ROUND-TABLE: 'Rachel Getting Married' actress Anne Hathaway

Recently we had a round-table interview with Rosemarie DeWitt from the press day of the fantastic film Rachel Getting Married. Today we have another for you, and this one is with actress Anne Hathaway, who plays Kym. Enjoy!

Hi!
Hi—oh, this is nice and intimate!

That’s why it’s a round table. And we all have the same name so it’ll be much easier!
Know what? I probably still won’t remember, I’m so bad. My dad and I were talking about it the other day, because my mom asked me a question about someone I couldn’t remember and finally I just asked her, “What were they wearing?” and I remembered! We could have a conversation and I could hear all about your kids, all about everything, I could hear all about everything and I could not remember your name. And then I’ll just go up to you and go, “How is your third rib doing? Last time I saw you it was cracked. And, you know, that was five years ago. But, anyway, anyway, hi!"

Did you have people in mind that you knew that were like your character?
That’s so weird, that was the very last question in the other [round table]! Kym was herself. I’m not going to lie, she was herself first and foremost, but I could definitely draw some similarities with her with people. And yes, I did tell them.

[laughter] Were they happy or not?
I think they were. I think so. They saw the movie and loved the movie and talked about how proud they were of me, and the fact of the matter is the people that I’m friends with would get along with someone like Kym, and I myself would get along with someone like Kym, so for my group of friends it was a compliment. For some other people it might not be!

How did this role come to you? I’m sure you auditioned.
I didn’t! Jonathan [Demme], like, is amazing and saw me in The Princess Diaries and didn’t see a goofy young girl, he saw a budding actress, and I was so amazed because no one ever saw that, I don’t even think my parents—and, um, now they’re going to get mad at me for that—but so he sent me the script with a note attached that said, “Which role do you want to play?”

So what was it about this role that caused you to choose it?
Just that thing. Not to sound like just a B.S. actor but just that I knew, I just knew. Same thing when I read Brokeback Mountain, note attached... I just knew that it was going to be Lureen. And Kym… I just got her. Her whole emotional makeup is so logically made up and that really appeals to me. Once I understand something, I understand it for life, and when I know something to be true I can’t change my opinion about it. I can’t go back and feign ignorance. And Kym just made sense to me, you know, from the first.

There is such great intelligent fighting between the sisters; you know where they pull out their psycho stuff and all. Is it is something that actually the words that you were dealing with enhanced the sort of anti-agonistic chemistry that you guys have at certain points?
How do I say this without sounding like an asshole? There’s really no way! [laughter] You can never play a part smarter than the part is, and you can never play a part as having a more interesting emotional makeup than the part has, because otherwise you’re just chewing up the scenery and putting yourself, the actor, before the character and the story. The language that’s used in this script and the fact that Kym was not formally educated and that she was so comfortable with it really informed her as a character and her insane level of intelligence and how fast her mind is able to work. And so yes, it did have an impact in terms of just blowing the cap off the top of my imagination of where I could take her.

How far did you decide to push it or not push it and how many improvisational opportunities did you have?
Push it, like, did I do heroin?

Push it like making it bigger, broader, yelling, modulating.
Oh. right!

There are moments where you could have gone one way, could have been—you know, you choose another.
I’m sure, I’m sure somewhere on the cutting room floor there’s a myriad of takes that has it, and so it’s just I gave Jonathan the most truthful, dynamic performance in a scene that I could think of, that I could find, and I let him decide, you know, he is a master and so I knew that wouldn’t be a problem and so I just concerned myself with telling the truth. The second question?

Improvising.
Improvising. Um, I usually cleared it with Jonathan first, you know, I would never just start down a path in a scene without letting anyone know. It wasn’t that type of film. You know, 95% of that movie is actually scripted dialogue; it’s just little kind of filler things here and there. But most of the dialogue that I have is actually scripted. There are just a couple exceptions. And I always cleared it with Jonathon before I did anything because I still have this fear of wasting film. No, seriously, when you miss a line of film it costs like $500 to the production! A line! And I just hate that pressure on me, so I would kind of go to Jonathan and be like, “Can I do this, can I do this, can I do this?” And he was—but yeah, he was fine with it. So you know the scene where I ask the twelve musicians to be quiet? Yeah... [laughter] Basically I loved the scoring live thing, I loved that fact that the movie was scored live, and most of the time it enhanced the scene. However in this one particular scene... you know, we never rehearsed, and so we always just kind of went full throttle everyday, and the musicians were right outside the door. Like right there. And I couldn’t hear what Rosemarie was saying because, you know, it’s a soft little intimate scene. And so we do the first take and I’m just, like, getting more and more flustered so I go up to the first AD and go “Do you mind asking Jonathan a question for me? How important to him is the music in this scene?” And I’m trying to be really diplomatic, not step on his toes, because Jonathan is the master and he’s like, you know, the big guy on set and I don’t want to be that actress who causes a problem, like, during the enormous scene where everyone has to cry. I don’t want to do that. And so anyway he came back and said “Jonathan wants to know if it’s a problem for you,” and I said “Well, it’s just the tiniest bit distracting,” and he said “Ah, Jonathan said if it’s distracting to you, do something about it.” So I was like, “Got it.” The director told me to! So I screamed that line, and in the first take I believe I said "all effing weekend", and I didn’t tell my family—that I was going to do that, and they all kinda sat up and I just saw Bill Irwin’s face kind of collapse in relief because later after that take he was like, “I was having the same problem!” So it became this organic part of the scene and you really don’t see it coming and it gets a huge laugh in the movie.

