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The Beaver; Official thread
Topic Started: Mar 16 2011, 10:55 AM (3,947 Views)
Artful_Dodger

I'd love to be red like that. :love-luv And sometimes I am.
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clarice
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Check this out: http://www.movieline.com/2011/04/the-beaver-speaks-an-exclusive-interview-with-mel-gibsons-most-controversial-co-star-yet.php They're crazy :lol

The Beaver Speaks: An Exclusive Interview With Mel Gibson’s Most Controversial Co-Star Yet

In anticipation of the May 6 limited release of The Beaver, Mel Gibson spoke candidly last week about the film, his high-profile image crisis and his relationship with director and long-time friend Jodie Foster. But in the sprawling conversation, the Oscar winner failed to discuss his most intimate co-star and the namesake of his potential comeback project: the beaver puppet.

Curious to hear the puppet’s side of the story, Movieline met with the first-time actor at a nondescript Santa Monica coffee shop earlier this week for his first exclusive interview.

First of all, congratulations on The Beaver. This is quite the feature debut.
Thank you. Thank you very much.

I notice that you don’t speak with a Cockney accent like your character does in the film. You had me convinced that you were a direct descendant of Michael Caine.
Well then the thousands of hours I spent devotedly rewatching Alfie paid off, eh? [Slips seamlessly into a Cockney accent] If I ‘ave to see that ‘ere bloody film with my minces one more time, my loaf’ll damn near explode. [Transitions back to American accent.] It’s fun! My wife got so sick of hearing the Cockney though that she banned “Michael Caine” from the house last week.

Kind of life imitating art then?
I guess! Just speaking with a Michael Caine accent feels so therapeutic. I recommend trying it, especially if you’re stuck in traffic.

I read that The Beaver was your first professional experience acting ever. Had you ever considered acting before this project came along?
I took musical theater in high school but never considered acting a real “career option.” After graduation, I got into the family business and just assumed that I’d live a Midwestern puppet life just like everyone else.

What is the family business if you don’t mind me asking?

Toll booth work. Third generation. There’s kind of a stigma attached to it but it’s good honest work. And I got to study people all day, which I guess looking back on it now as an actor, is why I enjoyed it.

So how did you go from collecting change on the interstate to co-starring with Mel Gibson?
A friend of my wife’s was looking on Craigslist for a lamp and saw a casting notice for a male beaver with my build and coloring. She emailed it to my wife as a joke and we laughed. But then I couldn’t stop thinking about the part.

Did your wife encourage you to audition?
Eventually. She saw how much it meant for me. She suggested that instead of using our vacation money for another week in Tampa, I fly out to L.A. to try out.

How did that go?
I’m from a small music theater program where you’d get the part if, you know, you didn’t whack the teacher with the lead cane prop while singing “Pore Jud Is Daid” out of tune. So a real Hollywood audition was frightening. They call them cattle calls but I joke that this one was a rodent call. Every actor in that waiting room looked like me but was a little taller, a little thinner or had better hair. It was an ego trip!

How did you think you did?
I had no idea. Jodie’s such a sweetheart but is hard to read. A week later though, I got a call from the casting director saying I got the part. I still can’t believe it really. I’m just a toll booth puppet with a dream, you know?

Not only was this your first film, but it was your first time working with an A-list actor and director, both Oscar winners. On top of that, your co-star was undergoing one of the most high profile image breakdowns that Hollywood has ever seen. How did you handle that pressure?
Well, now that you put it that way, that sounds horrifying! Good thing I wasn’t talking to you before that audition! [Laughs] Let me answer the first part of your question. Jodie and Mel are both talented actors and directors. I am a huge fan of their work but we were all approaching this material as first-timers. Does that make sense? The Beaver isn’t a Broadway play. They hadn’t been performing it day in and day out for weeks and I was just joining the cast. So I just thought of it that way — we were all in this new experience together.

That seems like a healthy mindset. Working so closely with Mel though — you were literally one of his appendages — did you feel his stress?
When you’re working with someone that closely, you can’t help but notice. I tried to lighten the mood on set, to make him laugh.

How did you try to lighten the mood?
Fashion little statues out of wood offset to entertain him. Make jokes. Bust his chops. I think there was a line about the positioning of his hand — you know what I’m getting at — that actually made it into the movie. Puppet humor. Mel’s got a wicked sense of puppet humor.

Your character and Mel’s share an almost symbiotic relationship. We get the idea that — at the beginning of the film at least — without you, his character couldn’t survive. How did the two of you develop that intense relationship off-screen?
We spent a lot of time together before shooting. We’d go to dinner, jog together [pictured right], do normal everyday stuff and just study each other’s movements to get a pattern down. It had to look like he was operating me, you know? And I’ve gotta say, a lot of Hollywood actors might shy away from being seen publicly with a puppet but Mel wasn’t like that at all.

There are a lot of complicated father-and-son issues at play in this film. Did you draw from personal experiences with your own father in preparation for this role?
[Looks into coffee cup thoughtfully.] I think every son has a complicated relationship with his father. That’s just how we evolve — people, puppets, we’re all the same. But yeah, there were certain things I drew from, especially from working closely with my dad in the family business.

Any event in particular?
I don’t really want to talk about that. My dad is great. Cut from the finest cloth, you know? I’d take a bullet for him.

People are saying that this movie could save Mel Gibson’s career. Do you think it will?
It’s hard for me because I know Mel personally now. I know what he’s like and what a great guy he is. He was a rock star to everyone on set from Jodie to the gaffers to craft services. I mean, he let me and my wife stay in his shed in Malibu throughout the whole shoot and he didn’t ask for anything in return. That’s just the kind of guy he is.

I was surprised to hear that you shared some intimate bedroom scenes with Jodie and Mel. How was it filming those?
Again, Jodie and Mel are professionals. We barely read through those scenes and just went for it. Jodie wanted us all to be raw and seem unrehearsed.

Did you ever think you’d be sharing a sex scene with two Oscar winners?
[Laughs] No! Never! I can’t wait for my 20-year high school reunion now.

I don’t want to give anything away but there is a very surprising ending to this film. Do you think that it will turn audiences off or that audiences will understand the motivation there?
That was so f*cking hard to shoot. I don’t want to give anything away either but I’ll say that I partly disagreed with it so I’ll understand if audiences feel a little torn. Ultimately though, I think they’ll understand.

Finally, what’s next for you career-wise?
My wife and I have decided to move out to L.A. for a couple years to give “the industry” a shot. I’m practical though — I know what the chances are of a beaver puppet like myself getting work again. But I also know that if I don’t try, I’ll always wonder what could have been. You know?

