00:00 I was just talking to Jason Weinberg about the big year you've had, I mean the big career, but also just this year.
00:06 I mean, congratulations on first of all being a nominee for Eileen, a special movie, intense scene.
00:12 Very intense, very intense. It was like jumping off a cliff, yeah.
00:16 Tell me what it was like in that basement with Thomas and Mackenzie and Anne Hathaway.
00:21 You know, it was a little bit of a fugue state that I think I entered into.
00:25 I will say that gearing up for that day felt like nothing else I'd ever experienced.
00:30 Running the lines, I almost couldn't ever get through them. It was really hard to run them.
00:36 And then we had a lot of rehearsals beforehand with Will and Annie and Thomas in like a month before.
00:40 And I think if I hadn't felt like we were prepared to that degree, I don't know how I would have done it.
00:46 But Annie and Thomas in particular were so unbelievably supportive of what I had to do that day.
00:51 What a bizarre thing, right? Like it's sort of their movie and then they're like,
00:56 "Okay, here's this for four hours tonight in the middle of the night. Let's do it in the freezing colds,
01:01 you know, in New Jersey in the middle of winter."
01:04 And the grace that they gave me and the space to kind of be in that difficult place was so beautiful
01:13 and I'm grateful to them beyond words.
01:16 So beautiful, so intense. My jaw was on the floor. I think that whole scene, I saw it at Sundance
01:22 and I just was like, "Wait, what?"
01:25 When you're on a set filming a scene like that with an actor like Anne Hathaway and Thomas,
01:31 what is your relationship when cameras aren't rolling?
01:34 Do you like to stay in character? How do you hold on to that intensity?
01:38 You know, I try to just keep my own focus however I can, but I feel like the more open I stay,
01:48 which involves gratitude to them, so I don't stay in character per se
01:53 because I find that makes me feel a little bit too insane.
01:57 But I try to just maintain a sense of being grounded and like, "Thank you. Hello. I'm here."
02:03 I just try to keep myself open so that I'm not overwhelmed by, you know, I don't actually lose my actual mind.
02:10 So I try to just stay grounded, grateful, "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, everybody."
02:16 You know what I mean? I just try to like stay grounded and connected to them and they made that very easy.
02:22 Well, you nailed it. Speaking of reveals, you were another reveal in "Swans" recently.
02:28 Tell me, that show has just really taken off and I know that the fans are so devoted.
02:33 I know there was a big response to the twist of you being chosen.
02:37 So tell me what it's like to be a part of the "Swans" fandom.
02:40 You know, that was such a wild thing. It was like, I know Robbie Bates a little bit,
02:45 and so he was like, "Will you come and do this crazy thing?" And I was like, "I guess so."
02:48 And then it was like to be in not only a world of that show, but then it's like,
02:54 "Oh, and Zac Posen's going to make your dress and it's this iconic moment in time."
02:57 And like, "There's footage of her at the ball." You know, like, it was like, that was like,
03:02 I actually felt like Katharine Graham, I think, felt in that moment, if I can be so bold as to say.
03:07 I remember reading her memoir and she's like, "What the hell was I doing there?"
03:11 You know what I mean? And I felt a little bit like, "Here I am for, you know, this brief moment."
03:15 So it was, it was actually, I mean, I think I had maybe a little more fun than she did that night
03:20 because I could only enjoy it. I could only enjoy myself.
03:23 And Tom Hollander, it was, to be that close to what he was doing, I was like marveling. Yeah.
03:29 Now, Maren, you're, what's so amazing about you is you're able to move seamlessly from a project like Swans to
03:34 something like Eileen or even Birth/Rebirth where it's these really gritty indies.
03:38 What's the most indie project you've ever been on and what's the, like, what's the grittiest kind of,
03:44 you know, bootstraps film, indie film project you've done and what have you had to go without?
03:49 Oh my God. I'm trying to think. I feel like there's been so many.
03:53 I keep, I feel like one of the first movies I was ever, I ever did, this little indie called The Understudy,
03:58 which was wild. But that was a lot of, like, changing your clothes in the pizza parlor bathroom.
04:04 There's a lot of that. Also, you know, there were a couple films I did with these amazing producers
04:10 that we did, I did 28 Hotel Rooms with them and Glass Chin and Sparrows Dance with them.
04:17 These, like, incredible tiny movies where, like, you know, they're like Louise Runge and Sam Hausman
04:23 and they're, like, they're the producers who are also, like, making you peanut butter sandwiches for crafty.
04:27 You know what I mean? They're like, "Lunch?" You know what I mean?
04:30 Like, when the producers are also making you lunch and picking you up and driving you.
04:33 When I did 28 Hotel Rooms with Chris Messina, Matt Ross' first feature, I was, I don't live in L.A.
04:39 and I was staying in the hotel rooms that we shot in every night after we wrapped.
04:43 Because they were like, "Well, we can't put you up." And I was like, "What are we going to do?"
04:46 And then I was like, "Wait a minute. We're shooting in hotel rooms every day.
04:49 So after we wrap and after the camera's gone, I'll sleep in the hotel room overnight.
04:54 You pick me up and take me to the next hotel room the next morning."
04:56 So that was an ingenious moment. That was actually one of the good stories, I think.
05:01 My last question for you two. One great thing about Independent Spirit is championing the work of others.
05:05 Seeing your work in these two movies, particularly this year, mind-blowing.
05:09 Is there a performance that really changed your life this year?
05:12 Or an indie film performance or film in previous years that you remember seeing
05:17 that really just changed your idea of what an actor could do on screen?
05:21 You know, there's a couple answers to that. One is Greta Lee in Past Lives.
05:28 And that is actually just very personal just because I feel like I've known her through the New York theater community for so long.
05:33 And getting to see her do something that, in contrast to Eileen, wasn't about being covered in blood
05:39 and screaming and crying and all of that, but was such an incredible range
05:44 that was just this simmering under the surface, beautiful, the most delicate performance
05:51 and yet so kind of steely, that was really sensational to me.
05:55 Not a flashy performance at all, but so beautiful.
05:58 And also Andrew Scott, because I'm obsessed with him.
06:01 And All of Us Strangers was also a movie that I was like, "What is happening?"
06:06 It's like a poem, like a fever dream poem.
06:10 Just really moved me. So unexpected and beautiful.
06:13 Great answer. A fever dream poem is exactly the perfect thing.
06:16 You're sensational too. So nice to meet you. Thank you.
06:19 Thank you.
06:19 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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