Yeah, I stole that directly from Julianne Moore. Have you seen Safe, that movie where she’s allergic to everything? Anyways, I worked with her and I loved her process and the way she shaped character. But even before I met her—Boogie Nights is one of my favorite movies of all time. And I remember watching the EPK of Boogie Nights and hearing her talk about how she wanted her vocal quality to be. She wanted her head and her body to be separate. So she made her vocal quality higher. And so that would present an ungrounding of the character.
And I said to her, “Julie, I stole this idea from you.” And she was like, “Actually, that’s from this other movie.”
Everyone always wants to use movies to put the larger context of where the industry is right now. And I think you’re at an interesting nexus, because like you said, you’ve done a lot of blockbuster fare and you come from this dramatic world, and you do these indies that really push the envelope. How are you feeling as a creative person right now overall?
It’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot, and I continue to think about, because I got into acting as a means to escape, but also a means to be messy. I could put all of my messy big feelings into these characters that I played in acting class or whatever. And that’s why it meant so much to me because it was a source of healing. And then I knew it was a job, but I didn’t understand it was a job, not in my soul. It was always just what I was drawn to.
And as I started to build a profile and make money, the business started to infect my relationship to it, and I started hating it. I was like, This sucks, I’m not having fun. I don’t remember why I liked this. As a kid, I would do monologues in my bedroom by myself. That’s how much I loved this thing. And then now I’m on set like, Oh, gosh, can I go home? And I realized it was because I had forgotten my inner child’s reason for doing this.
And in the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to relight that fire and find the ways in which each character, each project I do is a source of healing for me. And at the same time, like I said before, it’s a balance of like, Okay, well maybe I’ll just do this because I can make some money. And then I’ll find a project where I’m like, this is all for little Justice.
It’s interesting too, because it feels like subconsciously, at least, a movie like this is in conversation with that feeling, right?
Yeah, exactly that, yeah. It’s that relationship of truth, of what you’re drawn to versus what society says, It’s like the practical shame. Do you want to be true or do you want to be safe? That’s a constant choice that I think every human being has to make, but specifically, is highlighted by these characters. And it’s also something I’m navigating in the industry.
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