Source: Hero (January 12, 2021)
Translator: Yi Ersan
Proofreader: Qin Tian
Kerry Mulligan and Francis McDormand first met on the set of Drunken Folk, both of whom are world-renowned and respected actors, with insights into the current problems facing the film industry and a steady stream of fascinating anecdotes.
Carey Mulligan's Drunken Folk Song
In an interview, Mulligan had just finished promoting "The Girl with a Bright Future," a story about a woman's revenge directed by Mulligan's friend Emmerald Fennell.
Francis McDormand: Hello, Carey.
Kerry Mulligan: Don't come unscathed.
McDormand: I'm fine! How's your new film going? I love the title.
Mulligan: It's one of my favorite pieces, I love it, I rarely say that. This is a movie I made with my friend Emerald Fennell in Los Angeles last year. It's hard to describe it without spoilers.
"The Girl with a Bright Future"
McDormand: Tell me what kind of person Emerald is.
Mulligan: I met her through a friend we had together, and soon she sent me the script for the film, which I loved. I went to see her and sat down for less than two minutes and agreed. It wasn't until we started shooting, about four months later, that we found out we had seen each other before. We all starred in Trial and Punishment as children, which is almost a coming-of-age ritual for British actors. We were both eighteen or nineteen years old and had just entered the industry. She played "the evil girl in the nightclub" and I played the "murdered girl". We also had a rivalry scene where she knocked me down at the nightclub and then I was murdered on my way home. Detective is played by Michael Fassbinder.
McDormand: I love your name, it's so cool!
Mulligan: Yeah!
Didn't McDormand's "Wicked Girl in the Nightclub" and "Murdered Girl" happen to be footnotes of this era?
Mulligan: (Laughs) That's right! So we've seen each other for a long time, but we don't know each other. Now we have become very good friends.
Emerald Fennell
McDormand: After reading the script, did you discuss changes with her?
Mulligan: Basically not moving. Her script is wonderful, witty and unique. The only thing I felt when I read the script was, "Oh my God, this is not something that anyone can make." But when I saw her for the second time, I thought, "Well, you're the only person in the world who might make this movie." So I got involved early, and everything happened very quickly. She was very sweet and asked me to go with her to meet the actors and get involved in other things. But I didn't interfere much with the script. It's more common for other actors to change their scripts because they're basically comedians. I'm probably the only one in the movie who isn't funny.
McDormand: Have you been involved in casting for a film before?
Mulligan: I've never been involved in a similar preparatory process, but when I was shooting Women in Politics and Far Away, I was in the group very early, so I had a little say. But it was even more exciting when I made this movie, because every day I would get a phone call or text message from Emerald saying that there was a new person coming into the group. Then I met Bo Bonham, a comedian and director who directed Eighth Grade last year, playing my ambiguous object in this film, and he was fantastic. Before we met him, we read the script with a couple of actors, and the first line he said from his mouth was perfect.
"Eighth Grade"
McDormand: Joel [Cohen] and I were working on a project, and I auditioned for all of them, and I auditioned the script with all the actors, and I was thinking, "Is there any other way to get involved?" You know, agents or managers tend to pitch to us and say, "No, you have to have a definite offer," or, "You can't participate in the decision," maybe there's a meeting, but you don't read the script with other people."
It's like we're lifting a rock and hitting ourselves in the foot, because — and I know you agree — the last thing I want to do is do like I just did. If a director is just asking you to repeat past work, you're just going to do the same thing over and over again. Our goal is to get into that room, participate in decision-making, and prove to them that we can make a difference.
Mulligan: Exactly. If I had tried on a lens or sent a videotape, I would have felt much better. I would have walked into that room with more confidence because I had already proven that I knew what it was, or that I had figured out how to do it. The experience of starring in "The Girl with a Bright Future" was great because we read the script with several different actors, and that was the first time I read a line out loud in front of Emerald, even though she had already given me the role.
It's amazing, and I'm thinking, "This character is so far from any role I've played before, and no one knows if I'm really going to be able to play it." So reading the script aloud is very helpful, it can reassure others and get rid of that fear of self-doubt.
McDormand: That's right. How long did you shoot?
