Mary recently sat down with Collider where they mostly spoke about her current project, the Netflix animated series ‘Scott Pilgrim Takes Off’ and returning to the character of Ramona Flowers over 10 years later. In the interview, she also speaks about wanting to explore the character of Hera more in the Disney+ series ‘Ahsoka’ and her upcoming project ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’, which she’ll star alongside her husband Ewan McGregor. I added a few highlights where she talks about it all, but be sure to click the link above to read the entire interview.
What was the best part about getting to play Ramona again? Were there challenges in returning to her, so many years after playing her?
WINSTEAD: It was a huge experience for all of us, making the film, and that comes with all the history of your old self. There were a lot of things that came flooding back for me, of just the person that I used to be, and having to go back to that and be in that body again. It was definitely more emotional than I expected it to be. I was like, “Oh, God, I’ve been taken back in time and I’m being myself at 24.” There’s just a lot of feelings around that. It was amazing to get to go on this journey with that version of myself and that version of Ramona and get to grow with her in this truncated time frame. It was almost like experiencing being myself at 24 and myself at 38, and in a few months’ time, I went through all that time with her, which was just amazing. It was a deep process that I totally didn’t expect. I just expected to go in and have fun, and it ended up being more powerful to me than that.
I would imagine this character was already special to you because of the following it’s had, and then it gives you all that self-reflection to come back to it. That must have been such a surreal experience.
WINSTEAD: It was absolutely surreal and unexpected. I think the reason why we’re so game to always come back to it and it has stayed with us for all these years is because it was really an influential thing that happened in our very formative years. There’s a lot to say around playing these characters and being a part of this project, and it means a lot to all of us.
Have you thought about what you would want to explore with Hera, if you get to do more of Ahsoka? What an awesome character that is.
WINSTEAD: She’s such an amazing character. There’s such a wealth of experiences that we could bring to [Hera], in terms of either going back and showing a bit of her backstory, of what led up to the moment where we see her in Ahsoka, or at least just feeling it through getting to know where she’s at now in her journey. It’s so hard to talk about without giving away things that might have been discussed in the past. All the fans of her and of Rebels know that there’s so much that can be done with that role, so I would be really excited to get to go down that path.
You also have A Gentleman in Moscow, which sounds like a very interesting character exploration. What appealed to you about telling that story and playing that character? What are you excited for fans to see with that?
WINSTEAD: It’s an incredibly beautiful, sweeping epic story. It just encompasses so many universal themes of love and loss and war, in a way that really pulls on the heartstrings, but it’s also funny and odd. I think it’s a brilliant book, and I think people who love the book will hopefully really be excited to go on the journey with these characters. To get to be in that time period, from the twenties through the fifties, and to get to play it out with my husband and do these really fun, passionate scenes together, was just so exciting. It was really a dream come true.