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Q&A with Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Phyllis Nagy, and Todd Haynes

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The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Carol.

How did you all work together during the rehearsal process?

Rooney Mara: We had two week to rehearse before we started shooting in Cincinnati. Really those two weeks just consisted of the three of us [Blanchett and Haynes] sitting around the table and reading through the script with a lot of the other actors. But it’s not like we spent the rehearsal time acting out the scenes; it was more about talking through the movie and forming a relationship and a bond and a trust.

Cate Blanchett: There was a shared understanding of what function every scene had and marking the depth of the subtext. It was also just developing a shared visual language. Often in a film of this scale, a director can feel frustrated with the time that’s having to be spent away from the actors doing location scouts or that the actors have to be called away for costume fitting, but Todd understood that all of those aspects were really a part of an actor’s element of creating a character.

“There was a shared understanding of what function every scene had.”

Todd Haynes: Cate was also spending extracurricular time hanging out at the house of Rindy – her daughter in the film that was played by twins. I shared in some of this, but she went beyond and had dinners at their house. We really loved the whole city of Cincinnati and the generosity of the people, and the quality. Our first reason for shooting there was the look of the city, but the people, the extras, and the day players who all contributed were so rich and diverse.

You’ve been with this project for 18 years. What’s the process been like?

Phyllis Nagy: There’s pre-Liz Karlsen [producer] and Number 9 Films and Christine Vachon, and post. The film you screened today came together in about four years from attachment and Liz purchasing the rights to the novel, and today. So relatively quickly, all things considered. But before that, the film was actually developed in the UK with the help of Film4 and primarily Tessa Ross, who would inject money into it every so often for a new script or when it stalled. But really, until the current team came aboard, there was me and a computer that sat on idle for five years. I’d have little spurts depending on who was interested in doing it. But there was no clear…I’ll use the word “vision,” and I don’t mean it pretentiously. Once the current team was in place, then we had that vision.

All the physical interactions were so delicately rendered that a light brush of the shoulders has a strong impact. How much of that body language was in the script, the direction, and the performances?

Blanchett: It’s a dance. You put your hand on the table and then Rooney moves hers away and you think I shouldn’t have put mine on the table, what am I going to do with my hand now? It’s a push and pull thing. There’s so many of those beautiful observations that are often very dangerous and dark in the book, which were peppered throughout the script.

Nagy: All the script can really do in that is suggest a road map for their road trip. But all the rest of it is in the attention to detail and pacing that Todd and the actors and the camera provide. I think it was a happy confluence of all elements. Like a baton handoff in a race and it all worked. And accidentally too. Sometimes things happened on the day of the shoot.

Haynes: It was a combination of all the accidental things you mentioned and then very very specific contact that is often non-verbal. Carol putting her hands on Therese’s shoulder as she plays the piano. That moment was just an adjustment in the camera position that Ed [Lachman, the Cinematographer] and I initially thought would be omitted since we were just adjusting for the next part. But something strange happened and you could feel your stomach shifting in the frame when that hand goes on the shoulder and the camera is doing a re-position. Because the camera doesn’t move much in the movie, you take notice when it does. And we kept it in the cut and it conveyed something bigger that was important for that moment.

This film really beautifully portrays female camaraderie, especially in the scene where Sarah Paulson’s character, Abby, drove Therese back. Can you talk about that scene?

Nagy: Abby doesn’t drive Therese back in the book. Therese drives herself but takes a detour, and she takes on jobs, where she isolates herself to make herself stronger. So she does that apart from Carol in the book. They’re not in the same place, and then she goes back, and we proceed from there the way it does in the book. So, yes, it was an opportunity to actually address the female friendship aspect of this, which is a strong running theme.

Blanchett: Sarah had little screen time but used every second so potently and beautifully. And the lack of ownership that Abby – even though it’s very clear in that it wasn’t a sense of ownership over Carol but a sense of care and investment in her well-being – shows that their relationship might not have necessarily run the way she wanted it to.

Haynes: You remember, Cate, when you saw the first cut, I think it was that scene that really broke you up.

Blanchett: Yeah.

Haynes: That one moment in the film, there’s something Sarah does with her mouth, kind of purses her lips, and there’s just…

Blanchett: It’s that well of stuff she’s sitting on.

Haynes: And you said something about how it just made you think anew what women at this time in history had to deal with, and what their lives were like. It’s just so interesting how an actor can convey so much, as Cate said, with such economy, in such a brief moment.

The film is interesting in how guilt-free the women seem to be over their feelings, for this time period. Can you talk about Therese’s exploration of those feelings?

Mara: Therese doesn’t really have the language to describe the feelings that she’s having. To her, she doesn’t have any judgment on those feelings because it’s so outside of her realm of possibilities. I think there’s a line in the book where she’s talking about Carol and how she couldn’t possibly be in love with Carol because Carol’s a woman, and that doesn’t happen, that’s not possible. I think she’s very naïve about her own feelings.

Blanchett: But there’s a level of exposure I think that they’re both experiencing. You might not necessarily call it love. But I think there’s a nakedness; they feel exposed to one another. Those feelings kind of get tossed around like a washing machine. Often you don’t know why you’re feeling what you’re feeling. It’s just uncontrollable.