Thank you so much! It was great talking to you.
You too. Now go see The Beaver. Tell them I sent you!

:lol
Edited by clarice, Apr 30 2011, 11:58 AM.
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jodiefan

hilarious! :biggrin
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Artful_Dodger

:lol Damn, like I said before how lucky can a Beaver get.
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TitaniumX

^Very funny/endearing indeed! Like you want him to be cast more in the future :lol

Was this one posted yet?

Posted Image

The art of being Jodie Foster
Star reflects on her new film, controversial costar, and craft

There’s an elephant in the room and its name is Mel Gibson. The elephant is traveling everywhere with Jodie Foster these days. The actress-filmmaker is in Boston to promote her new movie, “The Beaver,’’ and the only thing weirder than the film’s plot is the public firestorm around her star’s offscreen behavior.

“The Beaver,’’ which opens this Friday, is about a toy company executive named Walter Black (Gibson) who is so lost to clinical depression that he can barely speak to his wife, Meredith (played by Foster), and teenage son, Porter (Anton Yelchin). A breakthrough comes when Walter discovers a cast-off beaver hand-puppet in a dumpster and uses it to “speak’’ with a wholly new personality: upbeat, engaged, British. For all the surreal overtones — and there are plenty — “The Beaver’’ is a fundamentally serious look at mental illness and “American Beauty’’-style family dynamics, and it’s a film that its director hopes will advance her status as a major American filmmaker. That’s if audiences can get past the Mel Gibson thing, a possibly insurmountable if.

The mercurial star was already trying to come back from his 2006 arrest in Malibu for drunken driving and the media uproar around his racist and sexist tirades at the time. Filming for “The Beaver’’ had finished except for re-shoots when, in July of last year, phone messages from Gibson to his estranged girl- friend (and mother of his child) Oksana Grigorieva were leaked to the Internet, messages featuring almost unimaginable verbal abuse. The film’s release plans were temporarily scuttled and the star’s career appeared to be over. It may very well stay that way. But Foster has a movie she wants you to see, one she’s extremely proud of. And she is unrelenting in her insistence that Gibson is one of the true stand-up guys of Hollywood.

She’ll tell anyone who listens and, in fact, the “Beaver’’ press junket has become a sort of secondhand Mel Gibson public atonement tour. Not that the much-admired, two-time Oscar-winning actress — a star who enjoys all the public respect Gibson appears to have squandered — is making excuses for his behavior. What she’s doing is sticking up for a friend, one whose reputation is now so toxic that almost no one in Hollywood dares to be associated with him. And that’s a very Jodie Foster-like thing to do.

In person, the actress-director, 48, gives off a curiously paradoxical air of relaxed intensity — of a woman who’s comfortable in her skin but whose mind is never still. Poised and wearing shades of charcoal and black, she shifts topics easily from her troubled star to her own career lessons and back. In the process, Foster implicitly floats a radical notion: that she knows a very different Mel Gibson than you do and that the truth of the matter — of any one person, let alone a famous one — is finally unknowable.

Q. I understand that when “The Beaver’’ came to you, it was a broad comedy with Steve Carell attached. When you read it, what went through your head?

A. Well, I wanted to make a drama, you know? I wanted to really keep my eye on depression: what that is, the experience of it, and how to honor that the best way I could. Which is in every decision that comes up: How will it be framed, what kind of lenses will you use, what kind of film will you use, what are the colors — all of that was thought through with the idea of creating a drama.

Q. How did you make the decision to cast yourself?

A. I didn’t really want to cast myself initially. When I brought Mel aboard I started thinking, OK, who am I going to get to play the wife? I knew how important it was to ground his performance in reality, and to have somebody who could hold the screen in a way his character couldn’t — his character’s crazy. And I thought, you know, it’s going to be easier if we do it together. And I also know what he requires from a director.

Q. Which is what?

A. He’s very easy to work with and, I think, probably the most loved actor I’ve ever worked with. Maybe Chow Yun-Fat is the other.

Q. When you say ‘‘most loved,’’ you mean by cast and crew?

A. Cast and crew and technicians and professionals and distributors and executives.

Q. What is it about him that makes him so loved on the set?

A. He’s nice. He’s fun and he’s very real and he’s an incredible technician. He really understands moviemaking. And there’s no muss or fuss, no ‘‘I’m sorry, I have to get into character.’’ He requires very little from all of us and he’s not at war with the camera. A lot of actors are. They come from theater and they feel like the camera’s job is to follow them around instead of embracing storytelling through technicianship. He’s a filmmaker. Makes a big difference.

Q. Does the fact that you’re both actors and directors allow you to communicate better?

A. It makes everything go a lot faster. There’s a real shorthand and I don’t have to be precious about the whole experience. I can say, “If you stand over there it’s too dark and I’m going to have to re-light that part of the set.’’ I can ask him to do things for the other actors: Can you help me get the performance out of him or her? It’s just working with a different kind of person — who works more like me.

Q. And conversely, how does your being actor-directors affect the acting and getting the performance out of him that you want?

A. I think he intuitively knows when to break character and when not to. I can look at him and say, ‘‘Did I get that?’’ and he’ll say, ‘‘Yep, second take was the best one.’’ I can rely on him for that. Because he’s present. That’s just the way he works. He’s able to be present during the scene, and he’s able to be inside the experience and outside the experience at the same time. Which is a weird parlor trick.

Q. Can you do it?

A. Yes. It’s like being an archer. Or like being a choreographer and in control of the experience but also being completely inside of it and totally free.

Q. When did you realize that was something you could do?

A. Everything changed when I was 12. I did ‘‘Taxi Driver,’’ and I think for the first time I built a character from the ground up. And I was asked to do that. Usually they would say, ‘‘Just be yourself,’’ and I would think, what a dumb job. Just be myself while reading other people’s lines? What a dumb job.

Q. So Iris was when you started wanting to be an actor? Or was that even later?

A. That’s when I was intrigued by it. And then I would go through periods where I would have a love/hate thing, where I would ask myself, why am I doing this? So there have been little moments of creative crisis and every once in a while there’s a big revelation movie, where you understand something about yourself, more than you did before.

Q. What was one of the “revelation movies’’?

A. I think “The Accused’’ was interesting, because I was only 24, and I was very unconscious about why I was making the movie. I didn’t read the script twice and I just sort of showed up. There was a lot about that movie I was afraid of and that I didn’t really understand at that age.

Q. ‘‘The Accused’’ came at the end of a long period of work in which you seemed to be experimenting, almost trying to find yourself on film . . .

