Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a really interesting installment in the “Oh, Shit! I still have Sundance interviews that need posting!” series. This one is a nice interview I did with Catherine Keener, one of the most consistently great actresses working today. I love what she brings to the screen, whether it’s in a small, no-budget indie or big studio film. And I’m happy to report that Catherine was just as sweet, humble and honest as I pictured her being. This conversation is one of the “goes off on 20 different tangent” kinds. These are actually my favorite kinds of interviews. We were sitting down to talk PLEASE GIVE. You may remember I posted an interview with her co-star, Oliver Platt… if you missed it check it here! Pay particularly close attention to her incredibly frank discussion of how she picks her movies and why she always seems so prolific. Enjoy!
Catherine Keener: Hi Eric, how are you?
Quint: It’s very good to meet you. I have been a fan for a long time and I have got to say I don’t think there was a movie that worked for me as much as WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE did last year.
Catherine Keener: Thank you. I agree.
Quint: Spike Jonze captured childhood so perfectly. You see a lot of movie kids and movie childhood, but there’s something about the destructive glee of that film. One of the reasons I loved it so much was the very simple moment you have at the very end of the movie, when you fall asleep while looking at Max.
Catherine Keener: That’s Spike. That was all Spike. He is just amazing.
Quint: Well, I saw the movie at the premiere…
Catherine Keener: Last night?
Quint: Yeah. I think what I have been able to grab onto the most was your relationship with Oliver [Platt]. It felt very authentic. We were talking about WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE had a very authentic childhood… PLEASE GIVE has an authentic husband and wife relationship, it didn’t feel like a movie couple. The focus seemed to be all on the small moments.
Catherine Keener: Yeah, I agree. That’s Ollie… It’s just so much fun to work with him. He’s just so easy. Even if I come in neurotic or anxious the first day, he’s so easy and so smart. Between him and Nicole [Holofcener], if you overcomplicate it, you are a dumbass.
Quint: There wasn’t a ton of melodrama. All we need to know about you as a couple is that scene of you guys on the bed. Where it’s just all very simple, like nothing super sexy. It’s nothing super distant… You get the feeling that you guys were a real couple.
Catherine Keener: Yeah and in the bathroom, too. That he was like “She (Amanda Peet’s character) was flirting with me!”
Quint: Yeah, he wasn’t defensive or anything, yeah.
Catherine Keener: Oh it was funny, they like each other.
Quint: Like I said, that was my entry point into the film, seeing the world through the eyes of both of you guys and then you have obviously his indiscretion and then your character is riddled with guilt all of the time, so it was interesting watching those merge together. How much of that was on the page?
Catherine Keener: It was all on the page, she writes beautifully in my opinion. I would like to be dogmatic about that anyway. [Laughs] She writes beautifully and she had it all worked out. She was open to playing around all of the time; playing around with the words and looking at it from a different way.
Quint: That could only add some energy I would imagine.
Catherine Keener: Exactly. You know, we don’t always see things the same way. In fact, rarely do you, but if it was in her mind how she pictured it and it just worked to serve the story…
Quint: It must also be refreshing to see something from somebody who understands the female dynamic so well. All of the female characters in the movie are very nuanced and very layered and I have to just imagine that it again comes from Nicole and her insight.
Catherine Keener: So, are you saying that the male character are not?
Quint: No, not at all, but in particular it seemed that the focus again was on the females characters I think. Even with you and Oliver, you were kind of put more in the forefront and I think with…
Catherine Keener: But his performance was extraordinary.
Quint: I have got to say that I love it wasn’t a traditional guy cheating story.
Catherine Keener: Yeah, that’s why I asked. I wondered if it was something that you found more nuanced than…
Quint: With his story, definitely, but obviously there are just so many great female parts in the movie. Especially Anne [Morgan Guilbert]. I thought Anne just stole the movie. No offense, but I think she dramatically….
Catherine Keener: She killed it. No offense taken, she just killed it. It’s amazing.