Mulligan: I remember it was 23 days, really short. Fleeting, but also very interesting. They just sent me a tidbit video shot, I've never made a movie with a tidbit video, which makes me happy! Also, in a movie, people always try not to laugh, which is very rare. A lot of the projects I've worked on have been great, but most of them are quite serious. And there were days when we were warned for laughing too much, a really interesting experience.
McDormand: (Laughs) It's definitely interesting. And for an actor like us who are parents, once we're so quickly and deeply involved in a project, we must hope it's worth it, don't we?
Mulligan: Absolutely. I don't know – you must have thought through to make this decision – but sometimes you get the feeling that there's no point in making that decision if you're not working with someone you really appreciate.
McDormand: Sure, that's what I'm trying to say, I'm going to work on another project with a female director soon — she has three children — and she said very early on, "Can we build a parent-friendly set?" You know, let the cast and crew take care of the kids for a reasonable amount of time." And my producer, who was also a woman, I said, "Of course, we're going to do that."
A friend sent me an interview with Josephine Decker — she had just been promoting a new film at the Sundance Film Festival, and she also needed to breastfeed her child, who was still breastfeeding, but the child was not with her. "I'm either going to cancel this interview or I can breastfeed while I'm interviewing," she said. Eventually she decided to breastfeed during the interview. Someone took a picture of her – it was amazing while she was nursing! And it's also a remarkable photograph of women at work. (Laughs) That's great. That's our reality. Scorsese can't do that either!
Mulligan: When I made Dirt Frontiers, my daughter Eve was eight months old. It was the first film I worked on after I had a baby. I was lucky because I could take Eve to the set. She didn't stay on set much because it was 40 degrees and we were shooting in a mud field in Louisiana, so my mom and my husband would pick her up and drop her off. I was breastfeeding normally, everything was fine and the crew gave me good care. But I was lucky because there were a lot of people on the crew who had kids and they hadn't seen their kids in a long time. I haven't heard of anyone actually taking care of kids on set. But you guys really have to build a set like this, that's cool.
Dirt Realm
MCDORMOND: Yeah, we'll do that. Marielle Heller has been on a parent-friendly set. She wrote a very interesting article about how the set works and how to get the job done as a director, which I think is a byproduct of a project dominated by women... It's basically a matriarchy.
I think it's going to end up changing the film's production process in the most positive way, because all the staff we work with have family members, guarding their homes somewhere in some city, and they're gypsies, flying around the world. This is not a healthy way. But if everyone can bring their families, that's the best. How many girl directors have you worked with? I know Di Rees is the director of DirtWorld.
Can You Forgive Me" director Mariele Heller
Mulligan: If you count theater and film together, there should be some. But only if it is limited to the movie, there are Dee Rees, Sarah Gavron, Shana Feist, Basil Shafi, Emerald...
McDormand: That's a pretty big percentage!
Mulligan: I feel half and half. I've also worked on a TV series with Suzanne White, so that's pretty much it. Do you work a lot with female filmmakers?
McDormand: I can probably count nine people, but after all, we have an age difference, so it's not bad.
Mulligan: (Laughs) I also think that when you get an email with a script attached, or when you audition for a film directed by a woman, it always gets me a little bit of an inexplicable excitement because women have to work harder or do better to be successful. Do you see what I mean?
MCDORMOND: Yes, there's some kind of threshold standing in front of us.
Mulligan: They have to write some really great scripts, or direct some really great movies, to have a second chance, or a third or fourth chance, but the threshold is significantly higher. I've had a really great experience. Emerald is also at the top of the list.
McDormand: I think it also affected screenwriting, like the experience I had with Martin McDonald on Three Billboards. He contacted me and said, "This is my new script, I wrote this character for you," which made me happy and excited. After I read it, I liked it, and then subconsciously said, "Well, I want to play this role too, but for her, I'm too old." I totally understand this woman."
"Three Billboards"
"In America, working-class women tend to have children at 18, so I don't quite believe this woman in her 50s would have an 18-year-old. But if you let me play a grandma, I'd feel more appropriate. That way I'll be more confident, I won't feel like I'm trying to pretend to be young, and in the world this woman comes from, I'll feel more real and believable."
