A couple of new interviews with Mary have been released in the UK in anticipation for the Dec. 14 release of Smashed. The first interview comes from The Telegraph. Also, head to the gallery to see a new Mary shoot she did for the paper. On filming Smashed in 19 days:
The breakneck, 19-day shoot was, she tells me during a recent interview in London, “kind of eye-opening… it felt like acting boot camp.
Before this, any time that I auditioned to play somebody that had a dark past or any sort of troubled or tortured quality, people would always say, ‘You’re too sweet, you’re too nice, you’re too normal – you could never have problems’. And you can’t help but start believing that stuff.”
On how Smashed required her to be emotional:
“When you are playing someone who is dealing with issues on a really personal level, if you don’t bring your own issues into the equation, it’s not going to feel really personal to the people watching it,” she says.
“My issue that I uncovered in doing this film is that I have always been an extreme people-pleaser to the point where I have had people involved in my life because I want to make them happy, not because it does anything for me,” she says. “My whole life I’ve been like ‘oh I don’t have any problems, I am so boring’, but making this film I had to acknowledge that I do have problems and no matter how big or small they appear to other people, your own problems are big to you.”
Click on the link above to read that interview in full. The next interview comes from HuffPo UK where she says playing the role of Kate was scary and the advice she got from Bruce Willis on the A Good Day to Die Hard set:
Winstead reveals that, to gain the necessary intimacy she and her co-star Aaron Paul needed for this indie hit, they went on a mini-bender themselves, chaperoned by their director James Ponsoldt.
“We didn’t know each other, so he designated himself driver, and got us drunk. It was a good idea, so that when it came to making the film, we had that bonding experience behind us.”
Acting drunk – what exactly does that involve? First instincts would say it involves a certain amount of imbibing and then wobbling a bit, but Winstead confounds this…
“No acting teacher would ever suggest actually having a drink because you need to be in the moment and aware. So instead, I put myself under hypnosis, opened my eyes and glazed over.”
She reveals that although playing drunk for the first time on screen was very intimidating, the experience has changed her attitude, both towards real-life sufferers and to her own life.
“It uncovered things in my life that were toxic that I needed to deal with,” she says frankly.
“And it actually made me admire alcoholics who are in recovery living honestly and openly. It’s so brave.” And what was one thing she picked up from Bruce Willis?
“Lots and lots of side eye,” she reveals, is what she’s departed from set with. “Bruce is a quiet guy, he keeps himself to himself and I respect that, but there’s a very sardonic humour there.”
TNT Magazine also gave Mary a great review for Smashed and named her an Oscar dark horse.
Winstead gives a powerful performance, lacing Kate’s early escapades with the sort of righteous indignation that makes her charming, offensive and a liability all at the same time. Using a hand held approach, he injects urgency into Kate and husband Charlie’s chaotic lives, and peace and calm, too, as Kate attempts to break out on to the road of the 12 steps. Winstead is commanding as a woman who is aware of her illness and unable at first to combat it, but who learns to understand both herself and her new path.
And finally, Digital Spy has a new interview with Mary where she talks about her emotionally raw performance in the film: