Marin Ireland tells THR on the Spirit Awards red carpet what it was like working with Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzie in 'Eileen.' Plus, she dishes on her appearance in 'Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans.'
00:00I just was talking to Jason Weinberg about the big year you've had.
00:03I mean, the big career, but also just this year.
00:06I mean, congratulations, first of all, on being a nominee for Eileen, a special movie.
00:10Intense scene.
00:12Very intense. Very intense. It was like jumping off a cliff, yeah.
00:15Tell me what it was like in that basement with Thomas M. McKenzie and Anne Hathaway.
00:20You know, it was a little bit of a fugue state that I think I entered into.
00:24I will say that gearing up for that day felt like nothing else I'd ever experienced.
00:30Like running the lines, I almost couldn't ever get through them.
00:34It was really hard to run them.
00:36And then we had a lot of rehearsals beforehand with Will and Annie and Thomason like a month before.
00:40And I think if I hadn't felt like we were prepared to that degree, I don't know how I would have done it.
00:46But Annie and Thomason in particular were so unbelievably supportive of what I had to do that day.
00:52What a bizarre thing, right?
00:54Like it's sort of their movie.
00:55And then they're like, okay, here's this for four hours tonight in the middle of the night.
00:59Let's do it in the freezing colds, you know, in New Jersey in the middle of winter.
01:03And the grace that they gave me and the space to kind of be in that difficult place was so beautiful.
01:13And I'm grateful to them beyond words.
01:16So beautiful. So intense.
01:18My job was on the floor.
01:19I think that whole scene, I saw it at Sundance and I just was like, wait, what?
01:25When you're on a set filming a scene like that with an actor like Anne Hathaway and Thomason,
01:31what is your relationship when cameras aren't rolling?
01:34Do you like to stay in character?
01:35Or like, do you like, how do you, how do you hold on to that intensity?
01:38You know, I, I try to just keep my own focus however I can.
01:44But I feel like the more open I stay, which involves like gratitude to them.
01:50So I don't stay in character per se, because I find that makes me feel a little bit too insane.
01:57But I try to just like maintain a sense of being grounded and like, thank you.
02:02Hello. I'm here.
02:03I just try to keep myself open so that I'm not overwhelmed by, you know, I don't actually lose my actual mind.
02:10So I try to just stay grounded, grateful.
02:13Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.
02:15Thank you, everybody. You know what I mean?
02:16And just try to like stay grounded and connected to them.
02:20And they made that very easy.
02:22Well, you nailed it.
02:23Speaking of reveals, you were another reveal in Swans recently.
02:28Tell me, that show has just really taken off.
02:30And I know that the fans are so devoted.
02:33I know there was a big response to the twist of you being chosen.
02:37So tell me, tell me what it's like to be a part of the Swans fandom.
02:40You know, that was such a wild thing.
02:42It was like, I know Robbie Bates a little bit.
02:45And so he was like, will you come and do this crazy thing?
02:47And I was like, I guess so.
02:48I mean, and then it was like to be to be in not only a world of that show, but then it's like, oh, and Zach Posen's going to make your dress.
02:55And it's this iconic moment in time.
02:57And like there's footage of her at the ball, you know, like it was like that was like I actually felt like Catherine Graham, I think felt in that moment.
03:05If I can be so bold as to say, I remember reading her memoir and she's like, what the hell was I doing there?
03:11You know what I mean?
03:11And I felt a little bit like here I am for, you know, this brief moment.
03:15So it was it was actually I mean, I think I had maybe a little more fun than she did that night because I could only enjoy it.
03:22I could only enjoy myself.
03:23And Tom Hollander.
03:24It was to be that close to what he was doing.
03:26I was like marveling.
03:28Yeah, now, Maren, you're what's amazing about you is you you're able to move seamlessly from a project like Swans to something like Eileen or even Birth Rebirth, where it's these these really gritty indies.
03:37What's the most indie project you've ever been on?
03:40And what's that like what's the grittiest kind of, you know, bootstraps film indie film project you've done?
03:47And what have you had to go without?
03:48Oh, my God, I'm trying to think.
03:51I feel like there's been so many.
03:52I keep I feel like one of the first movies I was ever I ever did this little indie called The Understudy, which was wild.
04:00But that was a lot of like changing your clothes in the pizza parlor bathroom.
04:04There's a lot of that.
04:06Also, you know, there were a couple of films I did with these amazing producers that we did.
04:13I did 28 hotel rooms with them and Glass Chin and Sparrow's Dance with them.
04:17These like incredible tiny movies were like, you know, they're like Louise Runge and Sam Hausman.
04:23And they're like they're the producers who are also like making you peanut butter sandwiches for crafty.
04:28I mean, they're like lunch.
04:29You know what I mean?
04:30Like when the producers are also making you lunch and picking you up and driving you.
04:33When I did 28 hotel rooms with Chris Messina, Matt Ross's first feature, I was I don't live in L.A.
04:39And I was staying in the hotel rooms that we shot in every night after we wrapped because they were like, we can't put you up.
04:45And I was like, what are we going to do?
04:46And I was like, wait a minute.
04:47We're we're shooting in hotel rooms every day.
04:49So after we wrap and every after the camera's gone, I'll sleep in the hotel room overnight.
04:54You pick me up and take me to the next hotel room the next morning.
04:56So that was that was an ingenious moment.
04:59That was that's actually one of the good stories, I think.
05:01My last question for you, too.
05:02One great thing about independent spirit is championing the work of others.
05:06Seeing your work in these two movies, particularly this year, mind blowing.
05:10Is there a performance that really changed your life this year or an indie film performance or film in previous years that you remember seeing that really just changed your idea of what an actor could do on screen?
05:21You know, there was something there was a couple of answers after that.
05:24One is Greta Lee and past lives.
05:27And that is actually just like very personal, just because I feel like I've known her through the New York theater community for so long and getting to see her do something that in contrast to Eileen,
05:36like wasn't about being like covered in blood and screaming and crying and all of that, but was like such an incredible range that was just like this, like simmering under the surface, beautiful.
05:48You know, the most like delicate performance and yet so kind of steely, that was really sensational to me.
05:55Not a flashy performance at all, but so beautiful.
05:58And also Andrew Scott, because I'm obsessed with him.
06:01And all of us strangers was also like a movie that I was like, what is happening?
06:07It's like a poem, like a fever dream poem just really moved me.
06:11So unexpected and beautiful.
06:12Great answer.
06:14A fever dream poem is exactly the perfect thing.
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