In an Australian
exclusive Memorable TV talks to actress Joan about The Bourne Supremacy
and her career.
Q:
So what were the challenges of
this film?
J: The biggest challenge for me
was, I think, the kind of
dialogue that you had to say. I
hadn't done material that was
very sort of technical and
uplinking satellite things and
downlinking blah-blah-blahs, and
I found that really challenging.
I think I learned I should never
go to CSI or anything like that
because it's a little too much
for me. It was hard to hold that
kind of material and it made me
aware for the first time how
much emotional cues are what
help me memorize my lines, the
emotions get you to the next
point, so with a character who's
much more about hiding her
feelings and is just giving a
lot of direction and focus, you
know, it was challenging, maybe
I missed that gene in my brain,
but it was challenging. That was
probably the toughest thing.
Q: The character is
very, very tough in the movie.
J: Exactly.
Q:
And she knows how she can
function in a male-dominated
work environment.
Could you relate to this kind of
woman because you also made it
in showbiz
and are very successful in
theatre?
J: I haven't really found it to
be that way but I think it's out
there a lot more in all sorts of
regards than I ever sort of
know. I think maybe I put
blinders on to it. And I'm
always surprised when I hear of
some sort of sexist
discrimination in another venue.
I say, "That's still really
happening? Aren't we passed
that?" I'm always kind of
surprised
by it so I haven't felt it
directly but I think that I'm
naive, I do. I would admit that
I'm pretty naive.
Q:
Things that are just coming to
you?
J: You know, it's hard for
everybody. There's 90%
unemployment at any given time
in the acting profession so the
men are also in it as much as
the women to a degree so I just
want us all to get to the point
where we're people. That's what
I'm rooting for. That gender
becomes less and less of an
issue in life.
Q:
Sharon Stone the other day was
saying that once she turned 40
the work
dried up?
J: That's true.
Q:
What are your views on that?
J: I do think it's harder for us
gals to get good parts. I've had
a lot of interesting things I've
done in the last two years so
I'm kind of exhilarated at this
point because I will be going
into my sixth film of the past
two years starting in a few
weeks.
Q: What do you like to
do in your spare time?
J: I don't tend to have a lot of
spare time. And so I love to get
together with my friends because
I travel so much so I love to
hook up with friends as much as
I can when I am home. And I
spend a lot of time with my
daughter and I try to get her
out and doing things, we go ice
skating and we try to spend a
lot of time in the park.
Q:
How old is she?
J: She's 10. And she loves to
swim, so we try to do things
like that.
Q:
Is she interested in getting
into your profession?
J: I don't think she wants to be
an actress, really. But I think
she's interested in directing
and singing. She's made some
movies at school and a music
video because now Apple
Computers have this I-Movie,
where you can edit things and so
she's into that sort of thing.
She likes to write and she loves
to give direction more than take
it, so...
Q:
Do you think that's a good
thing?
J: I think that's a good thing.
I really do think it's a good
thing. I admire that in her
because temperamentally I'm very
different from that and I take
direction a little too well and
I think it's great that she has
her own vision and her own
direction and I really encourage
her to do that. With grace and
with kindness, but to do it.
Q: What do you think
about Matt Damon because in the film you didn't see
each other?
J: I know, we didn't see each other. We had a scene that we shot that they
chose not to use in the film, so we did get to have a little bit of
dialogue with each other and I got to spend a little bit of time with him
in the make-up trailer. He'd be in there sometimes shooting something else
that I was doing. I got to talk to him a little bit. He's a terrific guy.
Wonderful, intelligent actor and a very good human being too which I
really admire and respect.
Q: Do you know what
you're doing after this?
J: I'm co-producing this film and we're supposed to be shooting some time
this summer and I think it's going to come together. It's an independent
film called Pushers Needed, and
it's a comedy with me, Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates and Claire Danes and it's
about five working class Irish women who enrol to the Catholic Church
sponsored program where they send people to Lourdes to push the wheelchairs of the crippled to get cured.
These women get to go to Lourdes and they've basically never been off their block
before. They're poor women who've known each other for a long time, never
travelled anywhere and then they get to go to Lourdes…it's a hoot. It's really funny. And they each have
their own experience of going into the water themselves and it's nothing to
do with drugs; it's about pushing wheelchairs.
