Mary was interviewed by Cinema Blend where they asked her about how the aging process was for her role in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and how she’s eager to shoot another action film. Read the full interview by clicking on the link above:
You seemed really excited about the aging up in this movie. What made you so excited to do that?
It was just such a challenge, just the thought of having to progress a life from age 19 to 45 or so. Especially her life, going from a car free young socialite to someone who goes through the death of– in real life, 3 children– and the Civil War and all this darkness. To progress from that point to that seemed like a really unique challenge.And the old age makeup is really, surprisingly great. Do you know what they did that made it so good this time around, when it’s usually so bad?
I don’t know. We got the best people– Greg Cannom was the head special effects makeup artist, and he did Benjamin Button. Any time you’ve seen it done really well, it’s been done by him and his team. It was incredible to see him work and see how he does it. I had several prosthetics, and I also had stuff called stipple all over my face, where I would scrunch my face up, and when I relaxed it all the wrinkles would be there. And then for me they digitally enhanced it slightly. It’s really mostly the prosthetics. On set, Timur hated seeing me old. He was always like, “I don’t know! Less, less!”Did Scott Pilgrim give you the itch to do more action like that, or were you glad to have the break?
Well I was glad to have a break at first, because right after Scott Pilgrim I did The Thing, which was stunt-heavy, a lot of running and the flamethrower. I was just kind of tired, physically. So I was happy to take a break. But once I was there and I saw people doing stuff around me, and I wasn’t able to be a part of it, it did get a little difficult for me to just sit back in my hoop skirt and not get into the action.Is there any vanity involved in that for you? Especially since it’s in 3D. Can you handle seeing yourself old like that?
Maybe not yet. Maybe a little down the line that might become more of a scary thing for me. For me it was just more fun and exciting to see myself in a different way. It feels more like the character than me. That’s something I enjoyed, not seeing myself reflected back.