[IMG:L]With proven industry stay power, she’s the uber-talented, acting chameleon who transitioned and reinvented herself with diverse roles such as a scream queen in The Hitcher, a cute teen in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and a psycho roomie in Single White Female. And throughout a distinguished acting career, she has also starred in numerous indie cult classics such as The Machinist and The Jacket. With a lauded Broadway stint in Cabaret, soon thereafter followed by her directorial debut with The Anniversary Party, Jennifer Jason Leigh has left no stone unturned.
Now, Leigh teams up with her Sundance prize-winning writer/director hubby, Noah Baumbach, as the other half a talented duo that combined their masterminds to create a powerful and resonant upcoming buzz film, Margot at the Wedding. Having gained notoriety with his last flick, The Squid and the Whale, Baumbach’s collaboration with Leigh is the result of an honest tragicomedy depicting a typical dysfunctional family life. Also starring Nicole Kidman and Jack Black, the film arrives in a gilded package.
Baumbach and Leigh gathered for an intimate Q&A to discuss their creative partnership, the essence of Margot, their interpretations of the film’s characters, and their respective perspectives on directing and acting.
[IMG:R]Hollywood.com: Men and women have very strong reactions to this film. Was it a conscious choice or concern to gear the film towards a female audience?
Jennifer Jason Leigh: No. Noah created it and he gets so well inside the head of women. I was obviously involved in it for a long time and with all the drafts. I didn’t feel there was any kind of gender aspect to it at all.
Noah Baumbach: I didn’t know I was going to write principally about women. As I found my way into the movie, it turned out to be a movie about sisters. In a way, it was surprising to me but I would have intimidated myself if I set out to write a movie about women. I would have talked myself out of it. The way it came about: I do my best work when I let the story and the characters reveal themselves–and it happened that way. I’m glad I had that in me, but it wasn’t conscious.
HW: In terms of collaboration, can you talk about refining the script and if having a contributing ‘voice’ from the opposite sex made a significant difference in the outcome for each of you?
JJL: Noah writes very fluidly and effortlessly; and I have a weird ability to focus and read something fresh almost every time. We would just talk about it. It was as simple as that and we’d sort of go from there.
NB: Jennifer gives me great notes whether I write about men or women. Any good writer can write about both [sexes] just like any good director can direct both. I don’t distinguish. I asked Jennifer as many questions about men and she gave me great notes on The Squid also. Jennifer’s just a great springboard–period.
[IMG:R]HW: Jennifer, did you relate to and see yourself as your complex character Pauline?
JJL: Yes and no. I knew at a certain point, Noah was thinking of me as Pauline, but he doesn’t write with actors in mind. When I have written in the past, I do because it helps me think of their cadence. For me it frees me up in certain way but for him it’s freer not to have specific people in mind. I was able to look at the script as a piece of drama on its own, without thinking of myself in it. I was able to read it more as his wife, and hopefully have something intelligent to impart. It wasn’t about picking a part [to play]. It wasn’t part of our discussions. It was more about me helping Noah and how he sees me. He told me he wanted me to be Pauline and that was how it was.
HW: She’s so readily ruffled–did you like the part of Pauline?
JJL: I do like Pauline. I feel for her. What made this kind of easy, in a sense, is that I’d lived with it for so long–it wasn’t like stepping into a whole new thing. I had read so many drafts and we had spoken about it so often and frequently that I was so inside of it. That made it an effortless transition for me. Sometimes it’s fun to play characters you don’t necessarily like or empathize with, or understand, because you have to figure out a way in. That makes it a puzzle and challenge. That can be kind of fun because you have to make the character recognizable not only to yourself but also someone viewing the film. It’s a nasty bit of fun. Let’s put it this way: I wouldn’t wan to be in a room with some of the characters I’ve played. [Jennifer laughs, as does Noah].
[IMG:L]HW: How was working with and casting Jack Black?
JJL: Imagine all the things you love about Jack Black and that’s who he is. He’s incredibly generous, funny, sweet, open, and easy going. He tries to work so hard and is really there, but yet we can sit together and sing. He can really sing. I love to sing but I can’t really sing that well but he can really sing, and he sang along with me all the time. He’s very good with children and with everybody. He’s the biggest sweetheart and he’s such a good actor. I was so excited for him to be able to shine in something completely different–other–than he’d ever done but at the same time, it’s everything he’s done. It’s just in a different venue; it’s a way of using him and letting him shine in a real way.
NB: Jack was my first choice in casting the role. I knew Jack from his earlier roles and when I finished the script, I was thinking about who I would want to play it and he was who I wanted. I got all my first choices with this movie; but what I wanted to use–what’s great about Jack, which is funny–I wanted him to be funny, but in the realm of the movie I was making. Jack was an actor before he was a comic star so he was really into the idea, and open to giving himself over to this character.
[IMG:R]HW: Can you talk a little bit about the set?
