[IMG:L]With roles in such high-profile films as Emilio Estevez’s Bobby or the upcoming action sequel Live Free or Die Hard or a plum turn in Grindhouse director Quentin Tarantino’s
Hollywood.com: Tell us how that first phone call to do a Quentin Tarantino movie went.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: My agent called and said they were sending over a script and that happens often but it was Quentin Tarantino‘s script. So it is automatically “Ok, I’ll do it just let me audition any way I possibly can!” So I got the script. It was such a pleasant thing because it was character after character of interesting female women characters that you don’t normally get in scripts…I flew to New York. The day that I got there as soon as I got off the plane I got a call saying that there was an emergency and Quentin actually was leaving New York. So I was in New York all alone, and I flew back to L.A. and just tried to get in there as soon as I could. I just didn’t want anybody else getting in there before me to get in his head before he could see me. I finally got to see him, I waited for three hours at his house because there were so many girls there for every different character. I finally got to see him and it was the best audition experience ever. He was so welcoming and gregarious and friendly and aware of all my work, which was probably the weirdest thing. He was like ‘That episode of True Calling you did was awesome! I got the DVD set.” And I was like “What?” Quentin Tarantino actually saw that? It’s pretty crazy.
HW: What is it like to be on set working with him?
MEW: So exciting – just a real adrenaline-fuelled experience. It was constant energy, constant fun, and constant music playing and dancing. And, oh, the camera is rolling, and, oh, we’ve cut but we are still talking and we are still dancing and singing and having fun. It was really such a different thing. Usually a lot of moviemaking is boring. It is a lot of sitting around in your trailer and taking naps, and there was none of that on this.
HW: Did working with these kinds of adventurous filmmakers spoil you when it came to going back to the more traditional Hollywood way?
MEW: Absolutely. We’re all, I mean, we say it all the time, we are completely spoiled. There’s — no way any experience is ever going to come close to this. It just was, every minute was so much fun, and such an exuberant experience that — it just doesn’t compare to anything. And I know every project is great, every project is fun, and I love working, but this was just a — moment in history of my career that — I can’t imagine is ever going to be topped.
[IMG:R]HW: What surprised you about the methods Tarantino used? Did anything make you say “Wow, that’s so cool to do it that way?”
MEW: The main thing was, I was just so amazed at how good he is at his job. I mean, obviously he is who he is because he’s brilliant, but he knows his stuff so well, that there’s never a problem on set. It’s just like, he knows exactly what he wants, you only have to do one take of it. If you get it right, if you do what he wants, you’re moving onto the next thing. And it goes so smoothly, because he’s so good at it, that everyone on the set is happy all the time. And I feel like that’s what makes him such a great director, is like, he knows how to run a set better than anyone I’ve ever seen. It was unbelievable.
HW: Were you surprised by any aspects of Quentin himself?
MEW: I didn’t expect him to be so sweet, and so, kind of childlike and fun. I kind of was afraid he’d be a little intense and maybe even dark at times, because he is such a genius, that that usually kind of can take on a darker tone in somebody’s personal life. But he’s never, I’ve never seen him angry, or in his head, or upset about anything. He’s just always funny. He’s always having a good time. And he loves to bring you in on that. He loves to make everyone around him happy. And I just felt like that was such a great thing, because he doesn’t have to do that. He’s sort of at the point in his career, where, if he wanted to, he could treat everyone around him like crap and get away with it, and he doesn’t. Because that’s just not his personality. He treats everyone with kindness and warmth. And I really think that’s tremendous.
HW: When you wrapped, did you have a mile-long list of movies you needed to find on Netflix?
MEW: Kind of, yeah. I mean, I want to see every single one that he talks about. We’d go to screenings at his house, and he puts together this hour-long footage of trailers, of old exploitation films. And I want to see every one of them. And it’s so hard to get your hands on those, nowadays. I don’t know what happened to a lot of them. But he’s got so many old prints of these films, and so, it’s so much fun to get to go to his house and go to the screenings. I hope that maybe more places like that will pop up over the country so that people can kind of get that same experience because it’s so much fun.
HW: Did he ask you questions about the most random things you’d worked on?
MEW: Yeah, absolutely. At my audition, we talked a lot about Final Destination 3 and the experience of working on that. He was really excited about Black Christmas — he was a big fan of the original, he asked me a lot about Bob Clark, and what character I was going to play. We talked a lot about horror films and Factory Girl and sort of philosophy of that, and it was really interesting to have those kind of conversations with him and feel like he saw me as an equal in so many ways, which I was really in awe of. [Laughs] It was crazy.
HW: Did you keep your cheerleader outfit from the film?