A. Yeah! And that’s what happens to young people who aren’t a brand. They can actually make a bunch of movies that don’t work but that are interesting films, and they don’t have to sacrifice their firstborn child because of it.

Q. When did you finally find yourself?

A. I don’t know that I have [boisterous laugh]. It’s a long career. I think, like everybody, you wake up one day and you look back and you go, wow, there’s a pattern there. And you didn’t really realize you were executing this pattern but in fact you are. And then the second that you do realize it, your work takes a different tangent, and it becomes more specific.

Q. More self-conscious?

A. Maybe. But maybe deeper, too.

Q. When did you look back and see the pattern?

A. I think just before “Silence of the Lambs.’’ I had done a series of movies that were about being the victim, and that didn’t occur to me until I was so passionate about doing “Silence of the Lambs’’ and everyone around me was saying, “Why do you want to do that movie? You’re the straight man to a great part.’’ I was so drawn to it, and I think for the right reasons. First because it was a beautiful piece of literature and a great character but also because Clarice was the one who was saving all the other characters I’d already played. She’s not the victim, but she’s somebody for whom that informs her past, it’s where she comes from. In some ways it’s her destiny, her sort of Greek tragic destiny, to be the one that vindicates them.

Q. Let’s talk about star personas and brands. Mel Gibson’s “brand’’ is obviously so complex and so qualified, and a lot of people will probably come to this movie thinking Walter is him — they’ll mistake the character for the person. What would you say to them?

A. Well, I know the man very well, and I’ve known him for a very long time, and he is a truly complicated person. And deep and dark and beautiful and loyal and kind and an incredibly good friend, and has been for a very long time. He is somebody I could call at 3 in the morning and he would come running, and I know that. But our personas are not these passive things that just happen to us. Especially if you’re a real actor, you’ve accrued a number of performances that point people in the direction of your passions and your obsessions. The persona is not entirely wrong. My persona is not entirely wrong. What Mel isn’t is a guy who lives to be photographed and go on Jerry Springer and confess everything in his life and have no real life besides that. He has a genuinely complicated life and it’s what allows him to inhabit and understand struggle in a way that I don’t think any other actor does.

Q. What do you think about public perceptions of him versus you? You’ve managed to keep your private life private, and part of the reason for that is audiences seem to respect you. Whereas if you ask someone about Mel Gibson, they may be completely antagonistic toward him or vehemently supportive. Is that fair?

A. I don’t know. I think everybody agrees that there’s a tremendous amount of hypocrisy in the media. I think it’s very different than it was 20 years ago. News and entertainment are the same thing now. That wasn’t true then. And I don’t believe that either one of us — and Mel and I have talked about this a lot — that if we were 18 right now and knew everything we know, I don’t think either one of us would have become an actor. I think we would have done something else. But he is an actor and he will live with the public consequences, whether they’re fair or not. He will live with the consequences of this society and of what he’s done. And as I’ve said to him many times, the only reason for you to act now is because you love it. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.

Source: http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2011/05/01/jodie_foster_reflects_on_her_new_film_controversial_costar_and_craft/?page=full

Edited by TitaniumX, May 1 2011, 10:33 AM.
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Artful_Dodger

Thanks, TitaniumX. :)
Edited by Artful_Dodger, May 1 2011, 03:47 PM.
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Andreas
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Nice picture! :happyexcited
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Artful_Dodger

:happysmiley uh-huh!
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mrdoll1

thank you for the link, TitaniumX :)
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clarice
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I too love the picture above, really nice.

Here's another Q&A, although I do not know if it's new because it's always the same questions :wondering

SEATLLE PI - Q&A with Actress/Director Jodie Foster

http://blog.seattlepi.com/peoplescritic/2011/05/02/qa-with-actressdirector-jodie-foster/

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jodiefan

a nice little video at link: http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/the-beaver/generic-interview-jodie-foster-ii
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Artful_Dodger

God, some of these interviews do leave me breathless. :love-sigh And I haven't even seen the movie yet.
Edited by Artful_Dodger, May 2 2011, 04:57 PM.
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Gogo
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clarice
May 2 2011, 12:23 PM
I too love the picture above, really nice.

Here's another Q&A, although I do not know if it's new because it's always the same questions :wondering

SEATLLE PI - Q&A with Actress/Director Jodie Foster

http://blog.seattlepi.com/peoplescritic/2011/05/02/qa-with-actressdirector-jodie-foster/

I agree, its always the same old questions. Don't these journalist prepare themselves by research? :typing
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clarice
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Thanks for the video, she's looking very good these days.

Quote:
 
I agree, its always the same old questions. Don't these journalist prepare themselves by research?

Sometimes I wonder if they don't simply share the same question sheet :lol The questions are always the same!
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TitaniumX

It's got to be hard for her, spending her days parroting herself :oh
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clarice
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The joys of doing promo... Hadn't she said she wouldn't do promo for The Beaver btw? I see she stayed true to her wishes :biggrin
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Gogo
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clarice
May 2 2011, 08:58 PM
The joys of doing promo... Hadn't she said she wouldn't do promo for The Beaver btw? I see she stayed true to her wishes :biggrin
did she? That's funny if she did. :bs
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ohman
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Gogo
May 2 2011, 11:38 PM
clarice
May 2 2011, 08:58 PM
The joys of doing promo... Hadn't she said she wouldn't do promo for The Beaver btw? I see she stayed true to her wishes :biggrin
did she? That's funny if she did. :bs
No, she said (at the Texas-Festival) she does not need to promote herself!
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clarice
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Oh I see. I stand corrected.
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lala

An awesome non repetitive interview. Courtesy of Ain't It Cool News.
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AICN LEGENDS: Capone strolls down Memory Lane with Jodie Foster!!!

Published on: May 03, 2011 6:48:23 PM CDT
Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

First thing you should do is read Quint's exceptional interview with THE BEAVER director Jodie Foster for the most thorough examination of the film I've read from her. The second thing you should realize is that the name of the film THE BEAVER is not mentioned once during my interview with Foster, because I had something else in mind walking into my 20-plus minutes with Foster recently, and I'm damn lucky she said yes because I hadn't had a chance to clear this with her beforehand.

The night before our conversation, I had conducted a fairly length post-screening Q&A about THE BEAVER in front of a packed house in Chicago, during which she and the enthusiastic audience seemed to have a great time. So walking into our interview, we weren't exactly strangers. I'd also had a brief conversation with her at the SXSW Film Festival at a pre-premiere party, and it was clear that day that she was mildly nervous about showing THE BEAVER to an audience for the first time. In Chicago, she seemed considerably less nervous because the critical response (including My Review) to the film has been overwhelmingly positive.