JJL: We were shooting in the Hamptons in this beautiful location and gorgeous house. Instead of trailers, we had this beautiful guesthouse next door. We were there for six weeks and it was a very relaxed set. Even though the work was very serious, it was easy to get there because everyone was very committed. The production set was amazing; so real and lived in. Everyone was there because they loved the material and Noah. It was an idyllic working environment.
NB: I wanted the movie to really feel how your eyes seize things. I wanted it to feel like how you see things in real life.
HW: Jennifer is it true that you are shy? How does that affect shooting nude scenes?
JJL: I am shy, but being naked and shy aren’t necessarily opposite ends of the spectrum. I’m shy but acting is a way to overcome it and communicate without really knowing what I’m thinking or feeling. It’s a character and although I know it’s true and I know it’s me, no one else watching it does. There’s a kind of safety in that for a shy person. I think a lot of actors are shy; there’s a part of them that’s dying to be able to communicate and come out of that to be more expressive or insane–or all the things they don’t allow themselves to be in life because it’s too dangerous or unpleasant. On set, you’re safe because it’s not real. You can approximate a real experience but in safe confines, so it appeals to a lot of shy people.
HW: There are so many uncomfortable, soul-baring moments in the film that translate to an unexpected honesty within the plot and relationships…
JJL: That’s the beauty about Noah’s writing. I love at a certain point when you realize you have an unreliable narrator or protagonist. I love it and I hate when it happens in real life. What I mean is that at a certain point you realize you are in safe hands. It’s a tricky thing to accomplish without signaling it. I think it’s done really expertly here with Nicole [Kidman]. You really do take at face value what she says, and it takes a while to realize that this is a woman in a breakdown. This is a woman so destructive that she’s a tornado coming in. There’s a love that these women have for each other as sisters, but then almost instantly the attacks start happening … but then there is so much hope involved too. It’s just heartbreaking.
[IMG:L]NB: I think the movie is largely about intimacy or lack of intimacy and their intimate moments in these peoples lives. The scenes are not structured. They’re just moments in these people’s lives that start to add up as they go, so that’s how I think of it. Because I’m focusing on more intimate moments, things may feel uncomfortable because they’re in between things that you may not necessarily see in a movie.
HW: Movies don’t often investigate that.
NB: I‘m interested in how these little experiences and interactions or moments we have with each other accumulate, and either foster change or don’t or make you dig in more to your whole sense of yourself; or maybe start to change how you feel about yourself. Likewise, in my real life, I don’t necessarily always know how I feel at that given moment–until later on. I don’t always quite realize at that time, and Margot is designed that way as a movie. It’s kind of hard to know what you feel right after this movie.
HW: Jennifer, is there a danger of lacking spontaneity when rehearsing a script?
JJL: There is a danger of rehearsing, but more for kids. There are some directors who really don’t like to rehearse too much; but if you rehearse early on and try different ways to get into a scene then you can kind of let it go. You don’t have to rehearse the whole movie, but at least you’ve explored it and tried the good or bad versions. I think you need to have that because film is so expensive and as an actor and director, you don’t want to feel too precious because then you’re not going to get the “great” moments, or accidents that can happen. I like rehearsal, personally, but I also think often times I’m also best in the first couple of takes. Rehearsal can come days before–or the morning of [shooting]. We rehearsed two weeks before shooting so that was very helpful.
[IMG:R]HW: Is it easier for you to write a story like this that you less associate with, rather than your first film The Squid and the Whale, which was supposed to be more autobiographical?
NB: Squid was perceived as autobiographical in a way that it wasn’t; even though there were certain biographical details that I used from my life to situate myself in the story, but I do that all the time. It’s easier to invent within something that I already know because it’s something I feel connected to and it feels real to me, so that really is what generated Squid. Once it came out and people responded to it, it became a question of what’s real. That’s part of doing press. It has no bearing on how I write or work, and Margot is the same thing.
HW: So you charted a similar path to write them?
NB: It was equally personal but a different story. I’m interested in how people perceive themselves, versus how they may or may not actually be or how they may want to be in the world versus how they actually are or how people want a relationship to actually be. Often people behave a certain way, which contradicts how things really are or appear to be. For Margot in the film, on a creative level, she’s clearly tapping into these things–but she may not know it consciously.
[IMG:L]HW: Noah, do you ever foresee yourself directing for someone else, or is it important for you to be involved in the creative process from beginning to end. And Jennifer, do you foresee yourself directing again?
NB: For me the pleasure of it is doing the whole thing. When you write, you’re by yourself, and when you make a movie you’re around all these people. It’s an incredibly social experience and all about communication. It’s trying to translate what was wonderful about that private stuff into this thing; using all these people as a way to do it. Then editing becomes private again. For me, I find it’s the way I like to work because I get a little bit of everything. I write scripts to make them; and my strength, as a director, is that I know how to shoot what I do. Maybe one day a script will come along which may strike me as something I could have written and then shoot it, but it’s not something I’m looking to do.
JJL: Oh I don’t know when I will direct again, but I would love to!
