Two new interviews with Mary discussing Alex of Venice have been released. The first one is with Zoomin.TV Movies. It’s a little NSFW in the language department but other than that, it’s a short interview.
Den of Geek also spoke with Mary, Katie Nehra and Derek Luke about the film. Below are some highlights, you can read it in full by clicking on the link above:
How was Chris [Messina] as a director for all of you guys?
MEW: He’s wonderful. Like Derek was saying, just getting to work with an actor-director was so great. I’ve worked with a lot of directors who have great communication, but there are those times where the communication is really not there, because they don’t know how actors approach what they do, and they don’t know how to get you to do what they want by using the right language; they don’t know how to use it. He knows exactly how to express that, because he’s an actor. So, it cuts out any sort of communication issues. And he knows what actors like to do, which is to get to play and go every direction possible. He’s like now do it this way, now do it this way, now do it this way.
Mary, Chris said at the premiere that you did the ecstasy scene so much that you threw up. Could you talk about the process of that scene?
MEW: Well—it was a mix of things that happened. The first thing that happened was that was the day they had an ice cream truck on set. Ice cream sandwiches literally this big [gestures large sandwich]. And I had two of them. I don’t know why, but that night I decided to have two giant ice cream sandwiches. And then—
KN: I had tequila on set.
MEW: Katie was drinking tequila.
KN: I was making mixed drinks.
MEW: I literally had only two sips of the tequila, but it was just enough, I think, with the ice cream. And then I didn’t really realize, the way that Chris shoots, that it was going to be crazy. I mean it looks so mellow with the music and the slow-mo, but we were jumping to really fast-paced music, and Chris kept going, “Jump! Keep jumping! Keep jumping everybody!” It was just half an hour of jumping.
You have a great a quality of mixing comedic elements with dramatic moments. I saw it in Smashed and I see it in this film. Is that hard to balance or does it come out naturally?
MEW: Thank you so much. Well, I think that’s the kind of thing I’ve grown into as I’ve gotten older and further into my career: bringing myself as much as I can, and knowing that that’s a good thing. I think when I was younger, I thought that wasn’t really acting. “No, I have to create like this mysterious person who is totally different from me! That’s the only way I’ll be a real actor!” As I’ve gotten older, I realized that it’s the opposite. That’s what people want to see. They want to see you. They want to see your personality, and your heart, and your soul, and that’s what actually makes me people relate to you. So, I finally kind of realized that and I just try to bring myself to it.
I’m just thankful people like Chris—when I watch it, I’m like “I do so many weird things!” But thankfully, someone appreciates it. There are so many faces I make where I’m like “I have no idea why I’m doing that.”