Do you think that they, Harry and Lloyd, were mean at all to your character?
Well, I think they’re just oblivious. They haven’t changed in 20 years. So why would anyone else?
I also thought that this would be an opportunity to say, in a funny but proud way, ‘No, I don’t look like I did 30 years ago. Get over it.’ That tickled my funny bone.
Both your agent and Jeff Daniels’ agent advised you guys against doing the comedies you did in 1994, he for Dumb and Dumber and you for Serial Mom…
So Jeff and I both know what we’re doing.
What was your experience acting opposite Jim and Jeff?
Jeff I understand a bit more than Jim, I guess, because Jeff, like me, is a stage actor. So we come from the same sort of training in that sense. Jim is his own thing. He’s fascinating to watch. You can see something cross his mind when he sees a new opportunity to seize and do something else. Sometimes you just go “wow!” But to be honest, sometimes you get impatient! You just want to finish the scene you’re supposed to be working on. He’s a balance of aggravation and excellence.
Well, aggravation helps when you’re playing it straight opposite…
No, no, no. I don’t think there’s a straight guy in this. It’s not that type of comedy. The phrase I have decided best describe my character (Freda Felcher) is that she maintains a “semblance of normalcy.” I represent what might be normal.
I wasn’t familiar with the vulgar noun, “Felcher,” which is your character’s last name. I had to Google it. Did you also have to go to urban dictionary?
They told it to me. [laughs] It was not something that I knew.
“The only film that I re-watch, for fun, of mine is ‘Romancing the Stone.'”
Speaking of vulgar lines. I actually wanted to ask a few questions about Ken Russell’s Crimes of Passion.
Ken Russell. Yikes!
What was it like working with Ken Russell?
Tough! It was tough. I truly believe that he is a genius. But he was a genius that had to shoot himself in the foot. He wanted to be a hugely successful Hollywood director. But he also wanted to prove that he wasn’t Hollywood, so that meant doing a few awful things to his work. And to himself.
He was hard to work with in some ways. But I also thought he pushed me to do some of the best work I’ve ever done (Turner plays a lawyer by day, a prostitute by night). There was an X-cut and R-cut, there were so many cuts, but my work was done by the time he was struggling with the distribution company. The only film that I re-watch, for fun, of mine is Romancing the Stone. Because I enjoy the memories of making that (film).
But on Crimes, Tony (Anthony Perkins) was very hard to work with. He had a little bottle of nitrate that he’d sniff before each take and his eyes would go red and he’d start to sweat and you go, “I don’t know what’s going to happen now.” The writer (Barry Sandler) I found very hard to understand. It was complicated making that film.
I read that you had to sleep for an entire day to recover from shooting it.
Oh God, I did. I got on the first plane home. My fiancee picked me up at the airport and 22 hours later he woke me up and said, “If you don’t wake up I’m taking you to the hospital.”
But you’re great in it. I came across that film from a list that was a blow-back to the AFI 100 best movie lines, and there were a number of ridiculous quotes from Crimes of Passion – “I never forget a face, especially when I’ve sat on it” – that I remember thinking I’ve gotta see this silly movie. But how you performed them was different than I was expecting, and better. It wasn’t camp, it was power.
Why thank you. This was a woman who was very torn. She was an accomplished professional woman, who at the same time was so unsure of her worth, she’d test herself by selling herself for $50. It’s not as simple as being feminist, but I would like to think there’s a feminist element to every role that I’ve played.
I can’t think of anything that I’ve done that doesn’t have a feminist angle in it.
If that’s a challenge, I can’t either.
When I look at a script I’ve always looked at the character I’m ask to play and if you remove her and the plot doesn’t change in any sort of way, other than the guy not having a girlfriend or wife, then I’m not doing it. The woman has to have a part to play.
