The directorial debut of Chris Messina premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Alex of Venice stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Alex, a working mother whose husband (Messina) leaves her. Alex gets a little help taking care of her son and father (Don Johnson) from her sister (screenwriter Katie Nehra), but dad is more preoccupied with an audition for The Cherry Orchard and sis is just trying to get Alex laid. I got to speak with Winstead by phone the day after the premiere and catch up on her latest roles, which include the SXSW film Faults and Kill the Messenger. Die Hard 6, we’re not so sure, but she laughed a lot during our talk so I’d call it a good day.
CraveOnline: I first met you for Sky High and Final Destination 3.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Oh wow.
And it seems you’ve been working constantly ever since. Was that really when things took off for you?
It was actually. Sky High was my first real movie. I had done just TV pilots mostly before that and I really wanted to do film. I had told my agents I wasn’t going to do TV anymore because I wasn’t getting any film auditions because back then it was like you’re either a TV actor or you’re a film actor. So Sky High was a huge turning point for me because it was the first time anybody in film paid any attention to me. Then Final Destination came right after that so it really was my humble beginnings in film for sure.
I was going to ask if Alex of Venice was the first time you played a mother, but then I remembered Mary Todd Lincoln had kids.
Oh God, I forgot about it. I just said in an interview that this is the first time I played a mother. I totally forgot. Thank you for reminding me.
You’re welcome. I’m glad you had that reaction too, but is this the first time you played a mother where having kids was the integral part of the role?
Exactly, yes, yes, definitely, and it was great. I’m not a mother but I’m really excited to have kids one day and I feel like I’m getting to that point where I am starting to feel very maternal. I really love the idea of playing mothers and continue to want to play mothers.
Would you do some Chekhov with Don Johnson on the side in between takes?
[Laughs] No, you know, I am fully intimidated by anything of that nature so no, honestly. I kind of was trying to stay in the background on that stuff. I just thought all those actors who came out for that play were so amazing. I hope one day I can get to do something in that world, but I remain a bit intimidated by it.
I would think just getting to do Chekhov with Don Johnson would be tempting.
That’s true, that’s true. I mean, when else are you going to get to do that?
That face you make during the awkward silence in the bar when you’re meeting Derek Luke felt very authentic. How did you come up with that physical act?
[Laughs] I think we’ve all been in that situation where maybe you’re getting hit on by somebody you don’t really want to talk to. For me, I’m married and I’ve been with the same person forever so I can relate to that thing of okay, thank you very much, but not right now. Even though she did go out to the bar and she was looking for attention, but she was not looking to find this guy who was her competition, somebody she was not looking to talk to at the moment. I just tried to channel that energy with being at the bar and trying to get out of a conversation you don’t want to be in.
That black dress was magical like her sister said.
Oh good, thank you. It was a good dress.
How did you feel wearing it?
I felt great, although to be mic’ed in the dress was almost impossible. Literally, these poor girls had to mic, they had to get in very intimate places to mic me in that dress. But I felt very sexy in it for sure. It was quite a fabulous dress.
I didn’t think about the practical issue. Where did they end up putting the mic?
It was on my thigh but very, very, very high up. It was very precariously placed.
I also felt for Alex with her sister when she’s all, “Man, why do you have to take your kid to school everyday?” As if you’re the bad guy for wanting to fulfill your responsibility. Did you relate to her in that scene?
Yeah, and I know a lot of mothers in my life and mothers who have a lot on their plate and they’re really just trying to hold it together. So I could see a lot of those women that I know in Alex, and how you do snap on your family. There were times where we discussed that scene before doing it. We don’t want her to be too mean. We don’t want her to yell at her sister and people won’t like her.
I was like, “That’s so real. People in families yell at each other. They freak out on each other.” To me that scene felt very real, in that moment when you’re so stressed, you have so much on your plate and you’re just trying to get your family to help you out and they’re screwing it up. So I felt like she was very validated in screaming at her sister at that moment, even though in the long run she was maybe being taught a lesson that she needed to learn. Man, that was frustrating. I felt the frustration for sure in that scene.
But why do you have to fight for being responsible? Shouldn’t that be the base line?