Haynes: And there’s a motor that’s kicking in, even when the pieces of those feelings don’t collate. All of a sudden you realize you’re following the motor, and the engine is driving you, and the desire is literally pulling you from place-to-place, completely, sometimes inexplicably, and against all better judgment.

 

Q&A with Cate Blanchett, James Vanderbilt, Dan Rather, and Robert Redford

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The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Truth.

What compelled you to make this film?

James Vanderbilt: I’ve always been fascinated with journalism and I always sort of looked at it as the road not taken. If I hadn’t gone into our silly business, I would’ve gone into that silly business. I just always loved journalism films, and grew up with All the President’s Men. When I was looking around for something to direct, I read the Vanity Fair excerpt of Mary [Mape’s] book, and I was really taken by the story. One of the things that fascinated me about it was how much I didn’t know about a subject I thought I knew a lot about.

“Journalism seems to always be under threat.”

What was the draw for you to work with this first-time director?

Cate Blanchett: It’s interesting that Jamie said he was looking around for something to direct, because there was such a clear directorial hand already, a vision, you could feel in the script. Bob and I talked a lot about this together. Often when you work with someone in the theater or in film who is directing for the first time, the thing that gets jettisoned first is atmosphere and tension, but Jamie’s script had oodles of that already. You could feel the film. It leapt off the page.

How did you prepare for the role and what influence did Dan Rather have?

Robert Redford: I met Dan many years ago in the early 70s, when he was working at 60 Minutes on an environmental issue out west. We didn’t know each other that well, but we’ve had interactions over the years. Thematically, journalism is a big interest for me, as I think some of my work in the past indicates. I think journalism is essential for society, just like art. I cannot imagine a society without journalism, without journalism representing the checks-and-balances that we so need. Journalism seems to always be under threat. What Jamie did was, he took a story that we sort of thought we knew—it was never given full exposure for obvious political reasons—and he dug down deep, deep, deep, to get to the story beneath the story. He dug down to the bones, and he put the narrative on the shoulders of the characters. It was a joy to work for him. The intriguing part of the story is beneath the story that you think you know. That was attractive for Cate and I because we’re actors playing characters. I think that’s what I appreciated. And my relationship with Dan, because I thought Dan and Mary deserved their day in court, and they weren’t given that. I’m sorry it took so long to get there, but I’m happy to be a part of it.

Dan Rather: I have faults and weaknesses and have made a lot of mistakes, but I tried throughout my career to be a play-no-favorites, drive-hard reporter who was loyal to his people and supportive of his people. Bob catches the essence of that, and I have great gratitude for him doing it.

The environment of the film is of a very specific world—the newsroom. Can you talk about the research process and attention to detail?

Vanderbilt: The great thing about what I do is I get to ask people what they do for a living and just sit there and listen. I got to do that with Dan, who was so kind to open his life up to me. I spoke to Dan, I spoke to Mary. I spoke to a lot of different people who worked at CBS, and also some who didn’t work at CBS but were around newsrooms to try and get the flavor of it as much as possible. All the factual stuff was pretty clear-cut. We knew what happened on what day and when they got the documents, but I needed to make sure it felt authentic and real to people who actually do that job. That was really important to me and that was also the fun part. We get to portray that and put on that show. Dan and Mary did come down to set about halfway through shooting. It was funny because you sort of get into this deep dive of making a film and then you go, “Oh wait, the real people are actually coming.” I panicked a little. What if they walk in and go, “Oh no no no!” But they were wonderful. When you’re directing a movie and somebody comes to set, the unfortunate thing is you have but five minutes with them and then you have to keep directing the movie. But the producers were able to spend time with them and the actors got to go around with them.

Rather: I was amazed at the accuracy of detail. I had no idea. This was my first experience with a full-scale movie set. The effort that went into the accuracy of detail made it clear to me the accuracy of the film. This is a really accurate film. My opinion—and my opinions are frequently wrong—is that I think this is the best thing that’s ever been on the big screen about the craft of reporting.

Redford: I think details were very, very important because sometimes the tiniest detail contains a big story. With All the Presidents Men, the attention to detail was so strong that we were going to film in the Washington bureau of the Washington post. We went in there with the production designer, and it was a disaster because the regular newsroom people couldn’t focus on their work. We got in the way. So we couldn’t film there. We had to go all the way out to California and duplicate the newsroom on a stage at Warner Bros. There’s a likeness between All the President’s Men and Truth, in that two reporters are working against the odds to uncover a truth that the powers that be attempted to block. It’s their struggle, about their work, their relationship, and their loyalty to one another that I think carries the frame. The difference is that in All the President’s Men, these two reporters were slaving away against all odds to get to the truth, and they were supported by their editor and their newspaper. They had support of their bosses. In Truth, the two ended up not having the support of their bosses, and that’s the sort of the story that Jamie is trying to tell. I think it’s a worthy story.

Blanchett: I found it a very interesting detail that when Mary and Dan were in Afghanistan together, Mary took her curling irons with her and somehow, even though there’s no running water, she was still able to have her curling irons. I know this sounds like a very shallow detail but when I first met Mary, I was awestruck by the organizational skills that her handbag represented. She’s meticulous. You see the moment with the folder that Mary presented. Of course I read Mary’s memoir and after meeting with her, we Skyped. I asked her a lot of very stupid questions, which she was very gracious in answering. Inconsequential details will help you to get as much of the flavor of the person as possible.