We are less than a week away from seeing Mary on our TV screens again in the upcoming Paramount+ series, ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ & as such, a brand new interview has come out! Below are some highlights Mary did with Airmail.
I have also added a brand new still of Mary and Ewan as their characters into the gallery.
Mary on what it was like filming scenes with her on screen co-star (& real-life husband) Ewan McGregor:
“The fact that we are so in love with one another, and we do kind of burst with feeling for each other all the time, made it really, really easy to bring all those layers to the relationship and to really see the relationship between the count and Anna develop,” Winstead says. “There were certain scenes where we’d go, O.K., we don’t actually have to cry in this scene—let’s pull it together! It was always so moving for us every day.” (Despite their relationship, the producers followed protocol and assigned the couple an intimacy coach to help choreograph their sex scenes.)
Mary on the type of research she did to play the role of film actress Anna Urbanova:
Winstead found herself researching and learning from the lives of real-life Russian actresses who might have been contemporaries of Urbanova’s. “I really focused on Alla Nazimova, who was a huge Russian star in the 1920s and had ups and downs throughout her career that reminded me of Anna,” she says.
“She had many marriages and affairs, with both men and women, and was very bravely open and comfortable with her womanhood and sexuality. She also had a very difficult childhood and was abused by her father, so she left home at a young age to escape that. In our story, Anna’s backstory is kept quite mysterious because that’s how she likes it, but there is a heavy history there that can be felt.”
Mary on Ewan’s commitment to the role of Count Rostov:
“I think that Ewan really captures that so well in his performance, and I think that sort of has a trickle effect throughout the show. A lot of characters have that sense of strength in adversity. Life carries on, and you find humor and laughter and hope in the darkest of places. ”
McGregor has already begun praising his wife’s performance to reporters, and Winstead needs no prompting to return the favor. “I feel like I could talk for hours about how amazing he is, even when I was just home with him as his partner and seeing his commitment to it and the way that he embodied this person like nobody else could,” she says about McGregor’s preparation. He worked with a movement coach to nail the mannerisms and bearing of the leisured class, and maintained his character’s thick, nobleman’s mustache for nearly a year.
