Additionally, if you want to see Faults at the MD Film Festival, you can buy tickets and see showtimes here.
Stay tuned for updates on both festivals!
UInterview talked with Mary, Katie Nehra and Derek Luke about Alex of Venice.
The actors each gave Uinterview some insight into their characters, and revealed what they believed was at the core of the film.
Winstead plays the lead, Alex, an environmental lawyer and mother of one, whose husband, played by Messina, leaves her at the beginning of the film. Winstead revealed that her character is forced to redefine herself as “a mother, and a lawyer, and a sister, and a daughter and a new woman.”
“It’s just sort of her, I guess, sort of dealing with all of these relationships, and some new relationships, and some old relationships, and trying to figure out her new life,” Winstead added.
Anthem Magazine also talked with Mary about Venice, Faults and how she sees her career going. Click the link to read the full interview. Be sure to head to the gallery to see a new photo shoot Mary shot for them as well:
How did you get involved with Alex of Venice?
It’s a script I got through my agent like anything else. It wasn’t an offer… I immediately loved it. It was one of those things where I cried like 5 times when I first read it. I just felt really connected to the role and thought it was so beautifully written. I just had to play this part. I just felt like it was very specifically right for me. I knew I was a little bit young, so I auditioned a couple times. I tried to prove to them that I could be a mom and age up a little bit. [Laughs] We haven’t been married this long, but I’ve been with my husband for 11 years, so just imagining him leaving me was so devastating to me. Instantly, I could go there in my head.
This is Faults, directed by your husband Riley Stearns. Did you develop the film together?
He created this himself. I was definitely involved from the beginning, starting from the first 10 pages, so I was excited immediately from the beginning. I was like, “This is the movie. This is the movie that you’re going to find your filmmaking voice with.” I was so excited for him. I never imagined that we’d make it so quickly, so we got lucky. His producers read it and they wanted to make 6 months later—it was insane. I couldn’t be prouder. It was so much fun to work with him and super rewarding.
What’s left to explore? You have such a colorful filmography.
I just want to play complex, relatable characters. I want to find really good material. When I look at female characters from the ’70s from Ellen Burstyn or something like that, that would be the perfect world I would want.
Variety also raved about Mary’s performance in Alex of Venice.
The Arts Guild has posted their review on Alex of Venice. As always, you can read the full review by clicking on the link:
While the direction had a level of refinement, this film offers interesting, sophisticated performances. Mary Elizabeth Winstead successfully captures the broken Alex that we expect to see, slowly piecing together both her character and her life as the film progresses. Winstead ensures there is a balance of emotion, while not hiding her characters fragmented state.
Messina has created a film that does successfully look at a characters growth out of chaos, creating a story that isn’t exaggerated and characters that aren’t just found in fiction. Everyone experiences life’s brutal complexities and this film highlights that in a sincere and artistic fashion.
Crave Online caught up with Mary as well where they talked about Alex of Venice, Kill the Messenger, Faults and her possibly coming back for Die Hard 6:
I also felt for Alex with her sister when she’s all, “Man, why do you have to take your kid to school everyday?” As if you’re the bad guy for wanting to fulfill your responsibility. Did you relate to her in that scene?
Yeah, and I know a lot of mothers in my life and mothers who have a lot on their plate and they’re really just trying to hold it together. So I could see a lot of those women that I know in Alex, and how you do snap on your family. There were times where we discussed that scene before doing it. We don’t want her to be too mean. We don’t want her to yell at her sister and people won’t like her.
I was like, “That’s so real. People in families yell at each other. They freak out on each other.” To me that scene felt very real, in that moment when you’re so stressed, you have so much on your plate and you’re just trying to get your family to help you out and they’re screwing it up. So I felt like she was very validated in screaming at her sister at that moment, even though in the long run she was maybe being taught a lesson that she needed to learn. Man, that was frustrating. I felt the frustration for sure in that scene.
The latest Die Hard 6 talk is that they might be trying to get Samuel L. Jackson back. Has there been any mention of Lucy yet?
Not to me, no. I haven’t heard anything about it but that would be cool. Samuel L. Jackson coming back would be awesome. I’d like to see that.
Maybe you can have a sizable role, something in between 4 and the cameo in 5.
Right, exactly. If it keeps getting smaller it’s just going to disappear. I’ll be on the phone in the next one maybe.
And what do you get to play in Kill the Messenger?
I get to play the editor to Jeremy Renner’s character. We sort of together come up with this story and decide to print it. It’s a true story and it’s quite a crazy, crazy one. Basically Jeremy Renner plays this journalist Gary Webb who sort of discovers this link between the government and the crack epidemic in Los Angeles and did this big expose on it, but it was for the San Jose Mercury News which was a small paper.
