BOP Interview: Paul Haggis, Mila Kunis and Maria Bello
By Ryan Mazie
June 19, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Last week I talked to Haggis about Third Person, a complex drama centering on three seemingly separate couples falling in and out of love, with a trio of the film’s leading women by his side: Mila Kunis (Black Swan, Ted) , Maria Bello (Prisoners, A History of Violence, Coyote Ugly), and Moran Atias (star of the upcoming FX drama Tyrant).
Haggis (writer of Million Dollar Baby and Casino Royale) and the trio of actresses talk about playing sympathetic, building relationships, leaving a character behind, and living with gypsies.
Paul, writing the script, was it important to make these characters sympathetic or likable to balance out the emotional turmoil?
Paul Haggis: I guess it was important to me that they were human. Then I just cast it really well. All of these actors took very challenging roles of people who were not sympathetic on the page. None of them tried to be liked. I think that’s the bravery of these actors in this film that really makes it.
Mila Kunis: I totally agree. I think sometimes being unlikable makes you likable. It makes you human. I don’t think that anybody every goes in thinking, “I can’t play this character because they aren’t likable.” I think my character is incredibly sympathetic and likable for her faults. I think all of the characters are. But I don’t recall going into any project going, “Oh, I’m a little tentative playing this character, because she isn’t as likable as I want her to be.”
Paul, you mentioned that you “cast the film really well.” It is an impressive ensemble. How was it directing such a large group of respected actors?
PH: The wonderful thing about working with really skilled actors is that you turn the camera on and you watch. You want really brave actors and actresses and that’s what I have here. If we aren’t brave, we aren’t artists and these are artists. The scenes you’d think would be most difficult are the easiest, because they are in the moment and they go.
Can you all talk about how it was working with Paul to prepare your character for this film, because you all have some mystery behind each of you in the movie?
PH: Every actor finds their character in their own way. Some are very intuitive. We didn’t have rehearsal processes. You nudge it here and nudge it there. They found their characters in their own ways. Moran lived with gypsies for three months on the street.
Maria Bello: I didn’t know you spent three months…
PH: She taught herself Albanian!
MB: Tell us that (laughs)… I’m interviewing now. Moran, please tell us about your process.
Moran Atias: For me, I was in a different position. No one wanted me for this part so I had to convince a lot of people that I was suitable for the role so I started researching it from here in the US, reading any book, documentary, piece of music, that was about gypsies. It just stayed in my head the idea of the character. Then when Penelope Cruz got pregnant, I said, “Okay, I’m going to Italy to find this character in my bones and skin.” I lived with them for a period of time and created a daily activity with them. The first thing was begging for money and that was probably the hardest thing that I did, because nobody wanted to give me money regardless of what I was wearing or how nice I was. It was impossible to come back with more than a euro. So then I started washing windows with them to find out where my character was in the rankings of the gypsy clan. So all of these positions made me understand that my character wouldn’t be apologetic for what she’s become and she needs to survive. I didn’t want to victimize her … I portrayed her with this force of life and pride.
PH: I also told her as an early direction, “If you have hair on your body, let it grow.”
MK: You told me that too! I had a unibrow!
PH: (laughs) Yes, I tell all my actors that. But Moran’s character lived in a place with no electricity and where they didn’t bathe.
MA: OK, enough with the details. The hair was annoying. The eyebrows at a certain point it was one brow and I thought it was too distracting.
PH: But same with Mila. I thought, honest to God, she couldn’t play this role. She was too beautiful. … And we had lunch and in ten minutes I saw what she could bring to it. It’s so exciting when that happens. Same with Sandra Bullock in Crash and Adrien Brody here. I thought he was too much of a lady’s man and he said, “Paul, I’m an actor.” And with Moran, I didn’t know how she was going to do the role, but I knew it was going to be really interesting.
