The actress also discussed pitching her short film 'Stucco' to Affleck while on set of 'The Way Back', and his memorable reaction to the grotesque tongue sequence.
00:00I'm Janina Gavankar, and you are watching In Studio with The Hollywood Reporter.
00:08Okay, so let's start with The Way Back, which is releasing in theaters today.
00:14Wow. Okay. That's wild.
00:17Has it been a while? Have you been waiting for the theatrical release?
00:21Yeah. We started shooting this in October of 2018,
00:25and we did reshoots in the middle of this last year, and we'll just see what the world thinks.
00:34Well, this is a very impressive movie. It's about loss, it's about grief, it's about redemption, it's about basketball, it's about so many things.
00:45How do you feel about the movie, the overall message of the movie?
00:49I think it's a really important movie if we did everything that we were supposed to.
00:55And, you know, it's, I gotta say, this whole experience has felt more like doing an indie movie than a studio movie ever could.
01:03And, yeah, I mean, I've done a ton of indie projects, and I did not think it was going to feel the way that it did.
01:11It was a really intimate experience, and, you know, that just chalked that up to Gavin.
01:17Most of your scenes are with Ben Affleck. You play exes.
01:21Mm-hmm.
01:21What I noticed, first and foremost, was his character, Jack, was trying to bring your character, Angela, into his grief.
01:35He was trying to bring her down to his level, and if he saw that you were coming out of your grief, he was gonna bring you back down.
01:45And that took...
01:45It's so interesting that you feel that way.
01:48Yeah, that was my impression of it.
01:50Yeah, when I felt as though I was watching the man that I still love perform okayness, and try to prove that everything was fine and I was doing great.
02:06Right.
02:06And if anybody knows that that's a lie, it's, you know, the woman that knows him best.
02:12Yeah.
02:12So, yeah, I mean, he's also, I think, I think when you're at your worst, you really, it's most people have a hard time accepting any help.
02:24Yes.
02:24For their own mental health, and part of that is like a feeling of unworthiness, you know, and, yeah, I think all those things are also happening.
02:36So, that's like the level underneath, really, even what she is seeing.
02:41Right.
02:41So, I love that that is what you felt.
02:44But, and all of these things are true simultaneously.
02:46Right.
02:46There's a duality to when somebody is struggling with addiction, especially alcoholism, the family dynamic, can be that they're pushing you away, they're telling you that everything's great, and at the same time, they're, you know, trying to manipulate or reach out.
03:03Like, there's just so many things happening.
03:05Yeah.
03:06So, you're playing these scenes with Ben, and I noticed you have to kind of physically change, like diminish yourself in certain places, and, like, there was just, like, all of the emotions that you had to show were extremely subtle, but I saw it in your body language.
03:24Was that something that you were thinking about at the time, or is that something that just.
03:29That's a no.
03:29I mean, that's just sort of training and instinct at some point.
03:34You know, if you really just commit yourself to understanding the situation and every moment that's come before it, and then you, I mean, this is like theater 101 stuff, you know, if you just go in with an action and a motivation and just are hyper aware of everything that's come before, all of those things will happen naturally.
03:55Exactly.
03:55If you're in a safe space with other actors and artists who are willing to do the same thing.
04:00Right.
04:00And tell me about the space that you shared with Ben Affleck.
04:03Yeah, sure.
04:04Because you, I read an article in The Hollywood Reporter.
04:08Oh, it's funny.
04:10What is that publication?
04:11Yeah.
04:12Are they an authority in this space?
04:13I think so.
04:15I mean, I think, I think you might know them, but, but Pia, our wonderful editor, was talking about, talking to you about you and Ben being able to have discussions about not only what was happening in the movie you were currently at, but the movie that you were writing and directing at the same time.
04:38Yeah, I was prepping my short film simultaneously, which deals with mental health and suppressing anxiety, and I told Ben the whole entire thing.
04:52You know, I pitched him the whole story, I pitched him the tongue sequence, which is a sort of like, pretty intense moment.
05:01Um, we love magical realism, my, my creative partner and I, so, uh, but that means that we really have to, to pitch ideas to as many people as we can, you know, to make sure that what we're actually trying to do is not lost behind the gag.
05:14Yes.
05:15You know, so, um, yeah, I, I pitched the tongue sequence to Ben, and he just twisted up his little face, like, ooh!
05:23You got the appropriate reaction.
05:24I was like, ah, God, I really got something now, yeah.
05:28That's wonderful. I mean, what is it like, you know, as a first-time director, first-time director?
05:33Yeah, I've directed, um, a bunch of, sort of, like, other little pieces and, like, music videos and these kinds of things, but this is my first narrative short film, yeah.
