00:03Hi this is Mariah Gullow from The Hollywood Reporter and we're in studio
00:07today with Jacqueline Bissett. Hi. Jacqueline how are you? I'm well thank you.
00:13So we're here to talk about your new movie Asher. So you're pretty well known
00:18for playing very glamorous and sexy roles. What was it like to take on this
00:24role? Really fun. Yeah. I've done a few glamorous ones and I've always enjoyed
00:30them a lot. I mean people tend to think of me in that sort of upmarket kind of
00:35personalities but I've actually done all kinds of films that maybe nobody's seen
00:39but I've done them. This one was a character that was lurking in me. It was
00:44lurking since childhood actually. When I read this it didn't have an
00:50accent. I didn't know where she was from and I thought well I can't make it
00:53work with my voice in in this American ambiance of so I suggested that could
01:00she be could Dora be from England and it was fun for me to do it that way and I
01:05spent a lot of time with this character and I I've been around dementia a great
01:09deal in my life. Those moments when somebody's completely no doesn't
01:12recognize you and all that stuff so it was meaningful to me to just go there.
01:17As I got older there was a character in me which basically would be my mother with
01:21her dementia and the comedy of that dementia at times was very tragic but it
01:27was also very funny sometimes and she had a playful spirit, capricious spirit and I
01:32said this could be the best this could be one day the best part of my life. The
01:36role of being a caretaker is a very devastating one but it's one you have to
01:42face on a daily basis. You can't prepare for it really because things change
01:45constantly and the role of Famke Janssen who plays the female lead she's having to
01:52look after me and I've turned into an ungrateful, rude, she's trying to have her
01:56life and she's got involved with the Ron Perlman character who's a ex Mossad
02:01killer and there's these different stories you know I'm you know obviously my
02:05story is not the part of the killing but the fact the killing comes close
02:09towards me right my character in the film and the potential for things going
02:15really bad. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed being in Brooklyn I didn't know Brooklyn
02:20before. It was a lovely area. It's beautiful. It's lovely and it was homey and kind of
02:24cozy. Yeah. I felt it felt freewheeling and easy and I'm not a big city girl
02:29really. I like it more than I like Manhattan. Yeah there's some parts of Brooklyn
02:36that feel kind of like Europe like around the park. I don't know it well
02:41enough to know that but you're probably right. Yeah. It's I think my feeling is
02:45like shared by a lot of people. I think a lot of people really like it there don't
02:48be. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about working with Famke. You know you're playing a
02:53mother mother daughter roles. Well I never met her before. I've seen her in
02:57films and doing interesting work and when some of the producers said you want to
03:01meet her I said no I don't really want to meet her. No I don't want to meet her. I
03:05don't know her in the film. I don't want to get that kind of familiarity. I don't
03:08want to get to be friends. I just want just I'm going to stay out. Just look at
03:13her like she's a person I don't know and I'd have no feelings for her about. I'm
03:18just in my own thing and I'm first day I met her in the makeup department she
03:24looked at me slightly sort of scared and tentative look and I sort of gave her
03:29a look. It sounds cruel but I sort of gave her a look kind of in character.
03:34It's for my own need I needed to stay there that place and I would not
03:38normally like that at all actually. I'm not at all a method actor. Yeah we all
03:42have our methods. I'm not a trained method actor. But I kept it up and so she
03:47me I could see her really reaching to trying to come trying and she she was
03:53very very sweet and very feminine in those moments and very dear you know and
03:59there I am being nasty nasty to her. But I appreciated her work and I
04:06appreciated how she she managed to not snap at me. I mean God knows I would have
04:11snapped at my character. I think I would have you know. And then Ron Perlman as you
04:16said before plays an assassin in this movie and there is a point in the movie where he
04:20he he gets very close to ending you. What was that scene like to film?
04:27Well when I was supposed to be kind of rather when I'm in the bed I'm sort of
04:30dopey and I'm very tired and I'm really near the pretty near the end of my life
04:35in a way because I've just given up. I'm just suicidal and I'm and then I look
04:39wake up and I see him him standing by the door just completely quietly and I
04:45thought my gosh what an incredible moment. There's this man standing by the door
04:51just looking over here. Am I frightened? I am frightened on some level. Why is he
04:56standing there just completely still completely intense at the same time? But
05:03that was me Jacqueline you know looking at a situation. But then of course the
05:08situation is what's he going to do? He has the possibility to come and snuff me out
05:14because in fact my daughter is so anxious but looking after me she actually asks him at some point.
05:20She doesn't ask him. She says to him you know my mother wants wants me to kill her.
05:25She doesn't know that he's a killer. Yeah. It's odd. There's moments odd. You're in the role and you're out
05:32of the role and you see it.
05:33But the tightness of his energy was really interesting to me to watch him. And there's her sweetness as she
05:40comes by the bed and she knows she can't do it. She can't change anything but she doesn't know what
05:46he has in his mind. Of course she doesn't know he's a killer.
05:49You've had a really interesting year. You've had many movies come out this year. What's the secret to being such
05:56a prolific working actress?
05:58Well saying yes. Well the thing is to find things that I don't know I've done a lot of things
06:03in my life different kinds of films but I'm only you know I'm having fun with it and I like
06:09working with young filmmakers.
06:13I've worked with a lot of very old filmmakers in my earlier years and they were very interesting and it
06:17was great but I'm on a more youthful path at the moment.
06:21Not that Michael Caten Jones the director is not a youthful director but he's a good director but the last
06:32few things I've done have been playful.