They realized quickly that they were in way over their head because it was a story that was way beyond them, so eventually everyone was kind of forced to recant the story or to say they got things wrong, even though the story was true and Gary Webb ultimately, well, bad things happened. I don’t want to give too much away for people who don’t know the story but it’s an incredible story and Jeremy Renner’s amazing in it. I’m really excited to be a part of it.
Is the role of the editor a big part?
It’s definitely Jeremy Renner’s movie. He’s the star and there’s a big supporting cast, so it’s a supporting role but it’s a great one. She’s his boss and he really had a young female editor boss that he had to run everything by. She did end up making some minor mistakes which is part of their downfall in the end. It’s kind of a sad story about the two of them having this huge story that could potentially make their careers and it ends up crushing them in a lot of ways.
New photos of Mary being interviewed during the South by Southwest Festival in Austin last week have hit the web via the Paste Magazine site. At the event, Mary, Riley and Leland Orser talked about their new film Faults. Stay tuned for the interview, but in the meantime, head to the gallery to check out the new pics!
Even more interviews with Mary have been posted online discussing her new film Faults. With Shockya, Mary, Riley & co-star Leland Orser talked about the run through process of pulling the project together, the real-life cult deprogramming practices that inspired the film, “Faults” star Jon Gries’ experience in participating in an actual deprogramming effort, the three stages of Winstead’s character, the challenge of shooting a good portion of the movie in a single location, and more. You can view the interview below:
Secondly, Daily Actor caught up with Mary & Leland and you can read some of their interview. Click the link to read it in full.
Can you guys tell me about the movie and your characters real quick?
Leland Orser: Well, I think it’s a black comedy is what I’m saying it is, although at first I thought it was a thriller. I play a down on his luck cult deprogrammer psychologist. I think. And I am… essentially when you meet my character, Ansel Roth, I’m so down on my luck I’ve lost everything. I’ve lost my family, I’ve lost my house, I’ve lost my career, and I’m essentially living out of my car. And that’s when you come into the picture.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Yes. Well, I play a character named Claire who’s in a cult and my parents come to Leland’s character because he is, as I think he’s already said, a sort of… an expert on cults and mind control and deprogramming. And even though he hasn’t done deprogramming in quite some time, they convince him because they’re gonna pay him to kidnap me and deprogram me. She’s sort of mysterious and I don’t really wanna give too much about it away. So I’m gonna keep that part simple.
Did you sort of research anything cult like people or people who have been in cults?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Yeah, I think Leland and I both read Ted Patrick’s book, or one of Ted Patrick’s books, which was Let Our Children Go. Is that what it was called?
Leland Orser: Yeah, yeah.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Which was great. And he is sort of one of the people in this time period of the 70s kind of cult boom that loosely inspired Leland’s character. So that was a great book to read. And I tried to watch a lot of videos on YouTube, whatever I could find, specifically from that era of people in cults or people who had just gotten out of cults because there was something I think about that time period that was so specific the way people were just sort of falling like flies into these, you know, cults and sort of the youth particularly why they were so attracted to that idea was interesting to me.
We Live Film was recently at SXSW 2014 where they got to check out Mary’s new film Faults. That said, below is there review, along with press pics they took when they were being interviewed. You can see them in the gallery.
Faults is a mysterious little gem from first-time feature film director Riley Stearns. Stearns also wrote the screenplay, and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, stars in the film and helped produce it. This was obviously a passion project for them, as Winstead gives one of her best performances yet and Stearns announces himself as a true talent. Claire claims to be involved with a group called “Faults,” which supposedly allows people to see past the ridiculousness of human life and move on into other stages. Roth takes the matters into his hands by taking her for five days and speaking to her in a hotel room. The majority of the film takes place in the room and deals with the process of deprogramming, but it has some twists and turns along the way.
Faults wouldn’t have worked as well if not for the two lead performances. Winstead brings a deepness and darkness to the table that we haven’t really seen from her before. The performance at once invites both creepiness and sympathy, which is a hard thing to pull off. I hope the actress continues to take risks like this.
Score: 3 ½ out of 4 stars (Grade Equivalent for Me: A-)
I’ve rounded up quite a few new interviews Mary has taken part in and reviews for her new film Faults. Hit each link to read them in their entirety and check out the rest after the jump. Also, check the gallery for new pics taken with some of the interviewers.
THR review:
But Faults is not what it seems. Though a black-comic atmosphere persists, the debut feature is serious about manipulation and brainwashing, and a quietly commanding performance by Mary Elizabeth Winstead (the director’s wife) helps establish that seriousness once the main plot — in which the failed expert is enlisted to deprogram a couple’s daughter — gets underway. Sure to turn heads at fests, the picture should find enough support to justify an arthouse run. Winstead has plenty of emotional ground to navigate in the ensuing action, pointing viewers down some false paths in our assessment of her state of mind and relationship to those around her.