Well, it wound up in the trailer.
Oh, that’s so funny!

Why do you think Kym was an addict?
Well, I believe addiction is a disease, and it’s genetic, and I think that she was—I can’t tell you why until they figure out why people have this disease, but I can tell you how I think her problem got exacterbated—is that exacerbated or exacterbated?

Exacerbated.
Oh, I put a “t” on the first one, I’m terribly honest. No, I think she was a girl who grew up in a household that was permissive. She saw people drinking, she saw people smoking, probably occasionally smelled weed coming up from downstairs. And I think she was the sort of person, she’s an extreme person so she would always want to go faster and faster and faster and faster and I’m sure, growing up in suburban Connecticut, she probably started drinking around twelve or thirteen, smoking cigarettes, I’m sure someone brought some weed over one time to try doing that and she kinda liked it, and probably by the time she was fourteen someone had gotten some cocaine and so she tried that and she really liked that, and then she wanted to do more and more and more, and then it kinda got worse and worse and worse, and she was modeling at the time and so she had easy access and a lot of time away from her family, and I think by the time she was sixteen and she was babysitting her little brother I think it was a full blown heroin addiction.

But was her family or particularly her mother the cause of it all?
I think there was a disconnect between the two of [them]. I don’t believe anyone causes addiction but the disease.

Influences it. Impacts on it some.
What are you hoping I’m going to say?

I think that the more we see the mother the more the mother’s not providing for the daughter.
Well, I think that Abby [Kym's mother] probably is natural—I mean, you see how gregarious and open and loving Paul [Kym's father] is, and I’m sure Abby was not that. Abby was probably always a little held back. But she probably had her wild moments too. But I always look at how Abby is now, in the movie, as someone who, yeah, you know, is not the most open of people. But I think when her son died—and we never talked about this, this was always my take on the character—she kind of had to distance herself from being a mother. You know, it was just too painful. And so she’s trying to be a mother as best she can, but she’s also trying to protect herself. So I don’t know, based on what you see in the movie, how much impact—I don’t want to blame Kym’s parents, I don’t want to. I think that obviously part of it was that she was a kid and they were adults, but I think that it’s a complicated issue and blame doesn’t do much so it doesn’t really matter to me whether or not the parents were part of the problem in the beginning. However, I do think it was really difficult for Kym, and Kym blamed herself for the death of her brother, and I think, as she was going through facilities and getting help and going to meetings and talking about it, people were saying to her, “Where were your parents, why were they leaving a drug addict alone with their son?” and she was like, “No, no, no, you don’t understand, I did this and that and that and this and that.” And the difference is that the first time this is different and the reason that the story has to happen at this exact moment in Kym’s life is that Kym has accepted, “I was the one driving the car, but I was not the one who put myself in the position. I mean, I took the drugs, I took the drugs, I shouldn’t have taken the drugs, I know that, I would wish everyday I could not have taken the drugs, but my family does have complicity in this and I need them at some point to acknowledge that and I need to insist on it.” So is that an answer?

One thing that I noticed while I was watching the movie was that Kym herself seems like she’s very much stuck in a sort of adolescent mindset, almost. In terms of her own development and maturity, she’s almost stuck in the moment that maybe she was when she wound up killing her brother. Do you think that this was in intentional choice or just developed that way?
Well, I’d love to say that I was clever enough to say that I came up with that, but it was really Kym’s reactions to things that were in the script, so I’d love to take credit for that but I can’t. However, I felt really comfortable with it, because there’s a saying in recovery that you kind of stop emotionally maturing when you start using, and so Kym is actually—if she started when she was about twelve or thirteen, then she’s not very advanced in the way that she processes stress and anxiety and all that stuff. However, I do think Kym’s soul is very evolved and very mature especially at this point in how deep she goes, and how well she loves is astonishing. And so that was another part of the character that I thought was so beautiful. That you have a girl who’s struggling so much that the fine points of life, who is getting so many things right but is never getting credit for it because of this horrible baggage that she has, that she will have forever so long as she has a family. And, so, well that doesn’t answer your question but I don’t have anything else.

Your performance is getting raves—rightfully so; it’s a tour de force.
Thank you.

Do you pay attention to all this Oscar buzz and everything or do you try to put it aside and wait for the nominations?
I love how blasé you just made my life sound, it’s fabulous. I mean, I’m not going to lie, it’s a huge compliment. I’ve never done work that was considered on this level or in this grouping before, so that’s thrilling just as an actress. It’s like, what a breakthrough! It’s not even October yet, and I mean I’ve seen For Your Consideration and absolutely adored it, so it’s a lovely compliment but everything must be taken with a healthy dose of perspective and if people are still saying this at the end of December, then yeah, you know what, I’m going to think about it a lot, but that’s a long way away.

Did that handicap come from after Ella Enchanted or pre Ella Enchanted?
Sorry?

You said you have this honesty—you can’t help but tell the truth?
Oh, that comes from my father, that’s way pre-Ella Enchanted.

And what are you doing next?
I have a movie coming out with Kate Hudson called Bride Wars and then I have other stuff that’s really- oh, God, bye!

Thank you so much! Goodbye!
[Anne waves]

Hope you enjoyed this! Tune in shortly for more interviews from the press day of Rachel Getting Married, and in the meantime just go see the freaking film.