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Compiled by: Jack Foley
Q. How much knowledge did you have of the original film?
A. I had heard people talking about it, saying that this
film was really, really great. They said that I should go to see
it, but I didn’t. I read the script first, Walter Salles
was already attached to direct it and I thought that was intriguing.
Then I watched the original film. I thought it was a great film,
moving and frightening, so I was sold after seeing it.
Q. Are you a fan of ghost stories? And do you believe
in ghosts?
A. I think I used to try and scare my Mom into not smoking
by dressing as a ghost, and ruining all her favourite sheets by
cutting eyeholes in them. I remember doing that, I truly believed
in ghosts, and felt that they had a strange power. But I don’t
remember reading ghost stories.
My uncle used to record these vampire stories, and my cousins
and I would go into a room, he’d turn a tape recorder on
and play it and we’d sit there in the dark getting scared
out of our wits. I remember that.
Q. There are comparisons between your character in Dark
Water and the one that you portrayed in House of Sand and Fog.
Is that deliberate? And would you perhaps like to tackle something
like comedy?
A. I think that they’re really different characters,
Kathy and Dahlia. They are both struggling. For Kathy, it’s
more like depression and for Dahlia it’s more a difficult
time in her life, going through a divorce and a custody battle.
For someone with her temperament and history, it’s really
a difficult thing.
They’re both complicated characters in crisis, struggling.
They’re well written characters, complex characters in stories
that I thought were interesting. I think doing a comedy would
be very interesting, a smart comedy after these couple of films.
I get a lot of drug addict parts, women on the verge and whatnot,
so I think if I’m going to do a comedy I’d better
not do a real bomb. I’d better try and be careful about
it, otherwise they’ll say, ‘see, I told you she was
nuts, and dark!’.
Q. Was it easier to depict the maternal bonds in Dark
Water because you’re a mum yourself?
A. I thought it was really important to make that relationship
strong and convincing, because with a film like this you need
to ground it in reality first, so that if you’re going to
float past limits of reason it has to be anchored somewhere.
Motherhood changed everything for me, it changed the way I looked
at everything, the way I looked at people. It made me more patient
and more critical probably in terms of reading scripts and thinking
about how I wanted to spend my time, especially the time away
from my kids.
Q. What effect did winning the Oscar have on you?
A. I certainly read more scripts, and I get offered more
films. It hasn’t really changed my personal life. In terms
of how I see myself and my career, I still think that I’ve
got lots to do and learn.
But I do get offered more things. I wish I got offered more things
that I’m passionate about and that I really want to do.
If I think about films that are out, there are only a few really
special ones every year that I really want to go and see. It’s
kind of like wading through them and reading them.
Q. So you still get offered stinkers then?
A. Absolutely. You go through maybe 15 or 20 scripts
to find one. It’s really hard, it’s sort of shocking
but then I like to read everything, because it’s really
personal what you choose to work on. I’m really bad at delegating
the reading of scripts. I wind up trying to read everything.
Q. Did you have any reservations about remaking a near
classic? Or how the film would translate to US audiences?
A. I thought about it, but then I thought I was a fan
of the original film as well and I was curious to see how this
would be.
It was out of respect not disrespect for the film that we were
doing a version of it. Not to take away from the film that Hideo
Nakata had made, which is still a great film and worth seeing,
this is it’s own film. It’s respectful of it but it’s
also a departure.
It’s been translated into English and adapted for a western
audience. The biggest difference is that there’s more time
spent in character development, there are more characters. Like
the Veeck character, John C. Reilly’s character, Tim Roth’s
character – I think that’s fun and it makes this our
own film.
I think if we were trying to mimic it, or weren’t respectful
of it or really changed the tone of it…………
because while it is different in those ways, where it is similar
to the original Dark Water it has that balance between having
emotional depth and being a thought provoking film, while also
being hopefully a scary film.
Q. The flat you move into in Dark Water is terrible.
Did it bring back any memories of the worst house you've ever
lived in perhaps?
A. That was probably one of my college dorms [laughs].
It had no right angles, which seemed really good in theory and
is all very fancy. It was supposed to be really conducive to study.
But this was already a small room and it meant that my bed didn’t
fit in the corner.
I had this huge triangle of unused space, it was all too pointy
and sharp. That was the worst place I ever lived. I was really
thick, for someone who was spending so much time studying.
My heating didn’t work and I never bought a heater. I don’t
know why, I spent the whole semester sitting with blankets around
me. It was absurd.
Q. Have you ever lived anywhere in need of repair, like
in the film?
A. The place we’re in now actually, Walter came
over soon after we’d moved in. We had a meeting about the
film, and some time later we went away for the New Year and after
we landed in Scotland I turned on my phone and there were like
10 messages from the alarm company and the fire department.
They said they were sending the fire department to my house, but
it wasn’t on fire, they asked if I could call them back.
We sent a friend over and it wasn’t on fire, but I could
hear the noise of gushing water in the background, and was told
there was a foot of water on the kitchen floor.
It’s a town house, and some pipe burst on the top floor
and it flooded the whole house. There was water coming out of
the light fixtures and everything. Then we fixed it, and it flooded
again. I think it was Walter!