Nearly every person I've interviewed for AICN Legends has been aware of the nature of the career-spanning questions, but what I did with Foster was a bit different. Armed only with a complete list of every films she's ever made, I started selecting titles--sometimes at random, more of less in chronological order--and asked her to tell me the first thing that pops into her head about that film. Consider it a type of cinematic free association. I've seen "Entertainment Weekly" and "The Onion" do things like this, and I thought it might be fun to try it, maybe for the only time.

I was really thrilled with her recollections and her honesty. I got to talk to her toward the end of her busy press day in Chicago, and I was told she really perked up during our talk, probably for the simple fact that she didn't have to answer the same questions for the 20th time that day. Who knows. I had fun talking to her. Sorry if I left off some of your favorite titles. If I'd had 10 more minutes, I probably could have gotten to everything I wanted to, but I came damn close. I hope you guys enjoy free associating with Jodie Foster…

Capone: Hello, again.

Jodie Foster: Hey, how’s it going? It’s good to see you again.

Capone: So, you talked to one of our guys in Austin, and it was about as comprehensive an interview on this film as I could possibly imagine.

JF: Oh good. [Laughs]

Capone: There was no question that I could think of that he did not come up with. He also visited the set as well.

JF: Yeah, I’ve seen him a couple of times.

Capone: So, I was hoping that we could do something just a little different, if I could do a little free association with some of the stuff that you have done in the past?

JF: Sure, fantastic.

Capone: I'm just going to give you a film title, and you say the first think that pops into your head. I’ve got the whole list here. So, let's start with ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE.

JF: My big memory?

Capone: Yeah.

JF: Well, all of these memories are going to be moments in my life that coincide with them, so being in a hotel in Tuscan, Arizona, and jumping over and over again in the pool with Ellen Burstyn’s son and Alfred Lutter, the three of us together. I was tall for my age, I was getting older. It was kind of an interesting moment, because my hair was short, I had just come from doing PAPER MOON and I showed up on set with really short hair and I'd told [director Martin] Scorsese I was going to cut my hair, but I think he just didn’t imagine what that was going to be. He was just freaking out the way Marty freaks out.

[Both Laugh]

JF: And “She looks like a boy, what are we going to do?” So, they put me in this little dress, this dress with a little skirt and stuff for the whole thing, and they thought “Okay, that will take care of it.” And almost constantly, whenever I ever mention ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE, they are like, “Wait, that was a boy in that movie.” They always think I’m a boy and I’m like, “I was wearing a skirt!” [laughs] I remember jumping in the pool and I was just getting boobs and I had that really short hair and I was there with the two boys. I remember that being a funny, weird time.

Capone: Not to jump too far ahead, but you saying that of people mistook you for a boy, I think in PANIC ROOM, a lot of people did the same thing with Kristen [Stewart]. I thought she was a boy the first time I saw it. So, you’ve passed on that affliction.

JF: That did happen to Kristen, didn't it? But that’s what I remember from ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE.

Capone: BUGSY MALONE. People seem to have a real soft spot for that, what do you remember about that bizarre little film?

JF: It was a weird experience for me. It was a great movie. I love that movie. It’s so original. I was the only one that had ever been in a movie before, who ever really acted. I think Scott Baio had done a commercial and that was it. They brought everybody to England to Slough, just outside of London, and all of the Americans were there--there were only four true Americans who were living in a Holiday Inn there. [laughs] The English people were so jealous, and all of the other kids were living in almost like a bed and breakfast with minders. They weren’t really there with their parents, they were their with minders.

Capone: “Minders,” is that what they call them?

JF: Yeah, minders. And it was summertime, and they had been there for a long time, because they had been rehearsing, they had never been in a movie before. I arrived from doing TAXI DRIVER and I was shooting, so I could only arrive three days before I started shooting. The halls of Pinewood, it was like WARRIORS. There were gangs, mostly of girls from Liverpool and Leeds and Manchester, and they hated me because I was living in the Holiday Inn with the American boys, and they were just mad at me for no reason, and every time I would come down the hallway there would be some girls and she would have the fire extinguisher and she would go [in a British accent] “What’s the password?” “What? I don’t know!” Then when I didn’t know, they would… [Makes a whoosh sound]. They would get water all over me; it was like gang warfare, like high school gang warfare.

Capone: Did anybody ask the question, “Why are is this story being told with a bunch of teenagers?”

JF: [laughs] No, I think it was just a crazy, insane idea and I just think it’s such a lovable movie, it’s great.

Capone: TAXI DRIVER. Was that a shock to your system doing that?

JF: It was actually kind of a big revelation moment in my life. I had been acting for a long time and I had made more movies that both De Niro and Scorsese at that point.

Capone: That’s true.

JF: And I had done TV shows and. It was the first time that anybody asked me to do more that just act natural. Usually, when I was a kid, they would just say, “Just be more yourself. Can you say that line more like yourself?” Suddenly, I asked and I realized that I was being asked to create a character that wasn’t me, and it was like a light bulb went off in my head, because I really thought acting was this very dumb profession and I thought “This is not something I can do when I grow up, I mean saying lines that other people write. That’s just not very satisfying.” And in that moment in doing that movie, Robert De Niro kind of took me under his wing in a lot of ways, and I realized that it was me that had not brought enough to it, and there was this whole world of depth involved in a portrayal and how much you brought to the storytelling process that I just had no idea before, and I don’t know why I didn’t. I loved movies, but I guess I was just young and I guess that I just had that kind of epiphany.

Capone: When did you host SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. Was it around that time?

JF: No, I was a little older. Between 13 and 14, yeah. 14 maybe…

Capone: But you at the time were the youngest person to host it, I remember that. They have been like reissuing the first five seasons, so I just recently saw the one that you did. What do you remember about that experience?

JF: That was not a pleasant experience. Do you remember Orange Julius?

Capone: Yeah, sure. I think they are still around actually.

JF: Okay, well I had one of those before we went on and I dumped the whole thing down my shirt and pants and I had to go on and I had to do the opening monologue and the whole thing wet. They tried to use a heater to get me dry as quickly as they possibly could, and that just started off the whole thing wrong. I just was so… I just couldn’t come back from that. [Laughs] I just never came back from it and I just felt bad the whole time like, “Why am I so stupid?” and it was right before it happened and right before I went on. I just kind of never recovered.

Capone: Did you get through the rehearsal process okay?

