The press day for "Human Nature" was not held in a scientific lab.
About.com
April 15 2002
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The press day for "Human Nature" was not held in a scientific lab. |
At my last press junket for the "Anniversary Party," Jennifer Jason Leigh smiled at me and that seemed worth a lot, even though I was too shy to ask the one super clever question I had come up with at the crowded roundtable. "Whose idea was it to use Murakami's Wind Up Bird Chronicle in the charades?" I really would have liked to have known the answer.
I had no clever questions prepared for the group--which I assumed was fine, given my prior experience with crowded junkets. Instead, I'm seated at an almost empty round table with a college undergrad writing for his school paper and a freelance gossip columnist. That's it. None of us are adequately prepared, but the stars have a film to promote.
Here are my impressions.
Rosie Perez
She's
wearing a sleeveless shirt that shows cleavage. Her hair is
straight, her lipstick is red, she is attractive, she will
answer any reasonable questions we have to throw at her. If
there is a lull in the questions, she will talk to the Fine
Line Assistant sitting in an armchair in the corner of the
room. At one point, during an awkward silence, I tried to
asked Rosie about her political work at Vieques because I read
about her involvement in the press kit and I was curious to
know more. Rosie said: "Yes, I'm involved with that. It's a
shame that is still going on." Silence.
Here are some successful questions:
Why Human Nature?
I thought it was really
funny. Besides Charlie Kaufman, I really love Michel Gondry,
his music videos, actually even his commercials. They are just
awesome, the stop motion, the bullet going through the system.
He did it before the Matrix, so I said oh my god, this guy is
amazing.
You didn't have any doubts working with a first
time director?
I've worked with a lot of first time
directors, so I'm not afraid of that, but knowing his previous
work, I was very confident.
What's it like working with Michel
Gondry?
Working with Michel? He's good. He's very,
very French. He has a very sarcastic wit, that French sarcasm,
but he also knows exactly what he wants. Technically he's a
genius, it was really cool, when I was filming my scene just
watching him. It was just effortless.
How is as a producer. Is it great producing your
own material?
It's really great and it's really
really hard, but it's difficult. I'm not that driven in the
entertainment world. I'm not. I'm driven to have a lifestyle,
a life, if I work once a year I'm good, I'm like wow, I got to
work, I make a gang of money, I got my mortgage paid, and I'm
good.
The awkward pause comes back and doesn't go away. "Are you done?" asks Rosie. We are. She thanks us and leaves five minutes early. The college student, the columnist, and I have a chance to strategize for our next celebrity.
Patricia Arquette
It's her birthday. The gossip columnist knows this. She heard it that
morning on the Regis show. The gossip columnist wishes her a happy birthday.
"Thank you!" Arquette says. Arquette's hair is long. She is
wearing a gauzy yellow top and a terrifically ugly skirt, long, piecemeal,
with a leather square in the back, and green fringe at the bottom. I couldn't
really look at it because she sat down so quickly, and when she left at
the end of the interview, I barely got a glance. Arquette, however, knows
how to make unprepared journalists feel good. She talks, she gushes, and
she is effusive in her friendliness, her enthusiasm for the film. She
nods at my questions as if they are good and her answers are always full
of energy.
Why Human
Nature?
Come on? You saw it didn't you, get real here, you saw the movie didn't
you? First of all, I had to work with Michel, I saw one of his videos
and I was like "Oh my god I have to work with that person" and
my agent was like "I don't know" and then I got offered this
Rolling Stones Video directed by Michel Gondry so I went to London and
he was shooting all these stills of me and he morphed them, and that ended
up doing that in the "Matrix," they ripped him off from that,
so I told him that it was my dream to work with you and I'm very shy to
say stuff that I would like, and he said, me too.
The script?
Oh my God, as I was reading it, I just loved this character, and I
read the script and I didn't know where it was going. I'm different from
Lila, I don't have a hair condition, but I have things that I feel apologetic
of: where is the invisible line where I am supposed to get into where
I have to apologize for who I am? We are all trying to earn love in some
weird way, hide a part of us, try to change ourselves to be accepted.
I loved what Charlie Kaufman wrote about when you get into a relationship
and subconsciously you could trade yourself away. Playing Lila, in the
end, was like potraying a drowning person.
Nudity?
How do you approach this part of your job? Is it still difficult to do?
Yeah, and this nudity was really different, first of all I'm not that
naked in much of it but it seems like it because I'm not having sex, there's
no prelude to have sexuality, these people are walking around talking
and they are naked. I knew as an actress that there was a danger to taking
a part like this. But I knew this was the kind of film I wanted to make.
The physical process was itchy and uncomfortable and I started freaking out. Whose hair is this? Do a DNA hair analysis! How did this hair get on my thigh? The crew told me, "You look beautiful in hair." I said, "Do I look like Brad Pitt?" And they said, "Like a pretty Brad Pitt."
I noticed
that in another film, "Flirting With Disaster," Arquette revealed
a shock of underarm hair.
I got in a lot of trouble for that. They kept writing and saying get
rid of that arm hair and don't wear glasses and what are you doing. Miramax
wanted to cut that scene. Lot's of letters went back forth. I thought,
she's a college professor after all.
At the end, I asked one more question. Would you like to work with your sister? Hooray. Arquette liked that question. She had a small part in Rosanna Arquette's new documentary and they were going to be together at Cannes and one day, if the right project comes along, they would love to do it, it's just never happened before.
Then the interview is over, Arquette smiles, I don't get to look at her skirt for a proper description, but I feel more satisfied, because I contributed to our interview, my questions weren't mocked, and this is good for my confidence.