He said, "No, I just don't believe that a grandmother would try to fight for her grandchildren like she would with her children." You know what I think, and I replied, "You obviously don't have parenting experience, and you're not a woman, because if there is, you know the old man will fight harder because she gets a second chance to make up for the mistakes she made in raising her children before." So we talked about it for almost a year, and finally Joel said, "Don't get tangled up, go shoot." If he thinks you're a good fit for the role, you're definitely fit for the role!"
So we didn't continue to argue, and I was a good fit for the role, and we didn't discuss it anymore. But it's a really topic of discussion for me because I still run into all sorts of things throughout the production process — I don't mean sexism, because Martin is actually a great writer, and at the end of the day, you get the results you want — good scripts, good graphics, but it's also funny to have that kind of thing, "As a woman you have a completely different reaction to things." But it's all yet to be seen, right?
I want to ask the comedians I work with. Are they also film actors?
Mulligan: Yeah, they're also film actors. The plot simply puts it, my character is single-mindedly trying to do something — which is why I should never be on a talk show because I don't know how to introduce people to a movie — and the protagonist is a woman who has just turned 30 and is in medical school, and her friend goes through a traumatic experience that changes the trajectory of her life and sets her on the path to revenge. It's not a revenge movie in the true sense of the word, but her mission is to teach men how to behave. So she goes to the nightclub and pretends to be drunk and then waits to see what happens, and if a man takes her home, she waits until the man is ready to take advantage of her, revealing that she is actually completely awake. That's the synopsis.
MCDORMOND: Sounds wonderful.
Mulligan: It's really funny, Emerald is very clever, and she wants to make sure that nothing in this movie is something you've seen in so-called brother comedy over the last 15-20 years. So I won't give specific examples, but basically, it's the story of a man taking advantage of a woman who gets drunk, and we've seen it in a lot of movies, but Emerald makes this point from another angle: what if the woman wasn't actually drunk and was completely sober? Emerald invited a lot of talented filmmakers and comedians, and they were all very comfortable and familiar faces.
For example, Sam Richardson in "Vice President", Max Greenfield in "Jessie's Driving", and Adam Brody in "Orange County Boys", they are all beloved and common people in romantic comedies. They are all playing the role of a table of talents. Jennifer Kurić plays my mom, who is very smart and funny. I couldn't actually cope – rehearsing with comedians or watching them improvise instead of staying in the role completely.
Orange County Boys
For example, there was a dinner party scene where Bo played a role to meet my parents, Jennifer started improvising, Bo improvised along with her, and I ruined almost every scene because I was shaking and laughing. The photographer behind me wrapped his head in his large handkerchief and was trembling... It's going to drive people crazy. So it's interesting. It's a very dark comedy, but there's a brisk feeling that runs through the story — the audience doesn't want to be sentenced while watching a movie.
MCDORMOND: That's a good way to put it. When I talk about Three Billboards, I always say it's about justice, that revenge and justice are two different things, and that seems to be Emerald's interest. Joel and I have recently been addicted to two podcasts, which are a silly way to get rid of Macbeth for a while (a movie that Joel Cohen and McDormand are currently working on), and as soon as we get home, we listen to "The Daily" and "The Argument"). The creators of Debate are three political experts who are also columnists for The New York Times; one is a progressive Democrat, one is a moderate, and the other is a conservative who leans towards the Republican Party.
They debate different topics every day, occasionally inspiring. Last night we listened to a podcast about Weinstein's trial, an interview with his defense lawyer. There are a lot of interesting things, including one thing she suggested is that any man should have a signed consent form before "going to first base". That's how she sees future sexual encounters between men and women, she says. "Oh my God, seriously?" Have we reached this point?" We are now in a very strange period.
I remember when Pedro (McDormand and Cohen's son) was in college, we were talking about landscapes — situations that were like hormonal clusters that interacted every day, right? These hormones are now often connected through some kind of device — a contract formed through social media. Then, after they've gone through all those intricate rules of swipe matching and profiles, they'll get intimate and they'll go crazy about it.
