Category: Smashed

The interviews keep on coming! Check out this just released interview with Mary featured on Interview Magazine. Click the link to read the interview in its entirety:

KEELY WEISS: How has the journey of this film been for you? The hype has been building steadily ever since Sundance.

MARY ELIZABETH WINSTEAD: I mean, even getting into Sundance, I was screaming and jumping around the room because to me that really was just the pinnacle of everything we were trying to do. We just hoped people would see the movie in some capacity, that it would find some audience and maybe at least a small distribution company would pick it up or something, and every step of the way it’s just been growing to bigger and bigger proportions than I expected. You end up doing more press for a little film like this than you do for the really big ones, which is not quite what I expected, but I’m happy to do press for a little movie that you’re really trying to get people to see. I’m not one of those actors that hates press and gets really groan-y about it—I always like talking about films—but it’s just been a really refreshing experience to get to promote this film because it’s very easy to talk about.

WEISS: This film is pretty much entirely focused on your performance, and I imagine that must have been a lot of pressure, but it also must have been very liberating.

WINSTEAD: Yes, yes, both. When I got the part I had the realization that, you know, I’ve really never done anything like this before and I’ve got a lot to prove to others and myself, so it was a little bit scary. It was a huge challenge. But everything about it was so liberating, just playing a part where there’s no makeup and I didn’t have to be pretty at any moment—or anything other than whatever was most truthful for the character.

WEISS: How do you see Kate as a character?

WINSTEAD: I love Kate. She’s a good person who makes mistakes, who picks herself up again and continues to try to be a good person and continues to make mistakes [laughs] and continues to pick herself up again. I think those are the kinds of people that we all root for and that we all love because nobody’s perfect. Anytime I’m given scripts where I’m sort of the fantasy girl, it’s hard for me because that’s not real and I don’t think it’s a great thing to put out there consistently.

It’s no secret that in Mary’s upcoming film Smashed, Mary’s character is an alcoholic. Screen Crave sat down with Mary and discussed playing a drunk and working on the film. As always, click on the link above to read the full interview:

Can you talk a little about playing drunk and not overdoing it?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: It’s really daunting. Even the best actors – it’s just really hard. The whole thing about being drunk is that you’re out of control. If you’re acting you’re in control because you want to know what looks right and believable. It defeats the whole purpose of making it authentic. James (director/co-writer) found a book called The Power of the Actor, which is just a great book on acting. It has an entire chapter dedicated to playing drunk.

I used the author’s method and it worked really well. It’s almost like hypnoses, in a way. You take yourself through all the steps of what it feels like to be drunk and it plays a mind trick on you. You feel loose and out of your body. It helps me let go of the fear of worrying about whether it feels real or not. I felt really loosened and buzzed for sure. One of the author’s tricks is that you pretend that your left leg doesn’t work or your tongue doesn’t work. Something about you doesn’t work and you’re trying to compensate that and hide it.

When Smashed debuted at Sundance, the big buzz about it was you. Did you ever think, ‘God I should’ve done this sooner’?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead: (Laughs) Yes and, well, a similar thought. I always wanted to go there. I wanted to get one of those indie movies where you can really get a great performance and it goes to Sundance. That’s what I wanted. I rarely got those scripts and when I did, I didn’t get the part. I just think I wasn’t meant to do it sooner. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to play a role like this five years ago. I just don’t know. Back then I would like to have thought that I could, but maybe I couldn’t. And if I tried, it might’ve not worked out as well as it did this time. The years of working and growing as an actor – it all just came at the right moment for me. I felt like I was confident enough and ready enough to do it.

What was different in your preparation for an indie?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Not just it being an indie, but it being such a complex character and such a real person more-so than anything I had played before. Typically I’ve played things that feel more like they’re in the fantasy realm in some way. The preparation was much more exhausted for this because I’m playing a real person that’s going through something real. I can’t just pretend or wing it. It just wouldn’t be respectful to the material. It was a lot more prep work.

