00:00What attracted you to this project?
00:04Well, I think that, you know, Julia von Heinz
00:06is such a brilliant filmmaker.
00:08I loved her movie, And Tomorrow, The Entire World.
00:11I found it so powerful and the concerns
00:14that she was exploring so powerful.
00:16And when I read the script, I was just
00:18amazed that I was being offered such a rich, complicated role
00:23that was going to take me to new places.
00:25I think the thing that I love most about filmmaking
00:28is I'm not necessarily the most adventurous person
00:31in my day-to-day life.
00:32I tend to kind of want to stay, like the living room
00:35is about as far as I like to go.
00:37But when I go on set and when I go to, like,
00:41making films has taken me around the world,
00:43introduced me to people who have changed my life,
00:47become family, you know, I can count close friends
00:51everywhere from, you know, Japan to Poland now
00:55because of my experience making films.
00:58And so I wanted to work with Julia.
01:00I wanted to work with Stephen.
01:01I wanted to explore my own heritage
01:03as an Eastern European Jew.
01:05And I wanted to learn about this new way of filmmaking.
01:09And also, I studied Polish filmmakers in college
01:14when I got my film history degree.
01:16You know, I studied the work of Kieślowski really closely.
01:19And, you know, we had an actor, you know,
01:23Zbigniew Zamykowski, who starred in Kieślowski films,
01:28who is brilliant.
01:29And so it also felt like my film history education
01:33coming to life.
01:35And what do you like the most about playing Ruth?
01:39How do you relate to your character
01:41and how would you describe her?
01:45I relate to her deeply because I think that she is a person
01:48who is trying to take her trauma
01:54and turn it into humor, turn it into an armor.
01:58She's a writer.
01:59She's more comfortable examining other people
02:01than she is examining herself.
02:05She is self-conscious about her body,
02:09yet thinks and wants to deserve love.
02:12Like there are so many aspects of who she is
02:14that feel true to me and feel true to so many of the women
02:18that I know and love.
02:19And so it was really easy for me to access her.
02:24And also, of course, I spent a lot of time
02:26talking to Lily Brett, the brilliant author
02:29of Too Many Men, the book that the film is based on.
02:32And Lily was kind enough to share
02:35so much about her own history,
02:38growing up as a second-generation Holocaust survivor,
02:42being a writer in New York in, you know, the 80s and 90s,
02:47and actually, unknowingly, I grew up three blocks
02:50from where Lily lived in New York.
02:52So we were probably passing each other
02:53in the streets of New York when I was a kid
02:55and not even knowing it.
02:56So there was a lot of magical coincidences like that
02:59that conspired to make Ruth really feel like,
03:02I feel like if someone else had gotten to play her,
03:04I would have been really jealous.
03:07I was working with Stephen.
03:10Stephen Fry is everything you want him to be and more.
03:13I have never worked with someone
03:15who more people say is he as wonderful as he seems.
03:18Like I have worked with some pretty amazing actors
03:21in my day.
03:22I have worked with some pretty incredible luminaries
03:27and people ask me about Stephen Fry
03:31because whether it's that they grew up watching him
03:36on, you know, a quiz show like QI
03:38or his film, his portrayal of Oscar Wilde
03:43awakened them to their queer identity
03:45or they fell asleep listening to him
03:47narrate the Harry Potter books.
03:49He means something different to everyone.
03:51But what I tell everyone is he is exactly as wise,
03:55kind, and intelligent as you would hope that he would be.
03:59He is a remarkable man.
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