McDormand
But that's the intimacy, and I've never been out of control in a satisfying sexual experience, and that's the key, and in my opinion, that's where it's about leaving everything behind and enjoying the pure sensual impulses. So what kind of contract do you need to enter into to allow this waiver? This is not a problem that can be solved by reason. I do not know. I don't even know what to say.
Mulligan: It was funny when the film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, and a lot of reporters asked, "Is this a MeToo movie?" Or, "It seems like your response to the MeToo movement," Emerald explains positively, "yes, of course, it's a response to the current situation..." In many ways, the MeToo movement is about what's going on, but it also contains a lot of long-standing questions that women talk about because a lot of the problems they've experienced as children.
MCDORMOND: That's right. The Greeks wrote many plays on these issues. I remember reading a Greek drama like this one and suddenly realizing that it was their public service announcement. Troupes would go to small villages and tell people through drama, "You know what? You can't sleep with your mom and kill your dad. Because this breaks the rules of society in some way, so we can't make money from you, so don't do it."
These are basic moral allegories about how to sustain society. Now we have hashtags. Is this a response to MeToo? not necessarily. The MeToo movement is a response to a long-standing problem – as you just said – and a fumbling of social complexity that cannot be as simple as a hashtag, not simply a response to a specific issue. This must be an environment of constant evolution, otherwise we will not have any progress and we will not be able to survive.
"The Land of No One"
McDormand: Carey, we've covered all three areas: theatre, film, and television. I was trained to be a classical theater actor, I went to drama school, I was trained to be a product, and then I was sent to local theaters across the United States to perform classical theater. I also borrowed $50,000 from graduate school and quickly learned that shooting a Le Cordon Bleu commercial might come at a faster price... I mean, I have to start working and paying off the loan, and the theater won't give me that chance.
However, I found that, especially as a young actor, acting in theater gave me the opportunity to play a role in the film. I go back to the theater often, not as many people say – that was my first love, but because the theater is like a training ground where you can work on new muscles from head to toe.
Mulligan: I totally agree. When I perform in the theater and then stop for a while, I feel like I have a lot of energy. But I didn't train in drama, and I really wanted to go to drama school, which was something I always wanted to do, but I wasn't admitted. At the age of 19, I performed my first play at the Royal Court Theatre, and at that time I had no idea what I was doing, it was terrible...
McDormand: That's a drama school too!
Mulligan: Yes! For me it really is a drama school. It was a scene by Katie Michelle, who found me crying in the locker room during my first rehearsal and then asked the other actors to teach me how to warm up because I didn't know how to get my voice, body, or other parts to come alive. So theater was something I always wanted to do growing up, but I also loved movies. I did a one-man show last year that lasted 90 minutes. I never thought I'd stand alone on stage. But after doing so, when I looked back at the incident, I realized that I was just trying to make myself frightened.
I did scare myself, even almost gave up, and I almost had a panic attack after rehearsal. But changing my choices, acting in a one-man show let me know that, in a way, I'm in a very fortunate position to be able to choose my job freely, and I just want to make sure that in the next few years, I'm going to do something that's out of my comfort zone, and not doing anything that makes me think, "Oh, I know how to act, it's easy."
McDormand: That's right. Theater provided me with only a few major roles, and in movies I usually played supporting roles as male leads—that's true of most of the movies I just debuted. But the biggest change for me was when I knew Pedro was about to graduate from high school and start moving into the next stage of his life, I knew I was going to lose him. A friend who had known me for years suggested that I develop my own work, which was to create some characters of my own, and I decided, "Well, if I'm going to create characters, then I'm going to play the main characters." Then I came across Olive Kitterage, and that's when my mind changed.
Olive Kitterage
If there are certain rules or boundaries for female characters in television and movies, then I think this kind of TV movie may be an opportunity. When I first saw The Wire of Fire, I realized it was a possibility and how to tell a longer and more tortuous arc of a female story in this way. The film and television industry is also changing, and television is no longer excluded – that's where the money comes in. It becomes like the world of independent cinema because it has enough budget, but telling women's stories also takes risks. This was my epiphany.
Mulligan: Olive Kitterage was the precursor to that refreshing and exciting wave of TV series, wasn't it?