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Q. There are a lot of English
actors in Dark Water. Do you think that some of the barriers have
been broken down for British actors in Hollywood?
A. I think so, absolutely. Especially going over to America,
more so than Americans coming over and playing British. Though
it does happen both ways.
Q. The bond between you and Ariel Gade in the film is
very strong – how did you do it?
A. Threats, I threatened her a lot. I told her she really
had to make me look good, ‘hairy or sweaty’, as my
husband likes to say to the kids. She was great, really lovely.
She’s the same age as my son, Kai. We spent a lot of time
together in rehearsals.
Walter was really smart in setting up time for us together before
we started shooting. Not only in going through scenes, in the
locations, but also just talking about what it’s like being
in New York and being away from San Diego, how she feels about
her grandma, moving houses and her new puppy. She would come over
to our house and play hide and seek, stuff like that.
Q. Were you careful to protect her from the scary elements
in the film?
A. If you look closely at it you’ll see that there’s
nothing disturbing that she comes into contact with. Except perhaps
for the drowning scene. The only thing that was difficult for
her was going underwater.
But she and Perla, the other little girl, were friends. So for
them it was playing. But Ariel wasn’t comfortable swimming
underwater, so they spent a lot of time in swimming pools with
her learning to swim underwater and getting comfortable with that.
That was the hardest thing for her to do, but it was positioned
in a way that the issue was really the water and not the content
of the scene. Walter really spent a lot of time thinking about
what he would and wouldn’t allow them to do, and what he
would and wouldn’t film. He was really delicate with that,
and she was very well protected.
Q. The film seems to be deliberately ambiguous towards
the end, thereby forcing the viewer to come to a decision themselves
about the supernatural element? Is this something you strove to
achieve?
A. The thing I felt most strongly about was making sure
it stayed ambiguous like that. I really liked that about the film
and about the script, that there was a real life explanation for
everything. It could be supernatural, or the sacrifice could be
quite literal. How she succumbs to her own ghosts, the ghosts
of her childhood.
It didn’t really matter so much because it felt real to
her. It could have been either, and she struggled with that. It
was as if it was real even if it was the ghosts of her childhood
and her unresolved relationship with her mother.
Q. Did you find it difficult being wet all the time?
A. It was one of my favourite movies that I’ve
ever made. I had such a great time making it, largely because
of Walter and the relationship that I had with him. It was really
tough, because it was physical and there was a lot of stuff with
the water and I was in almost every scene.
I had my baby on the set, and I never sat down. But I was so excited
to go to work every day, because I loved the relationship that
I was developing with Walter. I really respected him and trusted
his judgement; it felt like such a privilege that he was stuck
with me, and I was the only actor there on a lot of days so I
had him cornered.
We worked really closely together. It felt like a gift to me,
honestly. At worst, it [the water] was a minor nuisance, the deluge
that we went through at the end of the film. They saved it until
the end too. They waited, they really got me. But they made it
very comfortable, except for the first day, when they had some
problems with the water temperature.
It was very cold. But after that they were really repentant. I
had a hot tub on set, which was very nice. Paul and Stellan were
in it most of the time.
Q. Did you ever find it difficult looking after a baby
on set?
A. Paul [Bettany] was there, he was remarkable. He called
himself my ‘set bitch’ and he was there every day.
He really helped make it bearable and possible. You want to make
it work, I felt really passionate about the film, and, of course,
I’m obsessed with my child. They were really a great group
of people.
I’d say that I’d try my best not to impose on the
shooting schedule [unless it was] a real, real emergency. I was
still nursing at this point, and I explained I wouldn’t
ask them for ten minutes unless it was a real emergency. They
were really gracious and kind with me, there were only a couple
of times where it came up and I said this had to take precedence.
If I could hear him screaming and crying because he was hungry
in the next room I’d have to go. Everyone was really kind
and patient, so I was fortunate with that and they provided the
room for me to have him on the stage.
Q. Is it true that you'll be working with Kate Winslet
soon?
A. I’ve met her. She’s someone that I’ve
seen in passing at different things, and we’ve chatted a
few times about kids and pregnancy and that kind of thing. Every
time I meet her I think she’s a nice girl, I really like
her. It’s a film called Little Children, it’s being
directed by Todd Field and it’s based on the book by Todd
Perrotta, who also wrote Election.
It’s about thirtysomethings and their kids and playground
politics and married people not wanting to grow up. A kind of
satirical view on all that. That starts filming on July 18.
Q. What's the scariest film you've seen?
A. I went on a big strike of scary movies, because I
got really affected by them. I saw Dressed To Kill when I was
really young and after that I had a problem with elevators, because
it scarred me for a while. So that was one I found very creepy.
When A Stranger Calls, that was quite bad. That whole ‘the
call is coming from inside the house, have you checked the children?’.
That’s really bad.
But I’ve got favourites now, that are my grown-up favourites,
like Rosemary’s Baby and Don’t Look Now. Those are
two of my grown-up favourite scary films.
Related stores: Dark
Water review
Feature - Jennifer Connelly on
the making of Dark Water
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