Q:
Is it hard to master the accent?
J: It's going to be challenging. The working class Irish Dublin is a kind of
tough accent and we don't want to do it so heavily--I've worked there before
and I've spoken with people who are from the projects there and it's hard to
understand, difficult to understand, so we have to get the flavour of it,
without overdoing it so we don't need subtitles.
Q:
Have you been to Lourdes?
J: Yes, it was years ago on Easter Sunday and it was a great moment to be
there. It's a fascinating place and I was just amazed by the number of
people that come there from all over the world. There are people with all
sorts of maladies and illnesses, wearing outfits and carrying flags and so
as an actor I was totally fascinated by the experience of what people hope
for there. You get a sense it's a lot of poor people around the world and
they bring busloads of people in and then right outside are all these
kiosks--"Get your holy water...get your glowing statue of the Virgin
Mary"…
Q:
Ten dollars.
J: Exactly. Which is fascinating too. It almost has a sort of a carnival
feel right outside the grotto area.
Q: Do you still do
theatre?
J: I haven't done theatre for a long time and I have no plans to.
Q:
Why not?
J: It doesn't interest me as much as it used to. I did it for so many years.
I loved going to the theatre and doing the same role every night but now
it's just not as interesting to me to get there and - "now let's do it
again" and "now let's do it again." And it just doesn't hold
my attention as much. I'd rather work on a character and then do different
scenes every day and be working on something that's different. But you never
know, I may go back to it someday.
Q:
How do you see mainstream entertainment today? Do you see Bourne
Supremacy as an anomaly?
J: A little bit. I think it's set apart a little bit. I think it's very
entertaining but I also think it's intelligent and I think Matt somehow has
created this character where you really care what happens to this guy and
that's not an easy thing to pull off because he could be
this super-killer and he just pulls it off. A lot of it is what he brings to
it.
Q:
Would you be around for a third one?
J: Yeah! If they do it and they want me, definitely, I would be up for it.
We'll see how it goes.
Q:
How much time did you spend memorizing the lines?
J: I spent quite a bit of time. One of the tricky things too is that they
were trying to make the story line as clear as they could because there was
a certain amount of background information and all this stuff and so they
kept working on it. Sometimes I'd work on lines and then I'd get a new set
of them and I'd have to drill them as much as I could beforehand so...these
lines were harder for me to memorize so I spent more time trying to memorize
these lines than I did on other scripts that are more emotionally-based than
cerebral.
Q: Was becoming an
actress a kind of therapy for you because I read a
statement from you that you were very shy when you were a kid and the
theatre was a place where you could cry and show your emotions?
J: Yeah, I think so. I think it was a helpful outlet to express things that
I just didn't feel comfortable doing in life, and I don't think I'm alone in
that. I think a lot of actors do that and comedians too - a lot are very
sort of inward and may have sad lives but they've used their comedy to break
out.
Q:
Are you more extroverted now?
J: I'm slowly trying and it still is evolving. I'm more extroverted now than
I've ever been in my life and I make a conscious effort to try to do so.
Q: Does it feel good?
J: It does feel good. I'm liking it more and more. I'm never going to be the
most extroverted person in the world but I have made strides and there are a
lot of aspects of it that I'm beginning to enjoy more and more, being out
there and being more social.
Q: When you watch
yourself on screen do you like it or?
J: I can watch myself on screen. When we're filming I actually like to watch
playback quite a bit and see what's going on. I can go, "Ooh, I don't
like that" or I can separate myself. The first time seeing the whole
thing put together is always kind of like... [Laughter]because you're thinking so much, you're kind of removed from it
because
you're thinking of what happened on that day. You can't just take it in, the
first time you're thinking about so many different things so I tend to watch
them two or three times after that and then I tend to not watch them again.
So when they come out I'll watch them a
fair amount of times. I did show my daughter Face Off a couple of weeks ago and I hadn't seen that film since it
came out and I thought, "This film is cool. It's really cool."
It's like The Bourne Supremacy,
the same intelligence and you care about the same thing. It's smart.
Memorable TV would like to thank Joan Allen for the interview.