JF: I did. I think it was an odd show. I don’t know if you remember it, but they didn’t know how to write for me. I was young and they couldn’t figure out whether they were supposed to write for me as a tiny baby or whether they were supposed to write for me as an adult. So I kept finding myself in scenes where I was sitting on some lecherous man’s lap. They thought that was funny.

Capone: That sounds about right. I actually just read an interview in "Rolling Stone" the other day with Robbie Robertson and he was talking about CARNY. What do you remember about that?

JF: Wow…

Capone: I have a friend who really loves that movie.

JF: Really? Wow, well it was very inspiring milieu of carnival life. It was the '70s and it was one of the last of those legendary '70s rock and roll movies, and I was 16, getting through my SATs, trying to get through my baccalaureate and I was not of that era, and it was very hard for me to watch really. Robbie Robertson, who is such a great guy, but not an actor. A rock and roll guy. He gets up at noon, maybe, and is up all night and then of course Gary Busey, who was as for all intents and purposes, as he used to say in town, “I’m Buddy Holly.” It was drugs in the '70s, that’s what I remember. That was a train wreck. Their trailer was called “The Black Hole of Calcutta,” because anyone that knocked on their door and went in there, never came out.

[Both Laugh]

Capone: One that I remember liking was FIVE CORNERS. I remember particularly how that’s the first time I really realized how crazy Turturro could play.

JF: Great actors in that. Really good actors, and [writer] John Patrick Shanley, what an incredible mind he had. He was so young then, too and really had such a playwright's mind, which was so interesting to see, and it had a different feeling than MOONSTRUCK, you know? MOONSTRUCK was much broader, and I think had maybe a lot more chops to it in a way, but it wasn’t as filled with feeling, and there’s something about “It’s 1962 and it’s the Bronx, and this is how it was and it will never be that way again,” that was so filled with something that I think was really special about that movie.

Capone: THE ACCUSED, which got you your first Oscar. When I first saw that film, it kind of changed the way I thought about the world in a lot of ways. I didn't know people were capable of behavior like that, and I'm not just talking about the men.

JF: Yeah. I feel like I was completely unconscious when I took on that film. I think I read the script once before I started it and I kept putting off re-reading it. I think I couldn’t face it. I think I only read the script once when I went up to Vancouver to shoot the movie and I think I was scared of being prepared. I think I was scared of what it was going to be, so I just decided to not think about it, and I think I was 24 and I think it was a good idea. I think that it was good to be unconscious, because I felt like that performance came from a really pure place, and when I finally saw the movie, I was appalled and I said, “You know what? I’m doing my GREs [Graduate Record Examinations] and I’m going back to grad school, because this is really bad. This is the end of my career.

Capone: It put you off acting for a while.

JF: I just felt like I had failed everyone. I felt like I had drawn a character that I didn’t like, and what I realized was there was not a lot about her that is not likable and that’s not like me. She’s not polite. She doesn’t speak well. She's too loud and she is continually pointing her finger at everyone. She’s all of these primitive things that I was not and that I couldn’t relate to as a genteel, well-bred, straight-A student, and there was a part of me that found that aggressiveness really hard to watch. In the end, I’m really glad, because I think it’s a very unconscious performance, and if I thought about it a whole bunch, I think I probably would have done something different.

Capone: You did SILENCE OF THE LAMBS a couple years later. That kind of blew the doors off of the world.

JF: It’s a great movie.

Capone: Is there one thing in particular you remember about that?

JF: You know, it was a movie that I fought for, because I loved the book and I was fascinated by in ways that I understood and ways that I didn’t entirely understand, and I really think that book was so inspiring to all of us that I think we are better in that movie than anything we have ever been in, you know [director] Jonathan [Demme], I think that’s true of Tak Fujimoto. He’s a fantastic cinematographer. We all say that when we look at the film, “We are never going to do that good.” It’s just something that came from the book and Ted Tally, I mean Ted Tally gave us the perfect screenplay. I don’t think they changed 10 words of that screenplay when it came out of the typewriter.

Capone: Did you anticipate it becoming such an iconic work that is still being referenced?

JF: Never, never. I don’t think any of us ever saw that. I think we knew that there was something really so true about it that we couldn’t stay away from, so that probably translates to other people not being able to stay away from it either.

Capone: LITTLE MAN TATE, first time directing and you were acting in it too. And you said last night that after doing both, you vowed never to do that again.

JF: And yet I did [with THE BEAVER]. Gosh, that was such a huge experience. It’s the experience of your first film and the first film directing. That movie is kind of the story of my life, feeling alone and different as a child and feeling like I had to choose between my head and my heart, and that seemed like an impossible choice. It felt like a cruel choice.

When I was young, I loved "Franny and Zooey" and I loved Salinger and I thought, “Some day I’m going to make a movie that’s a version of that,” and when I found that script, that was really what I was looking for, and it wasn’t so much the story or the prodigiousness of the characters, but it was that loneliness. I think, once you find that think that speaks for you, you never let that go. I didn’t realize that it was the loneliness that I was drawn to that felt so true to me, and at the time, although I had to do a lot of defending about like, “Why aren’t we discussing his genius more?” “Why aren’t we seeing how he does math?” “Why aren’t we explaining the joy of learning and what that means, and how fantastic that is?” I was like, “Well, because it’s a movie about loneliness,” and that to me was the most important and true part of that. To him, doing math was not the most precious thing.

Capone: For some reason, in line to see the new film in Austin, NELL came up, because we thought that it had a similar tough-sell feel to it. What can you tell me about making that?

JF: Well, I produced the movie, so we bought the rights after the play and went through many drafts with different writers and developed the language. And even having done all of that, I showed up for rehearsal and was like “Wow, what am I going to play?” I really didn’t know and so I went out desperately trying to figure out what other actors would do and I thought, “I should just go to a vocal coach,” or “I should go to a dance coach.” I went to all of these different people and I kept going, “What should I do?” I didn’t find any answers anywhere. I did research and there were no answers. Finally, I threw up my hands and said, “You know what? I’m just going to drink coffee and then I’m going to say the lines and the gestures and I’m going to understand the language and I’m just oing to have faith.” I think that in some ways it was the hardest movie that I’ve ever done and the best performance, and in some ways the easiest.

Capone: I’m going to see if I can get a couple more in here, before they kick me out.

JF: Sure.

Capone: CONTACT. One of the biggest-budgeted films you've ever done. Were you even aware that "South Park" went after that moment at the end of the film…?

JF: With all of the kids?

Capone: No, more about David Morse coming out after we've waiting this whole movie for aliens. "South Park" may have sparked this controversy.