I know. I think Alex’s point of view was the valid one in that situation but in her over arching high strung rule-oriented way of living was maybe something that needed to be re-evaluated. So even though her kid missing a week of school was not a good thing, her having to learn to accept that and still love her sister anyway and still move forward was something that was maybe good for her because she is really controlling and she is someone who likes to run thing and make sure things go her way. When she was forced out of that, it kind of knocked her into a new way of living which she needed to be knocked into.
Did you know Chris Messina as an actor, or did you just meet him as a director?
I knew of him as an actor. I’ve loved his work for a long time and all the films that he’d done. I had never met him before so we met for the first time this way, but I was really excited to meet him and I knew that he had always come across as a very smart actor to me. So something about him made me trust that he would be a good director. He’d worked with so many great filmmakers before and he’d been on so many sets that he surely had absorbed something from that, and I think he did. I think he was wonderful to work with and such a kind, giving actor and bringing that kind of spirit as a director was so great. It was such a great experience to have.
Unfortunately I did not get a chance to see Faults at SXSW. What challenges did that present you?
Working with my husband?
No, no, just the character in Faults, but if working with him was the challenge we can talk about that.
I know, people have been asking me, “What was that like?” The character actually terrified me. I was really stressed out about trying to figure that character out and I was really worried about it, I think more worried than any character I’ve ever played before. When you see the film, you’ll understand and I can’t quite say too much about it without giving it away but there are a lot of layers to her that are very complicated and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to really pull it off in the right way. It was really rewarding to see the film and feel happy with the way it came out. I was so proud of my husband and the work that he did. I can’t wait for people to get to see the movie hopefully on a bigger scale eventually because I’m really, really proud of it.
We have seen some stories about cults and how they affect people. Is there a unique take on how your character is programmed by them?
The story is a lot about the mind control aspect of it and what it means to be in control of yourself, if you ever even really are or if you’re always just in this constant state of being susceptible to being taken over at any time by any other person. It’s sort of about I think the fragility of our minds and how easy it is for someone else to form our believe system for us. So it was ultimately I think more about that than cults as a whole. It’s really about these two characters and their games that they’re playing with one another.
The latest Die Hard 6 talk is that they might be trying to get Samuel L. Jackson back. Has there been any mention of Lucy yet?
Not to me, no. I haven’t heard anything about it but that would be cool. Samuel L. Jackson coming back would be awesome. I’d like to see that.
Maybe you can have a sizable role, something in between 4 and the cameo in 5.
Right, exactly. If it keeps getting smaller it’s just going to disappear. I’ll be on the phone in the next one maybe.
And what do you get to play in Kill the Messenger?
I get to play the editor to Jeremy Renner’s character. We sort of together come up with this story and decide to print it. It’s a true story and it’s quite a crazy, crazy one. Basically Jeremy Renner plays this journalist Gary Webb who sort of discovers this link between the government and the crack epidemic in Los Angeles and did this big expose on it, but it was for the San Jose Mercury News which was a small paper.
They realized quickly that they were in way over their head because it was a story that was way beyond them, so eventually everyone was kind of forced to recant the story or to say they got things wrong, even though the story was true and Gary Webb ultimately, well, bad things happened. I don’t want to give too much away for people who don’t know the story but it’s an incredible story and Jeremy Renner’s amazing in it. I’m really excited to be a part of it.
Is the role of the editor a big part?
It’s definitely Jeremy Renner’s movie. He’s the star and there’s a big supporting cast, so it’s a supporting role but it’s a great one. She’s his boss and he really had a young female editor boss that he had to run everything by. She did end up making some minor mistakes which is part of their downfall in the end. It’s kind of a sad story about the two of them having this huge story that could potentially make their careers and it ends up crushing them in a lot of ways.
She had made changes to the story that were inaccurate?
Yeah, some minor things that they didn’t quite get right but then that leads to the whole story being considered false. So people turn on them and then she ends up having to turn on him because she wants to keep her job, even though she believes him and believes that what he reported was right. It’s a sad but really interesting story of our history which I think a lot of people don’t know or have forgotten about, so I’m excited for that to be brought back out.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