MCDORMOND: In the U.S., probably. It's certainly something that the UK film and television industry has tried and perfected, but we're catching up.
Mulligan: Fran, if this question is too personal, you don't have to answer it, but I wonder if you felt that when Pedro was growing up, you felt that you were hindered from participating in the work that played the lead role, and you might have to wait?
McDormand: Well, but those characters didn't end up coming to the door! I was actually a very late parent, I was born to Pedro when I was almost 40, so having a chance to be parenting was really important to me and I never felt like I was sacrificing any part of my professional life. Interestingly, when Pedro was about 18, his perception of me was that I had been waiting for him to come home from school. It's really interesting because I've been doing my own career throughout his upbringing, but he still thinks I'm the guy who's been waiting for him to come home from school.
But when I hear that women in the film industry have age restrictions of one kind or another, I think of actresses who started about a decade before me, such as Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer. I looked through their film careers and thought, "No, they actually made a choice." Because if you look at their life trajectory, usually when their children are in middle and high school, they only play one movie a year, or play a few small roles; they make choices around their private lives, and they prioritize things differently than male actors.
Meryl streep
That's when I started working with The Wooster Group because they were in New York, where I could spend the whole day, a matriarchal society. Leeds (Elisabeth Leconte) is the artistic director and she also has a son, so she's in a similar situation to mine. If I say I have to leave, pick up Pedro at school or bring him to the studio, there's no doubt that the work will still go on and there won't be compromises, right? This is the main problem. So I was really lucky that when I started my career again, someone offered that opportunity.
The Absent Man
Mulligan: We first met in 2000 and later on the set of Drunken Folk.
McDormand: It was supposed to be in the studio before filming started. Joel and Ethan, along with T-Bennett, were there, and they prepared a recording before filming so that the musicians in the film had a beat track that could be played back. Oscar and Marcus (Marcus Monfu, Mulligan's husband) were in the room because he was going to voice the dead band partner, which I thought was fantastic and I loved the ghost he played.
So was Justin Timberlake, and so was Adam Dreyfu. But I was just a visiting family member, sitting there, looking around, and it was about 5 p.m., and Joel came up to me and said, "After this is over, everybody should go back to our house together." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "I'm going to invite everyone to our house after the conference." I said, "That kind of invitation to dinner?" He said, "Well, that's great." I said,.
Drunken Folk Song
So I went to an deli and bought a big lasagna and a lot of beer, and everybody came over and we talked until 3 a.m. It was a completely epiphany experience. I remember watching you sing, singing to the part of the three harmonies... It was a very special experience, right?
Mulligan: I remember you too, the first time I met Joel and Ethan because I sent them videotapes of the role auditioned for — I only talked to them on the phone. So the three of you and T-Bennett were present, giving that wonderful studio a sanctuary vibe.
McDormand: It was one of the only remaining recording studios in New York, very old, I remember it was between 52nd Street, Ninth Avenue and Tenth Avenue. It's pretty there, isn't it?
Mulligan: There's Persian carpets there. I remember singing the song "500 Miles" with them, we were in a cubicle and everyone was standing behind a monitor. We were too far apart and I was very nervous. I remember after the second one, Marcus walked in, made a gesture, and told me to sing quietly because I was singing a bit like I was in an interview for Les Misérables (laughs). As a child I always dreamed of becoming a musical actor, but I didn't have a good enough voice. But I got the role by mistake, so I sang "500 Miles" and he came in at the right time to ease my mood... The Punch Brothers also went to your apartment, do you remember? And then I remember at one moment —"
McDormand: — They all started singing the songs of the Radiostars.
Mulligan: I co-compose the melody with applause because I don't have an instrument and I don't want to sing that day. And there's another moment — it meant a lot to me, you probably don't remember — but you said to me, you've seen my 21-year-old stage play "The Seagull" in New York. You said something great and I almost cried because you saw that play and you were so nice, it was a moment I'll never forget.
McDormand: We're going to end this interview: Kerry Mulligan was, and is, the best Nina of our time. This is true, there is no doubt about it. It's a difficult character, and you interpret her so easily. Love you, sister.