05:43So let's talk a little bit about Stucco.
05:45Sure.
05:45Um, because it is going to be premiering at the South by Southwest Festival.
05:49Yeah, it's not a premiere, so we were, but we're in competition at South by.
05:53Oh, okay, great, fantastic.
05:55But we did just premiere online at thehollywoodreporter.com.
06:03That's right, you can see it on the Hollywood Reporter.
06:05You can see the entire short film.
06:07Yeah, which is really cool to us, you know?
06:09It's very cool.
06:10It really means a lot to us to have the support of a trade, you know?
06:14I've been doing this a long time, and I've been doing a lot of other things besides acting for a long time, but most people don't know that.
06:21And, you know, I don't feel like, just because a tree falls in a forest and nobody's around, that it doesn't make a sound.
06:29Like, I feel all of the sounds of the trees that I've made in the past.
06:32I don't know, this analogy is falling apart.
06:35But the point is that this is the first very public offering, especially from Riso and I.
06:43And to have the support that you guys have given us and premiered, it actually means a lot to us.
06:49So, it's true.
06:50The Hollywood Reporter does write a lot about female filmmakers, especially in the festival space.
06:56And I heard recently about a report that they've been keeping track of female filmmakers, producers, cinematographers, and finding a huge leap in festival representation.
07:15But still, major feature films, incrementally, women are taking those jobs and positions.
07:23Moving backwards, the data shows it's not always a move forward.
07:27Yes, yes.
07:28So, what can we do about that?
07:30How can we translate the festival representation into jobs?
07:34Well, the things that you're talking about, the studio system, right?
07:37Yeah.
07:38And all of those things are just based on data.
07:42But if you have a data-driven top 10 list of the top 10 whoever the heck, it's immediately a hidden default.
07:53Because that list will never change.
07:55If the big studios who have the money to call the shot say, well, we're only going to work with an A-list XYZ.
08:02They're going to look at that top 10 list, which is based on everything that's come before it.
08:07It will never change.
08:08So, unless they decide that the metric that's most important is not that they're getting somebody from that A-list and that they're actually changing representation and that that list matters more, it's not going to change.
08:24If you want to exist in any space, this is not just Hollywood, as a woman, as a leader, you have to do it courageously and you have to just start calling shots on your own in the way that men have for a really long time.
08:39So, you have presented a social thriller to the world, but what would you like to be doing next?
08:47Are you diving into the horror genre?
08:49Are you wanting to go in different directions?
08:52Well, I would say that all of our projects are pretty left of center.
08:58Keeping it weird.
08:59Keeping it weird, yeah.
09:00And, but they span the gamut of art house horror, which works in analogy, and also just like comedy snob level snobbery.
09:15You know?
09:15Yeah.
09:16But we have, you know, we have our million dollar indie script that we're polishing right now, which is the spiritual successor to Stucco.
09:24We don't feel like we need to make the feature version.
09:26We've already told the story.
09:27Right.
09:28So, yeah, I mean, we love this genre because, you know, you can really examine the parts of ourselves that we're not proud of in horror.
09:38Okay, so I have one more project because you have many, many projects.
09:43Yeah, I mean, you know what this is.
09:44It's like you have to have 15 going simultaneously.
09:47I was literally negotiating a contract in the car on the way here for something that nobody knows about.
09:52Hopefully it won't fall apart.
09:53This is literally what it is.
09:54But you just have to keep doing it over and over and over until one thing sticks.
09:58My last question is actually about you play Allison in The Morning Show.
10:02I do.
10:02And you want to know more about Allison.
10:04Oh, well, okay, well, next time you see Reese or Jen, you let them know, or Carrie, Carrie Aaron, this brilliant showrunner.
10:14Yeah, you know, she's a very interesting person.
10:17Again, these are the things that I discuss with the writers and that there's not enough real estate on the show for you to be able to do.
10:24But, yeah, Allison is not a real name.
10:30And she is sort of a former pageant girl.
10:37She's not like a pageant queen, but she's just sort of always found ways to win publicly.
10:41And, you know, I think the way that she's risen above all of the Mitch muck is that she doesn't care.
10:52She is going to live way past the morning show.
10:56This is a line on her resume.
10:58And as everybody else vies for that Iron Throne, she's like, go ahead.
11:02My Instagram following is way more important right now because it's going to help me get the next thing.
11:07You know?
11:08Wonderful.
11:10Well, we're all looking forward to season two.
11:12We're shooting it right now.
11:14Amazing.
11:15Very excited to see what happens with season two.
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