06:36And I just played an Italian grandmother at a handmade shoe Italian shoe company in New York trying to save
06:45the company from ruin and that was a fun role.
06:50And before that I did a film called The Magic Lantern which was actually at the Venice Film Festival which
06:57was a lovely little film directed by an Iranian director called Amir Naderi.
07:03I'm going to do an interesting film now. I'm going to do a film with a young filmmaker called Russell
07:09Brown and the film is called Lauren and Rose.
07:13And so I'm spending my Christmas I think with my lines trying to get these lines down.
07:19So I'm really it's like I'm going to have this enormous stake that's what it feels like.
07:23I'm just it's just around the corner I'm going to just chew it and hopefully not too much chewing.
07:30Right just stay out of the scenery.
07:32Yeah exactly.
07:35You know this is a time period when a lot of movies are based on a true story there's a
07:40lot of biographies they're very popular.
07:42Are there any historic women that you would love to play?
07:45I don't know and nobody particularly in my mind I'm inspired by so many different women and just to play
07:53an ordinary woman would be great.
07:54A really ordinary woman with an ordinary life but in detail in deep detail.
07:59I admire an ordinary woman the ordinary woman so much and what women go through and what they have to
08:07contend with and the dignity they have.
08:12And I don't need a lot of drama around it just well life is dramatic so there's always drama.
08:17But the survival of women in this contemporary society with all the problems and all the economic problems, the social
08:25problems and the men and women problems and it takes guts and there's a lot of women out there who
08:35have got guts and I love that.
08:37But also I love it that women can be also feminine I don't like the strident I'm not fond of
08:42the strident female image I don't think it's particularly productive people could say I'm wrong because of course in revolution
08:52they say that the only ways to really move things along are usually through violence.
08:59That's what the realities of how the world has evolved so I don't know whether men and women will ever
09:06be at war with each other but sometimes it does look as if there's some basic stuff that's not getting
09:13attended to.
09:13I'm not quite sure what it is.
09:15Right.
09:15Do you feel like a revolution is coming for women at least?
09:19Well I'm not sure if it's a revolution.
09:20I mean there's been so much change just in my life.
09:22I feel it when I was involved in 1981 with a film called Rich and Famous and I remember the
09:29feeling I had as a woman in a man's world at that time it wasn't a good feeling but gradually
09:35it's changing a lot.
09:37But I still do think that there's the old expression if you want a man to be more of a
09:42man you have to be more of a woman.
09:46So those energies everything is cause and effect and there's nothing I didn't invent that.
09:53There's no discussion about that cause and effect.
09:56We have to think.
09:57So we have to be clever.
09:58I think women need to be clever still.
10:00Did you have a philosophy for taking roles that were more risque?
10:05I don't want to be bored.
10:07And I don't want to play women who whine.
10:11I really find that hard.
10:13In life and on film the whining unproductive way through problems.
10:22I've heard myself whine.
10:23Somebody filmed me once.
10:25A boyfriend of mine filmed me whining at him.
10:28I was whining at him.
10:29I got such a shock.
10:32He said this is what you sound like.
10:34I said I'm so sorry.
10:38I am so sorry.
10:41Last question.
10:42Yeah.
10:44What is a moment in your career that really stands out as being a turning point?
10:49Well the obvious one would be when I was put into this film with Frank Sinatra.
10:54That would be the obvious one.
10:55Because I was just in Hollywood for a short time.
10:58Had no intention of staying.
10:59Was leaving from Los Angeles to Paris that day.
11:03The day after.
11:04And was told to go.
11:05I had a contract with Fox.
11:06I was told to go to the studio to meet a producer.
11:09And that they wanted to tell me about whether I was going to be in this film.
11:12And I was unaware of the film.
11:14I was unaware of Sinatra's life at that time.
11:17And I walked in.
11:18And they said yes.
11:19We think you'd be perfect for the takeover from Mia Farrow.
11:22And I said well I'm just going to Paris.
11:25They said no you're not.
11:27You're going to go into makeup and hair.
11:28And we have to get you organized.
11:30We're going to be shooting for about seven or eight days with him.
11:33And I was like.
11:35And from that moment.
11:38It went.
11:39It was just insane.
11:41The phone started.
11:42Didn't have a mobile phone at that time.
11:44But it was just.
11:45Everything changed.
11:45I mean I literally didn't have.
11:47It was hard to find time to do the most basic things.
11:52And I went back to London.
11:53And it was Christmas.
11:54And the press were waiting for me.
11:56And of course full of all the kind of gossiping.
11:58This, that, and the other.
11:59Wanting to know this, that, and the other.
12:01And there was nothing to tell.
12:03But it was a turning point.
12:05Press-wise.
12:06Because up until that moment I never had any press.
12:08And I didn't seek press.
12:09I didn't know about press.
12:10I just was getting on with my life.
12:12Little acting jobs.
12:14Big change.
12:15Big change.
12:16Of course it went up and down.
12:17I mean I've done this quite a few times.
12:19It was exciting in a way.
12:21I didn't like the, you know, I don't know.
12:24Fame is great up to a point.
12:25But it's not great all the time.
12:27And, you know, when people jump over your fence.
12:30Just talk to you in your garden.
12:32This is not great.
12:33There's things that, those aspects of it that, you know, you could do without.
12:36So I kind of like, I pretty kind of like where I'm at at the moment.
12:40Yeah.
12:41Well, wonderful.
12:41Well, we're looking forward to more movies for you.
12:44Jacqueline Bissett.
12:45Thank you so much for being here.
12:47The movie is Asher.
12:53You
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