Winstead provides great innocence and an equal curiosity; she quickly flips between being childlike and being strong-willed without it feeling obvious. But the real standout is the calm demeanor Orser has throughout and the way we slowly find kinks in his armor.
Final Grade–B
Interview with CineSnob:
Mary, in your performance, you get to show a lot of sides and a lot of different emotions. What was it like playing a character where you could change from scene to scene?
MEW: It was really great. It was simultaneously really exciting for me and really scary for me because I just didn’t know if I would get it right or not when we were working on it. It seemed really daunting to me to get all that right without going into some sort of culty territory. I was really afraid of it coming across as spacey or cliché. But as soon as everything came together and the cast came together and the costumes and the sets…as soon as I walked into that environment I was like, “Oh. This is just what it’s supposed to be.” And the rest of it was so stress free and fun. I enjoyed every moment of it and got to revel in this character. It was one of the best set experiences, acting experiences that I’ve ever had.
Bloody Disgusting got the chance to check out Faults at SXSW and here’s part of their review:
Faults is a modern cult thriller cut from a slightly different cloth than contemporaries like Martha Marcy May Marlene and Sound Of My Voice (though it more than earns its place alongside those films). It shares their menacing undercurrents but also manages to be laugh out loud funny in a manner that doesn’t even come close to undercutting its central objective. That’s all you should know going in (even though the movie is certainly strong enough to withstand all kinds of spoilers, there’s no reason not to blindly give yourself over to it at least once).
It also doesn’t hurt that Stearns has a stellar cast at his disposal. Leland Orser (Seven, The Guest) is at turns hilarious, despairing and achingly wounded as Ansel, something of a cult deprogrammer. Mary Elizabeth Winstead continues to reveal new layers of command over the craft she displayed in 2012’s Smashed. Though the film is largely centered around these two, it’s buoyed by unexpected turns from Beth Grant, Chris Ellis, Lance Reddick and John Gries. All of these people click together in completely unexpected ways as the film goes about its business with remarkable clarity and specificity.
The site gave the film 4.5/5 skull heads.
The Playlist also gave their take on the film:
Anyone familiar with writer/director Riley Stearns’ short films (his most recent, “The Cub,” being a personal favorite) will be happy to hear that his first feature, “Faults,” maintains his droll sense of humor and unnerving use of framing while telling a rather different tale of parents trying to retrieve their daughter from would-be custodians. The laughs are fewer and farther between once Ansel and Claire are confined to a non-descript hotel room, but for the sake of the first act, those countless humiliations are vital to empathizing with an otherwise petty, insecure has-been of a protagonist, one constantly assaulted in Coen-esque fashion when not pocketing just about anything free for the taking.
Winstead (“Smashed,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”), gives yet another fragile, commanding performance as a young woman caught between oppressive parents, a well-meaning captor and her own brainwashed persona. Claire (who doesn’t care for that name anymore) points out that Faults takes its own name from seismic and psychic pressures alike, and after being steeped in Ansel’s unyielding stress, it’s not hard to recognize the appeal of such a self-actualizing mentality. Their quicksilver dynamic together isn’t just the focus of the film; it’s reason enough to see it.
“Faults” is a strangely funny, often eerie accomplishment, and it’s a testament to why people like us tend to call first features like this “promising.” [B+]
Yesterday in Texas, Mary premiered her new film Faults at the 2014 SXSW Festival alongside Riley Stearns and co-stars Leland Orser, Beth Grant and actor Jon Gries. Head to the gallery to check out the pics in HQ and also check out a new video interview Mary did with We Live Film discussing the movie.
Tonight marked the premiere of Mary’s new film Faults which debuted at the SXSW Festival in Austin, TX. Lots of people took to their Twitter accounts and loved it! While I will post some of those reactions, first up is a review from Indiewire. Click on the link to read the full review:
Much of the odd comedic formula emerges from a pair of carefully orchestrated lead performances: Character actor Leland Orser delivers a fascinatingly offbeat turn as downtrodden author Ansel Roth, an expert in deprogramming brainwashed cult members, while Stearns’ wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays the young woman he’s hired to deprogram. Delivering an icy, cryptic performance that ranks among her best — and exists a world apart from her role as a messy alcoholic in “Smashed — Winstead’s frequently inscrutable expression epitomizes this unique movie’s enigmatic appeal.
Twitter reactions:
Scott Menzel
If you are at #SXSW, do yourself a favor and see #faults. The film is really something special and different. @RileyStearns@M_E_Winstead
Peter S. Hall
FAULTS is real good. Leland Orser and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are stellar. Riley Stearns has a real command of tone and dark human delights.
DanielRester
@M_E_Winstead@LelandOrser Great work in #faults. One of the best at #SXSW so far. @WeLiveFilm
This is just the beginning, so keep checking back for more reviews and updates!