Smashed is only a few days away from release in New York and L.A. (October 12), and more new interviews are slowly being released online. This one comes from ComingSoon. Below is an excerpt, and you can read the full interview by clicking on the link.

ComingSoon.net: What was it about this script or role that got you on board? Kate’s a very interesting character, that’s for sure.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Yeah, it’s such a no-brainer, everything about it. When I read the script, it was one of those things that I thought I’d never get the part, because the few times in my career that I read a role that great, every A-list actress in Hollywood is trying to get it. It’s such a competitive environment because there’s so few roles that good for women, so I thought I was really going to have to fight for it and really get my name in there and I was amazed with how easily they went for me and they were like, “Yeah, we think you’re great for the part.” It was kind of a shock because it was such a well-rounded readable woman, and it’s incredibly rare. Not even withstanding how great the script is and how well drawn the characters are, the simple fact that it was such a great, real human being to play, was all I needed.

CS: What was it like doing those classroom scenes? Those looked like they could be a lot of fun, partially because we get to see something we haven’t seen you do before but also dealing with kids.
Winstead: Those were so much fun to shoot. The kids were great, especially the kids that had real dialogue to say. They were such great little actors and they were so excited to be there. All the extras were hilarious, because I really felt like I was a teacher. I’d be standing up there and they’d be like (puts on a snarky kid’s voice) “How old are you?” Then I’d say my age and they’d go (snark kids’s voice) “Oh, you’re soooo oooold!” (laughs) It felt very my like I was really the teacher. This was between takes and they were making fun of me for being so old, and for wearing such ugly clothes and stuff like that. (laughs) Yeah, they were hilarious.

CS: What about working with Aaron Paul? When I first saw the movie, I hadn’t seen “Breaking Bad” yet.
Winstead: Oh, really? You’re like the one person. It’s so funny because it’s this little cable show, but it seems like everybody knows about it and everybody watches it. It’s such a phenomenon and he’s incredible. He’s such a great actor in that, he’s so great in “Smashed.” He’s so open and dedicated and one of the kindest people that you’d ever want to have around on set. Just willing to do anything that needs to be done, to be there for everybody and for the other actors.

Blackbook Magazine recently sat down with Mary and director James Ponsoldt to discuss their film Smashed. “Our goal was identification, not objectification—and the humor if it speaks to the fact that it’s really fun to be drunk and it’s not wrong to say that! There’s a reason people drink and we wanted that to be a part of the spirit of the film,” admits writer/director James Ponsoldt. Below is part of the interview the mag did between Mary and James. Click the link above to read the FULL interview:

How did you get involved with the film?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I was looking to meet people who were doing films that were small and performance-focused and was sent two scripts and one of them was Smashed and I pretty much flipped out over it. I called the producer immediately and was like, “what do I have to do to be considered for this part,” and he introduced me to James, who I loved. So, I put myself on tape and did an audition tape and sent it to them. Yeah, it was pretty shocking and amazing that they actually cast me off the tape and didn’t audition anyone else. I feel really lucky that they put faith in me because usually that never happens.

So once you were cast, how did you prepare to become Kate?
MEW: Well, I had close to a month to work on it, which I was very thankful for because I knew I needed to do a lot of work to really to get to the places I needed to get to. So I started out going to a lot of AA meetings with Susan our co-writer and Elyse our producer, who was also in recovery. I was always welcomed into these open meetings and I went to every different neighborhood in LA basically and tried different meetings and I would see so many different types of people and I realized that if I took alcohol out of the equation that I could fit perfectly in those rooms with those people; they were completely and totally relatable. So that was kind of the first step in relating to the character and then once I started looking at my own life and my own issues, then it just kind of went further and further into becoming her because I kind of made my problems her problems and they kind of became one.

Was that frightening for you?
MEW: It was a funny experience because it all felt so real—the dark moments felt incredibly real or challenging and exhausting but at the same time, it was such a fun, relaxed set that I always felt comfortable and happy. It was a really surreal experience in that way because it was just my favorite place to be even though we were doing things that were sometimes emotionally hard. I always felt kind of relived and happy at the end of the day.