Mary
Elizabeth
WinsteadSource

In an interview with Backstage.com, director and also actor of Alex of Venice star Chris Messina praised Mary’s acting ability in his new film:

The film follows the titular character, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, as she fights to keep her job as environmental lawyer, her role as a mother, and her eccentric father (Don Johnson) in check, without the support of her husband.

A fan since seeing her on “Smashed,” Messina felt Winstead’s talents were well-suited for the film. “When I saw her audition, I was blown away,” he admits. “The trick with Mary is just to stay out of her way because she doesn’t need my direction…If I have to guide her right or left, that’s fine, but she was connected to the part, she didn’t need me—she just needed me to shut up.”

He kept his silence when directing Winstead, but Messina’s voice and vision as a director comes through loud and clear in the first five minutes of the film, carrying through to the end. Supported, but not driven by dialogue, much of Messina’s storytelling is visual, dropping clues about the storyline in degrees. It was a choice partly achieved by not stopping the recording between takes.

“It created some moments that didn’t have a lot of acting in it and it was helpful for me when I was in editing to find some truth,” he says.

The Arts Guild caught up with Mary, screenwriter/actress Katie Nehra and actor Derek Luke at the Tribeca Film Festival where they talked about their new film Alex of Venice. You can check out the video interview here.

BlackFilm.com chatted with Mary’s co-star in the film, Derek Luke, and he talked about how he enjoyed working with Mary. Read in full at the link above:

How was working with Mary Elizabeth?

DL: Mary reminds me of a couple of women that I have either met or had the opportunity to date. What I love about Mary is that she is complex in a sense that she’s sophisticated but she’s an artist. She comes to set to work and I think that when you come to set to work, all gender goes away and the respect evolves. I have a true respect for her. My wife threw a party for me and part of the party was doing monologues. I didn’t want to do a monologue but my wife got up and did a monologue and she blew me away. It’s the same admiration I had for Mary. There are some incredible powerful actors that happen to be women.

Also, The Sag Harbor Online did a lengthy interview with Mary where she talks about AOV and touches a little upon 2011’s The Thing and her earlier work. Be sure to click the link to read it in full:

DP: In the press notes, Chris Messina says this is a slice-of-life drama.  That means characters don’t have to change.  But the movie is about change. Everyone changes for the better.

MEW: It’s one of the major themes of the movie.

DP: About a third of the way through the movie I was liking your performance, but I was asking myself, “Do I like her character?” When you read the script for the first time, did you like Alex?

MEW: I really liked her in the script and as I played her, But there were a few moments when I was thinking, “I hope people stick with her through some of this stuff, because she’s really high-strung and nervous for a good majority of the movie.” She’s not connected, not really present, and making bad choices as well.

DP: Actors are usually protective of their characters, so were you seeing good stuff in her?

MEW: Absolutely. She’s so relatable, in terms of people that I know and love. I have a really big family, so there’s all sorts of types of people in my family. So there are Alexes in my family. Especially when you’re a mother and you’re very busy and  just trying to keep your life together, you don’t want to look at or think about or address things that aren’t going well.  Because there’s too much going on. I think that’s easy to relate to, particularly for women today who are trying to balance so many things in their lives. Alex, in some cases, would rather things just go on in their own broken ways because it’s easier than addressing the real problems.

DP: I saw most of your early movies without realizing they all starred the same actress, you. It wasn’t until The Thing that I knew who you were.  Was that a pivotal movie for you, in terms of audience?

MEW: I’ll always really love that role.  It was not a movie that did well necessarily, but I was attracted to the idea of playing a smart action heroine at the time. I still am.  I loved the character, and the project, and the director [Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.] and it’s still something that I look back on fondly.

The final screening of Alex of Venice at the Tribeca Film Festival this Saturday at 6:30 at the SVA theater on 23rd Street between 8th & 9th Avenues.

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.”