During a press day in New York for 10 Cloverfield Lane, Mary did tons of interview for the film which will be released on March 11. Below are some highlights she did with Film Ink. Click the link to read the interview in full:
On the secrecy of the film: “They sent me the script, but it was this very secretive way of doing it,” Winstead explains. “I got one link, that I could open one time on my laptop, and then as soon as I was finished with the script, it would delete automatically. A lot of times, I read things a couple of times, and really figure out how I feel about it, but this was like one chance. I read it once. Even my agents didn’t get to read it. It was really all on that one read, but I fell absolutely in love with the story, and the characters, and in particular the character of Michelle.”
On preparing for the movie: “I read a couple of biographies about women who had been kidnapped, and held captive in small spaces, just to get an idea of what that would feel like, even though that’s not exactly happening to Michelle,” Winstead says, “or at least she doesn’t quite know what’s happening to her. I wanted to understand what that would feel like to be held somewhere and not to be able to get out, and to be suddenly taken away from everything that you know. So I did a little bit of research like that, just to get in her headspace just a little bit, even though this obviously isn’t a true crime film. But it was good to get a little of that perspective.”
On being called Mary Elizabeth or Mary: “It was a SAG [Screen Actors Guild] thing, but I didn’t need to do it, I just wanted to,” the actress replies. “I joined SAG at twelve, and I just wanted to sound fancy. That’s really what it was about. If I got in trouble, I’d be called Mary Elizabeth, but on a day to day basis, it’s really just Mary. But as a kid, I thought, like all kids do, that my name was so boring. Mary Winstead sounded so boring to me, so I threw the Elizabeth in, just for good measure.”