MK: I loved doing this movie, because I was doing something I loved again. I’ve said this before, but you go and do a film with a director and they have you do a character in every which way, because they don’t trust themselves and they don’t trust you and they ultimately want to Frankenstein you in the edit bay and make a character that they feel comfortable with six months later. Paul’s the opposite. He trusts you and empowers you and gives you this great character to play with so you can live it for a little while and have this really great therapy session with this character and go through life with her with all of the faults and mistakes you’ve made and play the character with that…
How easy is it at the end of the day to leave that character behind?
MA: … I like to stay with my characters a bit, because it allows me to learn more about myself and the experience. Working with Paul has taught me a lot about the creative process and about being a better listener and person, because he takes every opinion with such curiosity and respect. Hopefully I can apply that in my personal and professional life.
MB: … Mostly with my characters I can get into them and then go, “Okay, what’s for lunch?” …
MK: I’m more on the side of, “Hey, what are we having for lunch?” too. This is purely my own take on it. I will live it for those 20 minutes that I’m on set that I need to live it, but it’s called acting for a reason. This is just me. There are people that are very close to me that use a very different method, but that isn’t me. I feel like if I am emotionally drained at the end of the day, I did a good job, but I don’t want to keep living it. I want to go home and have a glass of wine and go to bed. And in this film I was so emotionally drained at the end of every day that I was like, “Oh Lord, Jesus Christ I just want to go home!” I was just tired. You don’t even have the energy to be, “I want to go with my depressed character home.”
Then I go to work the next day and it’s, “Here I go again!” But it’s great. It’s a selfishly gratifying thing, but for lunch I was ready to eat lunch and snap into it. And also I do a lot of homework before I come to set. My script will have a thousand words on it that will ultimately never make sense to me six months later and then I show up to set and disregard it and just go with the flow of it. Then it’s more of a dance with your partner on set. Otherwise it’s acting against a white wall if you come in and go, “This is what I’m going to do with this speech pattern…” then you’re done and putting yourself six feet under. I show up and see what everyone else does. But I am not a trained actress, I did not go to Julliard, no one should listen to me ever. This is what works for me and probably nobody else (laughs).
Speaking of process, you each have a very interesting relationship with a man in the film. How did you go about creating them, because you only are with them in a short amount of time, but we still feel the arc of the relationship.
MK: James [Franco] and I’ve known each other for a long time, so we were very lucky that we didn’t need to build chemistry, but I know we met in [Paul’s] apartment in Italy and talked about the relationship between the two of us. I wouldn’t say it was hard. I’m sure everyone had a relationship that they wish went different and didn’t go as well as planned, and there are still repercussions and in this case the repercussion is a child. So again, it’s about going back to the first question that it’s all relative.
PH: Every set of actors I’ve dealt with differently. Usually I think if an actor has done their homework and understands the scene, they can act it. Just maybe you haven’t been clear to what we are trying to get to, so I’d walk them through to understand it.
MA: I have three men I have to relate to in the film. It’s interesting, because sometimes men get shy doing certain things, because they respect you and there was a scene where [Vincio Marchioni] had to put his hand underneath my top and he felt very uncomfortable. I explained it to him that between takes, we are free to do whatever we want. After that there is a whole different set of rules and we needed to show in a very short amount of time a history. What helps me sometimes is other people… and sometimes you are in such a magical space with an actor that you forget [the after] and you have a hand on your breast and it does feel humiliating, because another man is watching.
MB: I worked with [Adrien Brody] on the phone and I was going to be on set for our phone call scene, because I’ve only met him once for five minutes, but I had strep throat and a hundred degree fever so I just remember being in my bed trying to talk to him and not be friendly. But he was lovely.
MK: Paul is very passionate so when he loves it he will scream and when he hates it, he’ll let you know that you are shit. Either way, you will know. There’s no question. So his confidence will inspire you to take these weird risks that are sometimes awful, but in a weird way great. It’s the greatest thing to hear versus a director who is, “Uhm, I don’t know, well…” where we are both confused and don’t know what to do. He’s a very confident director and I respond well to that.