Tim Robbins
Robbins
enters the room and starts to play with the animal crackers on the table.
"Anyone try the cookies? The cookies are good?"
He is tall. He's wearing black, black jacket, black shirt. His eyes are blue. He looks more handsome in real life than he does in film.
A different
kind of role for you?
Freaky. Freakish. Freakish man.
Why Human
Nature?
The script was really great. I'm always attracted to a character I
haven't done before. There were really talented people doing it. I love
Patricia Arquette, so it all made sense to me.
Did you
think your character Nathan Bronfman was empathetic?
He's kind of the bad guy, but I don't believe in the bad guy, I think
there are just circumstances, and every person has flaws. Everyone in
this script is trying to take advantage of someone else, and it is kind
of human nature, all these people doing awful things to each other. Every
time you play a part you have to be compassionate about the person you
are playing; you have to see what some might be to considered there flaw
as a result of circumstance and their upbringing.
Thus, we understand better how a scientist can devote his career to training mice table manners. Robbins talks freely through the rest of our session, mainly answering the college boy's questions who had a thing for "Mission from Mars" and really wanted Tim Robbins to talk about "Mission from Mars." Robbins thinks that movie bombed because it was about discovery, not revenge, and that doesn't sell tickets, and who knows what critics want anyway?
The most memorable part of this interview was when the cassette on my tape player finished, making that popping sound to signify that it had reached the end. Tim looked at me, said: "Should I switch the tape for you?" and I said, "Yes, please." Tim Robbins has handled my tape recorder; he even fidgeted with if for a moment of two before he put it back on the table.
Rhys Ifans
I think the interview team is tired when Rhys enters the room, but he
seems to be bounding with energy. "Great time," he says, before
we even ask about the film. "I want to do it again." He wore
a skull on a cross ring and a gaudy silver bracelet. His hair and beard
were stringy and shaggy, much like his character Puff when he was testifying
in "Human Nature."
He gets our stock first question.
Why Human
Nature?
The script is so ingenious, original, inventive, inspiring, poetic,
theatrical, musical, all that. Puff in particular, because Puff is a blank
page and you can bring so much of your imagination. I just leapt at the
chance. The challenge and the difficulty is always the joyous part. The
challenge was making him real and not a clown. I didn't want to do an
experiment playing a monkey in the zoo but playing a child who had been
abused. Explore his sense of hunger, his sense of loneliness, and all
those things that happened to babies. Puff is a child. Always was, the
tragedy is, he always will be.
How did
you feel about nudity?
You take your clothes off, you learn your lines, you get on the set.
This character has to be naked. The first couple of days were daunting,
but the first couple of days are always daunting. This was working extremely
from the outside in.
In other news, Ifans is excited to be embarking on his first leading role in a film to be shot in Australia with "Human Nature" co-star Miranda Otto.
Charlie Kaufman
Kaufman is a funny looking little man with puffy hair (ha) and hairy chest,
hairy arms visible from his short sleeved button down shirt. Maybe there
is the fixation. He didn't want to be at our little roundtable, we didn't
have questions, but the college boy and I come up with them. His first
comment was a good one; he had hoped he wouldn't win the Oscar for "Being
John Malkovich" because he didn't want to go up there to make a speech.
"Too terrifying," he said. I didn't know if he did win or not,
didn't ask.
Most interesting fact: Mr. Kaufman has stopped going to movies. He doesn't feel any passion for them anymore. He doesn't like sitting in the theater, even though he still writes, still wants to make his own movies.
All of his projects are high profile, big deal pictures, starting with "Being John Malkovich" to his upcoming picture, "Adaptations," which stars Meryl Streep and Nicholas Cage, and then the one after, which is a big starring vehicle for Jim Carrey. I asked Kaufman if he was surprised his films attracted such high profile stars, and did he write for specific actors in mind. He didn't much like that question. He doesn't write for actors, and he's glad stars want to be in his pictures.
Michel Gondry
Everybody loves him and wants to be in his movies. Because of these famous
music videos and commercials I have never seen. I guess he is a technical
genius. His next film will be from Kaufman's script, the Jim Carrey movie.
He looks like a fussy little man, he's wearing a blue v-neck sweater,
blue button shirt, maroon corduroys, small blue eyes. The gossip columnist
has no questions for him at all, though she did tell him she loved the
film. (She told all of them she loved the film.) Gondry's cell phone rings
once.
The college boy comes up with all the right questions: influence, favorite directors, upcoming projects, etc. eliciting answers that I find myself not listening to. Here are my two questions:
Do you
have any interest in directing a film in French?
Yes, yes he does, he wrote a script and Rhys is going to star in it, but
it's about an Englishman and it's going to be in English. Gondry's accent
is thick and this seems strange to me. Why not make French movies, they
are so good? It must be Hollywood, the lure of the industry, those Spago
parties. I don't ask this.
I ask
him what instrument he used to play. One thing
I know: everybody loves him, wants to make movies with him.
In the hall,
I wait for the elevator. There are a couple of publicists leaning against
walls, an agent lying on the floor, Rosie Perez standing at the end of
the corridor with her hands on her hips, and Michel Gondry, talking to
the agent about some script, some project. "I'll talk to you more
about it at Cannes," he says.
My elevator
comes. I am glad.
(Source)
He
was a drummer. This sort of surprises me because all of the drummers I
have ever know fidget like crazy, shake their legs, drum with their fingers,
and Gondry was entirely controlled.