JF: [laughs] Maybe. You know, the best and most incredible part of that movie is Carl Sagan came, and I had met him before and talked to him before, but after 15 years with living without the movie, he wrote the first screenplay and he didn’t think the screenplay was good, so he went and wrote the book, which took another 10 years. Everything he went through to get that to happen. It was originally a George Miller movie, and then that got pulled and then waiting another two years, and in the midst of all of that he’s dying, and he’s had two bone marrow transplants. And he came to set and he gave us "billions and billions-like" teaching moment, and that’s the part that I will never forget. And I think that his awe and his kind of religiousness about how he felt about science was so inspiring and so incredibly communicable. That’s my big memory, that one moment in some weird hotel in Washington, D.C. or something with Carl giving us all that speech.

Capone: I was going to ask you about the unparalleled responsibility of giving voice to Maggie Simpson.

JF: Aw, it was a lot of fun, wasn’t it? Maggie Simpson finally speaks, and it’s my voice, that’s pretty funny.

Capone: Elizabeth Taylor first, and then you. Anyway, thank you so much playing along.

JF: Hey, thank you. This was fun.

I know, I know, so many titles left on the cutting-room floor. Next time, I promise…


http://www.aintitcool.com/node/49495
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Artful_Dodger

Great find. :)
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clarice
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Thank you Lala, great one!
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ohman
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Nice, thank you - some variety while all that Beaver-Talk ^_^
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jodiefan

i loved it thanks
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cappuccinogirlie

Hello... long time no see. I spotted Artful_Dodger, so I assume this must still be the 'same place' as it was back in the day. And I've reregistered, which means there's a new movie about to be released. *waves*

And I wanted to ask if anyone has the Psychologies UK interview. Was considering picking it up from the newsagent as it sounds kind of interesting.
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jodiefan

hi welcome
there have been scans around of that interview. anyone?
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clarice
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Hi cappuccinogirlie :greet

Here's yet another q&a:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/jodie-foster,55501/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=channel_film

The A.V. Club: When you were first shown this script, what drew you into it?

Jodie Foster: Lots of things that fit into the signature of what I do, and that I’m fascinated by, and have been fascinated by for a long time as a filmmaker. And then new things that you discover along the way that you didn’t really realize were a part of your life. I feel like this film is the story of my life at this particular time, and so was Little Man Tate, and so was Home For The Holidays, and so will the next movie. It may be about Martians; it doesn’t have to be directly related to my life. But I feel like The Beaver is a movie about a spiritual crisis, somebody who through this spiritual crisis is about to evolve, although painfully, is able to change and transform, and become more of who he really is. That’s true of Little Man Tate and Home For The Holidays as well.

AVC: If you related to it that way when you first saw the script, how has your own life played out in the intervening time, as you made the film? Have the parallels continued?

JF: I don’t know. That’s a good question. Every movie changes you. The process of making a film changes you. You have to be obsessed, you have to get up at 3 in the morning and go “Wait, I have an idea!” You have to continually be drawn over and over again to deepening inside that story, and ruminating over questions: “Why would he say this to her? Why if he was standing there, would she go?” Every one of those answers has to come from some personal place, and in order to do that, you can’t sit on the surface. It changes you—you wake up two years later and go “Wow, I’m not the same person I was two years ago.” It’s such a big change that you can’t really explain it to anyone else. [Laughs.]

AVC: You’ve said that this is a personal film, but in what way?

JF: I feel at various times in my life that I’ve been at a point where I had to choose between a death sentence and a life sentence. And I want to live. What do I do to live? What do I do to be vital? And the answer is always creativity. The answer is always art. It sounds really philosophical compared to this movie—you know, a guy with a puppet on his hand, whatever—but I think that’s at the crux of it. The one thing that gets you through the loneliness that’s inherent in a deep life is connection, and I find that every movie talks about that.

AVC: Do you think there’s a parallel between what Walter is doing, in creating a personality that encounters the world for him, and what actors do in dealing with the attention by developing a public persona?

JF: Yeah, yeah, a survival tool. I don’t know about persona. I don’t know if that’s a direct parallel, but I do think that the beaver is a survival tool that helps him survive his childhood, it helps him survive pains that are untenable, suffering that’s untenable, that helps him feel vital and want to live again, and approaches the world in a way that he’s not capable of anymore. He would like to be remote, so he finds a beaver that is remote. He would like to be macho and blue-collar and all these things that would make him feel better about himself, and wouldn’t make him hate himself so much, so the beaver is the opposite of everything Walter hates about himself. Then when you do that, you come up with this persona that can kick ass, this is your survival-tool persona. It can win, to quote Charlie Sheen. [Laughs.] Walter is a loser, and he wants to win, so he adopts something that is bulletproof in some ways, but that survival tool will kill you. Eventually, you have to get rid of that and face who you really are, and evolve beyond needing that thing, which is hard, because that’s the thing that loves you, that’s the thing that sacrificed for you and killed for you and was there for you when nobody else was.

AVC: At what point did you decide to take a role in the film?

JF: When I brought Mel on. I suddenly had to start thinking about like, “Who am I going to have play his wife?” I was really worried, because I knew that her character would be the eyes and the ears of the audience. I couldn’t rely on a beaver puppet to be the perspective of the film because [Walter is] crazy, so you can’t do that, and he changes so drastically over the course of the movie, he’s not a reliable first-person [perspective] in some ways. I needed somebody who could really anchor the film and that drama, and wouldn’t be tempted by the comedy, the kitschiness at all, and was able to carry the film on her shoulders, and had to be age-appropriate, had to be somebody where you would believe they had spent 20 years of their life together. I also—once I brought Mel on, I know how he works, I know how easy he is to direct, and I know he doesn’t have any neuroses about being directed, and I just knew it wouldn’t be a problem for him the way it might’ve been with other actors. I’ve had that experience with other actors. It’s really hard being directed by the person who’s sitting across from you in the scene.

AVC: How did you approach that? Directing him as somebody who’s in the scene, and who’s a friend of his, and who’s also playing a character who’s mostly in opposition to his?

JF: Mel and I work the same way. Neither of us go into a trance when we’re shooting. [Laughs.] We are fully capable of having an intellectual conversation about the movie while we’re shooting, and we can talk about food and all sorts of things right before a take, and be able to immediately go into the thing together. There isn’t a lot of preciousness. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t say to him about the filmmaking process. I will say to him, “I’ll be doing this angle because of that, and if you move your head to the right because of this problem I’ve got over there…” I never have to worry that he doesn’t understand filmmaking, or that he needs, neurotically, all this other stuff to get the performance I’m looking for. I also knew that—every actor-director knows that you’re not responsible for your actors’ performance, you’re responsible for hiring them, and for being articulate about what you’re looking for, but boy, they do it all. Hopefully you hired the right person, because it’s a gift that they give you. I can’t take credit for his performance. That’s entirely Mel.