Quint: What was it like working with her?
Catherine Keener: Fantastic. She… Do you know her?
Quint: No I don’t, not at all.
Catherine Keener: She’s just this very elegant, best taste, quiet, lovely, hilarious, just totally beautifully turned out woman and all of a sudden she goes into character and her voice. She is a wonderful actress obviously, so when you are working with her, you have the benefit of knowing who she really is, sweet and kind and smart and all of that stuff, so it’s just…
Quint: So it makes it even more shocking when she…
Catherine Keener: It’s so fun! You know that that security is there of her, knowing that she’s not actually like that. You have just got to let it play.
Quint: I was going to say it sounds like play time.
Catherine Keener: Absolutely.
Quint: In the film you deal with antiques, going through people’s things and finding gems. I’m not into antiques much, but I like the treasure hunter game. I love going to thrift stores and finding stuff like that… discarded gems.
Catherine Keener: Oh, me too.
Quint: I’m glad to hear that you like that, too. I don’t feel so weird.
Catherine Keener: I was saying earlier, I had modern mid-century furniture that’s all cheap, but I found it.
Quint: “I scowered Craigslist.”
Catherine Keener: And Ebay, trust me I love that. It’s so fun to bid. It’s like “Okay, I’m going to wait until that eleventh hour” and you have one jerk who is doing it with you, like upping you fifty cents. Have you ever done that?
Quint: I have, but I will make your year by giving you the name of a website: www.esnipe.com.
Catherine Keener: What’s that?
Quint: For pennies on the dollar this site will automatically put a bid in for you in the final seconds of an auction. You sign up, give them your Ebay information, put in like ten bucks and that should cover up to a thousand dollars worth of things that you buy. You put in the item number and it will tell you when the auction is ending, it will say “When do you want me to bid for you? How many seconds before it ends?” So you put in the amount that you are willing to go up to, so you are not continually raising.
Catherine Keener: And they will do it for you?
Quint: Yeah, it’s all-automatic. Once you put it in, you say “I want the bid to be placed four seconds before the auction is over.”
Catherine Keener: Do they list all of your things, too?
Quint: You go to Ebay and you find whatever you want…
Catherine Keener: Oh I’m sorry, that’s what I didn’t understand. So each item I find on Ebay…?
Quint: Yes.
Catherine Keener: Oh, I am so going. (As she writes the name of the site on her hand, but it’s not sticking)
Quint: So you go to Ebay, you find the item number and then you put it in esnipe and they will know what the time is and what the item is. It’s a savior.
Catherine Keener: How did you find out about this?
Quint: Because everybody kept outbidding me at the last second, I was like “How is this possible?”
Catherine Keener: It’s like “I’ve got this. I’m the winner” and it’s like “Wait a minute…”
Quint: It’s one of those if you can’t beat them, then join them type things.
Catherine Keener: No, this is really cool.
Quint: I can give you a piece of paper if you’re worried that’s going to rub off.
Catherine Keener: That sounds good, but I won’t forget that.
Quint: My hand writing is just…
Catherine Keener: I was just going to say you hold the pen exactly like I do.
Quint: Oh yeah?
Catherine Keener: Like this. [Shows Quint how she holds a pen] Write your last name, Eric. I read you.
Quint: Ain’t It Cool? I write as Quint on the site.
Catherine Keener: Oh you do?
Quint: My favorite movie is JAWS, so…
Catherine Keener: Last night we were walking… We cut off this huge truck and the truck driver was pissed. It was like “Uh-oh! DUEL!” That’s a great movie, but nobody knew it…
Quint: DUEL is great. Nobody knew DUEL? That’s when Spielberg really came into his own as a director. I mean, SUGARLAND EXPRESS is really good, too…
Catherine Keener: It’s fantastic.
Quint: … but I think DUEL predated SUGARLAND. It was a TV movie, but SUGARLAND was his first theatrical. I have seen some of his other TV movies and they aren’t all that good, but DUEL… You see it and it’s like…
Catherine Keener: With Dennis Weaver… who was so great.