MEW: No, I should try to get a hold of it. I have the outfit that I wore to the audition, though, which is fun. [Laughs] I didn’t have a cheerleading outfit, but I went and found a sort of retro-looking pseudo-cheerleading outfit. It was kind of this one piece little dress that was really cute, and Quentin commented on it when I walked in the door, so I was like “Yes! Picked the right one!”
HW: Quentin’s a well-known cinematic foot fetishist – at any point did he try to shoot your feet?
MEW: [Laughs] No, he didn’t. But yeah, I went to the audition in flip-flops. Oh, I knew. Yeah, I knew that. I got the notes and everyone was kind of like, “Did you read that, that says he wants you to wear flip-flops?” And I was like, “Oh, yeah, he likes feet. I know that. I’m aware.” So I got a pedicure, and everything, and I kind of did the same thing that Sydney Poitier says she did, where she just kind of flipped off a shoe — threw off her flip-flops and put her feet on the table. I kind of did that as well, even though my feet, my feet aren’t an important part of the film, where a couple of other girls, they are. [Laughs] Their feet are showcased, but mine weren’t. But, just in case, I put them out there.
HW: This film obviously came out of Quentin and Robert Rodriguez’s passion for the Grindhouse style. What movies do you get really amped up about, DVDs that you watch over and over?
MEW: I mean, it sounds so stupid to say this, but any Quentin Tarantino movie. I’m obsessed with him, with the Kill Bills and Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. Those are like the movies that I watch over and over again. I love old horror films as well. I’m a big fan of that genre. Which is lucky, because I’ve been in quite a few, so I’m glad that I enjoy them.
HW: Do you remember the first Tarantino film you saw, and your reaction to it?
MEW: I can remember when Pulp Fiction came out. I was like 10 years old. But I remember the impact that it had. I remember watching, I think it was the MTV Movie Awards or something that year – I remember spoofs of it on Saturday Night Live, and I didn’t get to see the movie back then, obviously – I was 10, that was a little hard for me to actually get to see it. But I wanted to. I was really intrigued by it. So it’s funny, being 10 years old, and still realizing “That looks like a really cool movie. I want to see that.”
HW: Is there another actor whom, in a perfect world, you’d pattern your career after?
MEW: It’s funny – I’ve always said Uma Thurman, which, once again, just sounds so weird, because she is the Quentin Tarantino actress, but she’s so intelligent, and she’s so strong. I feel like in her career, she’s played so many different kinds of roles and I feel like she kind of sticks to who she is throughout her career, as well. I’ve always admired her and kind of aspired to be like her.
HW: Tarantino films come with few expectations, other than simply high quality – in fact, they’re expected to defyexpectations. You’re next film, however, is Live Free or Die Hard, and that comes with all kinds of expectations. How did you shift your mindset to go from Grindhouse to that?
MEW: Yeah, it was a bit crazy, because I was cast after I did this, and then suddenly they sent me over the script and I was like “You want to show up to work tomorrow?’ And be Lucy McLean?” And it was such a whirlwind. So I just sort of threw myself into it and I was a little scared, because I was like “This is the fourth in a series of amazing action films, and it’s been 10 years since the last one, what if this one doesn’t live up to it?’ And — seeing the dailies and watching the footage, and I’m just blown away. And I’m so excited for it to come out, because I think people are going to really love it. And they’re gonna — it really does live up to the other films in so many ways…I am really excited for people to see it, I think it is hopefully going to live up to the expectations…I have only seen little bits in dailies and I was really pleasantly surprised. I think I was little nervous going into it because it is big shoes to fill.
HW: What did you learn from watching Bruce Willis at work? This is a character he knows like the back of his hand, but I’m sure he has to challenge himself, too.
MEW: Right. I really understood why he is who he is through watching him. He’s amazing. He does so little, especially on that character, he knows it so well. He knows he barely has to do anything, but just say the words. And you watch it on screen, and it blows you away. It’s like “I was there when he was doing that, and he was barely doing anything with his face, he was so subtle,” but on screen, it’s amazing, and it’s so effective. He’s just such a skilled actor, that he can do that – be so small, and be so subtle, and yet have such an impact in this iconic character.
HW: And had you met Bruce prior to shooting? He has a connection to Quentin, and, shall we say, a very specific connection to Grindhouse as well.
MEW: It was a secret actually apparently. I got on the set of Live Free or Die Hard and Bruce was like “So don’t tell anybody, but I am actually in Grindhouse too.” It was really funny.
HW: Finally, in Death Proof you may have the best audible “Gulp!” ever uttered on screen. In fact, you literally say the word “Gulp.”
MEW: I wasn’t actually supposed to say that – it was supposed to be in my head, but I said it out loud.