AVC: So neither of you is particularly into Method acting.

JF: No. [Laughs.]

AVC: How do you go jumping from talking about food to finding the middle of the character? Especially in such an emotional film?

JF: Well, you have your own way, and I think for both of us, it’s private. We like to do it privately, we don’t like to make it feel like some precious thing, and the second it starts feeling that way, we both get very self-conscious. So I know that about him, that we both work the same that way, and I know when he needs to distract himself by telling a joke, or by doing something stupid, or going on the Internet and buying something and then coming back. He has to distract himself, because like me, he is only able to go deep for short bursts of time. We need to not work him over for too long, otherwise he can’t go as deep.

AVC: Are you not a fan of rehearsals, or discussing the characters before shooting?

JF: Our rehearsals are pretty intellectual. We talk about the script and why it needs to change, why this line worked but this one didn’t, and “I felt that this was too long,” or “This needs to be half as much,” or “It needs to start out this way, but move to a different place.” It’s very articulate. There was some work, a little bit of that actor-y work that we had to do at the end of the movie, because stuff needed to happen, and there’s no other way to get it except to get actors together. And that’s exhausting, so you do that for very short bursts of time.

AVC: Do you ever find your needs as a director interfering with your needs as an actor? In this case, as a filmmaker, you have to find a sympathetic place for Walter, but you’re playing a character who’s offended by everything he’s doing.

JF: I don’t have a problem with that, but definitely, there’s a lot of trouble you come up against when you’re acting and directing, about your performance. Sometimes it’s hard to be objective about it. I will tend to get two takes and walk away. I don’t belabor it, and it’s important to me to have someone who says, “You know what? You should get another one, and maybe you should try it like that.” Not that [Gibson] had to do this very much, but occasionally he would nudge me and go, “I like take two, because I thought take five was a little…” and that’s when you’re grateful that you have people around you that know the process so well.

AVC: Speaking of objectivity, how concerned are either of you at this point with how people are going to interpret this film in light of Mel’s personal life?

JF: I don’t know. I think you have to throw up your hands at a certain point. There’s not much I can do about it. I don’t know that he can throw up his hands. I think he’s pretty destroyed, and I think you just have to… In his case, he just has to take responsibility for what happened and move on, and hope that if you are true onscreen, that you’d feel that. That’s the most you can really hope for. In my case, I got to make a movie, and that is extraordinary. Because it’s so hard to get a movie off the ground that I will always be grateful for being able to have one. I don’t direct so that I can have an identity, and so I can go on to CGI movies. I had a big identity as an actor, and that’s not what I’m looking for from directing. Directing is a whole different goal.

AVC: You’ve talked in the past about how people tend to walk out of your movies saying, “I’m not sure what I just saw. That wasn’t like anything I’ve seen before.” How important is it to you that your films be unique?

JF: It depends what it is, it depends what you’re trying to examine, and it depends on how you get there. Some films may be a tried-and-true genre, and they may follow all the steps of that genre, and yet they’re able to be keenly observed and transformative. Some movies are crazy energetic and have all the originality but don’t have the emotional substance, because they’re so busy trying to be different. It depends what you’re trying to accomplish. And you’re not entirely in control of the monster when it leaves the gate. Your film, very often, first thing I learned, it walks and talks the way it walks and talks. You can try and move it in a different direction, but in a way, you’re just doing a lot of harm to it.

That was true of Little Man Tate, where I have a little boy onscreen, 7 years old, and he’s in every single frame of the movie, and he has a plodding, awkward quality, and the film has a plodding awkwardness to it. If I wanted to beat it out of the film, there’s no way I could, no matter what I tried. I think that’s true of The Beaver. The beaver’s voice has a very complex pattern. He does not go A-B-C-D-E-F, he has a gruffness, and he has a part of him that’s trying to come up but he’s not letting himself, so there is a quirkiness to the tone that is because of Mel, and because of the beaver that is unusual. If I tried to beat it out of the movie, I never could.

AVC: You’ve said you learned a lot about directing from David Fincher. Was that primarily observational, or has he actually worked with you?

JF: Oh, entirely observational. I think every director I’ve worked with… But as a technician, I think he’s the finest technician I’ve ever worked with. My movies will be nothing like his, and his method is not at all like mine, but he opened my eyes to a lot of things I’d never considered before.

AVC: Did that play out in specific ways with this film?

JF: I think this film—whether people realize it or not, because hopefully the seams do show—has a much more assured visual hand, and the images and the trajectory of the camera, sound, and music is so planned and well thought-out in this film. Hopefully it doesn’t feel planned and thought-out, but it is, and much more so than in any of my other movies. It wasn’t appropriate for my other films.

AVC: Is it true that you’re interested in moving entirely out of acting and into directing?

JF: Yeah, I think that’s true.

AVC: Where do you want to go from here?

JF: I just want to learn more. I can be better; I’d just like to work more as a director. It’s distracting being an actor, because—there’s a lot of reasons. You find out you’re going to work about six months before you start shooting, and then there’s prep and there’s post afterward, and there’s stuff to do, and then suddenly you’ve gone a year without directing. There’s a part of me that has to not be tempted by that in order to commit more to the directing, because it was 15 years before I was able to go from Home For The Holidays to this. It requires you to be a little bit more nimble than that. Honestly, the big reason for me to act is to observe other directors and learn from them. That seems to be the biggest draw.

AVC: Over the course of that 15-year gap, filmmaking technology has changed significantly. How has that affected how you work?

JF: It doesn’t affect how you approach the film at all. I mean, I think storytelling, if anything—I think you had a real advantage when you made movies when they didn’t have Avid, when you made movies on a flatbed and you understood what the film did, and why a cut works and why it doesn’t. There’s a real advantage to having a lot of experience before digital technology, but it’s just better, faster, easier. Anything’s possible, and boy, I didn’t know any of that stuff. I couldn’t quite believe the difference between the stuff I had to go through to have a dream that was such a small thing now, to have that happen for Little Man Tate, and now, you know, I don’t even have to send it to the house, I can just do it on an Avid. It’s incredible.
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clarice
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Also: http://www.starpulse.com/news/Evan_Crean/2011/05/03/q_a_jodie_foster_spills_on_directing_
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clarice
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Big pic: http://blog.beliefnet.com/moviemom/files/2011/05/IMG_9431.jpg

Interview: Jodie Foster, director and star of The Beaver
May 3, 2011


Jodie Foster directed and co-stars in “The Beaver,” a movie notorious already for two reasons. First, its script by newcomer Kyle Killen was on top of the famous “black list” of outstanding unproduced screenplays. Everyone knew how smart and distinctive it was and everyone know it would be very tough to film and very tough to find an audience for a story about a severely depressed man who finds that he is able to communicate through a beaver puppet he finds in a dumpster. Second, the lead role of Walter is played by Mel Gibson, whose behavior in the past few years has ranged from volatile to profoundly offensive. But one of Foster’s many outstanding characteristics is her commitment to her work and to her friends. It was a deeply rewarding pleasure to speak with her about the challenges of making this film and what she has learned from the movies and the people she has worked with in making them since she was a child.

Unlike ventriloquists (seen most recently in the documentary, Dumbstruck), Mel Gibson continues to act even when he is “speaking” through the beaver puppet on his hand. Do you as a director intend the other characters on screen and the audience to look at him rather than the puppet?

I was surprised that people didn’t watch the puppet more. I liked that about it. I never wanted the audience to forget that there was a man behind the puppet. It was a widescreen format. We used an anamorphic lens, and that allows you to do two things. First, it lets you keep two people in the frame almost all the time, even in close-up. And with depth of field you can switch the focus very quickly from the front of the frame, where the puppet is, to where he is, so there’s a real distinction to the field that allows you to keep them in the same frame at all times in the beginning of the film and yet separate them emotionally. We’re always, always following Walter’s path. Then, as time goes on, we change that and allow the beaver to start taking over about halfway through the movie.

It seems to me that making a film is a little bit like having a puppet on your hand. Instead of telling your story through one imaginary character, you’ve got many.

Yes, that’s pretty accurate. It’s not just the director’s and the actor’s voice but the writer’s, the costume designer’s, the props, production design. They’re all different languages and each one contributes to telling this one story. There are other experts and you make decisions.

Tell me about how you worked with the costume designer to tell the story.

I’ve made many movies with Susan Lyall. I love her stuff because it’s really real. She spends a lot of time combing through vintage stores and looking through bins. She didn’t come up through theater, so she doesn’t do draping and all that stuff. She has a little bit of a different bent and I think it is more authentic. The idea that there is this perfect icon, valedictorian and a cheerleader — that’s just a delusion. Not only do they not exist, but when it appears they do, there’s a whole other side to them. So for the character played by Jennifer Lawrence, at first she has a lot of make-up and that perfect WASP-y cheerleader outfit. But as you get to know her — as Porter [Walter's high school senior son] gets to know her, she changes and becomes a deeper and truer person and becomes more informal.

Your cast is one of the movie’s great strengths, including Jennifer Lawrence, nominated last year for an Oscar for her role in “Winter’s Bone” and soon to star in the big budget film of “The Hunger Games” and the brilliant theater actress Cherry Jones. How did you select them?

I’m always trying to get Cherry in movies. I love her. Anton Yelchin is also amazing and really shares the screen with Mel. Casting is a long process for me. I take a lot of time. Some people you know right away. Anton I knew right away. I met with some other actors but I was never serious about anyone but him. I’d seen a lot of his work. I knew that he could handle the wit, the lightness of the character but also had the dramatic side. Plus, he looks like a combination of Mel and me so I was pleased about that! I knew he could hold the screen with Mel even though they don’t have many scenes together, just one at the end of the movie. The rest of the time they are fighting each other from opposite corners. I spend a lot of time just making sure that it’s true. There’s really nothing else you can ask.

Everybody reads for me. I was never weird about that. I never minded coming in and reading. They should know if I’m the right person and I should know if I want to do a movie. Some of it is just to hear it. When I’m casting I’m still in the process of figuring out what the movie’s about, making decisions about locations, photography, and all that. When I can hear it, either around a table or at an audition, then I can really see how things are going to work. If I don’t get that process with the actors I’m walking into a mystery and I don’t want to do it.

You have quite a challenge in having a clinically depressed person as your main character. Even more than other illnesses, depression makes a person inaccessible and disturbing.

The world is littered with movies about people that are depressed that either did not come out or are not successful. I read this article in the New York Times that I thought was so smart about obsessive ruminators. It’s a real phenomenon. I thought, “I do that!” People who are good artists don’t just type it into the typewriter and win the Pulitzer Prize. It takes a lot of rumination and thought, a lot of time thinking, “Why did that happen that way?” “How do those two things fit together?” and waking up at 3 in the morning to think about it. It’s a very depressive process. You go over and over and over drama and it can be depressing and isolating. But you come out the other side. And people who don’t, who just go to the beach and play volleyball to cope with their problems don’t get to the other side of their issues. So I see it as a gift, and essential for being an excellent artist. But it does make you alienated from the rest of the population.

There’s a very delicate structure to the film. We start out inside Walter’s head. He’s so lost at that point he’s not even speaking. The beaver is speaking for him. It’s a light, witty, but removed voice. It’s remote. And that gets you through the first part of the movie. And then when he starts to want to live again, you get that burst of vitality. It really isn’t until the second half when reality sets in and the drama begins.

Is the puppet’s accent another way for him to be separate from Walter?

Yes. Walter wants the beaver to be everything that he’s not — charming, quick-witted, blue-collar, decisive. The beaver is somebody who is a leader.

There’s a fairy tale quality to the movie — the narration and the quick turn-around in Walter’s business.

It’s a fable. It’s a dark fable at times. I don’t see anyone walking around with a puppet on his hand in real life. Puppet therapy is very common for children. It’s not something that adults take on. It should be seen as a fable, carrying through to the ending as well.

It’s a fable in its facts but the underlying theme of finding a way to take a break from your negative elements is psychologically valid and dramatically compelling.

He adopts a survival tool. People who go through tragic circumstances where they don’t have another option adopt a survival tool and any therapist will tell you it’s a good thing. But you adopt and adapt these survival tools as a child — at a certain point, when you grow up, they can start to kill you. You have to amputate them. You have to get rid of your survival tool or it will take you over and destroy you.

Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/moviemom/2011/05/interview-jodie-foster-director-and-star-of-the-beaver.html#ixzz1LOukX1xk
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TitaniumX

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JF: I feel at various times in my life that I’ve been at a point where I had to choose between a death sentence and a life sentence. And I want to live. What do I do to live? What do I do to be vital?

That's pretty dark :sad1 This movie brings out a whole side of her I never knew..

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AVC: Is it true that you’re interested in moving entirely out of acting and into directing?

JF: Yeah, I think that’s true.

I hope she changes her mind :-/
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