Quint: Just Dennis Weaver and this giant truck.
Catherine Keener: Yeah, I know. There’s a little JAWS in there.
Quint: Very much. You know at the end of that movie, the sound that the truck makes when it goes over?
Catherine Keener: Yeah.
Quint: In JAWS, when the shark is blown up and it’s sinking, Spielberg put the same sound effect.
Catherine Keener: No way!
Quint: Yeah, it’s a dinosaur roar from an old monster movie.
Catherine Keener: Are you kidding me?
Quint: Next time you watch JAWS…
Catherine Keener: You have no idea, I’m queuing them both up. That’s so good.
Quint: Okay, so we totally derailed this interview! So, what are you doing next? You always seem to be working. You are so in demand, everybody wants you.
Catherine Keener: Are you making fun of me?
Quint: (laughs) No, not at all.
Catherine Keener: (laughs) You should.
Quint: No way. I would be shocked if you weren’t always being pulled into five million different directions.
Catherine Keener: Not so much. I do get jobs, but I have to work. I mean… I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t work as much as people think I work. I will work on something for two weeks, you know, and that’s a little different.
Quint: You’ll do a lot of projects and they all seem to come out at the same time.
Catherine Keener: Yeah, but the movies I make I don’t make a lot of money doing it.
Quint: Yeah, but you make good movies. That’s something.
Catherine Keener: I’m saying that’s part of why I have to work again. I prefer doing it this way. Of course I’m not complaining at all. I’m saying I get to work on good projects and that’s by choice. Obviously if I have that kind of an opportunity, then it’s by choice, but part of the reason I work often is I will be able to use a couple of weeks… It’s all designed that way, but yeah, it’s really hard to work on a movie that you don’t like. I mean, I have, trust me and I’ve been grateful for those movies because I needed the money. I needed the job.
Quint: Well what do you have coming up then?
Catherine Keener: Coming out or work-wise?
Quint: Next in the pipeline, besides this movie.
Catherine Keener: I just worked with David Schwimmer. He was the director on this movie called TRUST with Clive Owen and it was really good. He was great to work for and then I’m in THE LIGHTNING THIEF that’s coming out.
Quint: Oh yeah, the big studio flick.
Catherine Keener: Exactly. And I haven’t seen any of it, so… My kid loves it.
Quint: It comes out pretty soon.
Catherine Keener: I have no idea. I’m looping all of this stuff.
Quint: It’s an odd release date.
Catherine Keener: I don’t know anything about that, like why it’s got an odd release date… Are they sort of dumping it?
Quint: I wouldn’t say it’s dumping it. Dumping is kind of a January thing, but I don’t know, I would say it’s definitely weird, because it is kind of an event picture. It seems to be more like they would want to go with the HARRY POTTER time slot like November or December, so I guess they just didn’t finish it in time and they also don’t want to wait a year to put it out.
Catherine Keener: I bet that’s true. They wanted to crank it out. Yeah, so I’m in a little part in that. I’m not too sure. I’m playing the mom. That was all my son. He loves THE LIGHTNING THIEF and so that was part of it.
Quint: So did he get to join you on set and all of that stuff? It had to blow his mind a little bit?
Catherine Keener: It did blow his mind a little bit. Also he’s into Greek mythology, so that was…
Quint: Who isn’t at that age?
Catherine Keener: Exactly, so that was exciting. Anyways what else?
Quint: Has he seen CLASH OF THE TITANS?
Catherine Keener: Yes. [Laughs] I really don’t know if there’s something else I’ve done… I’m burned out right now! Don’t you burn out during this (Sundance)?
Quint: I had a six movie day yesterday.
Catherine Keener: That’s what I’m saying, so by the sixth one, do you even know what they are talking about or are you still okay? You seem pretty focused.
Publicist: Sorry for interrupting…
Catherine Keener: I think he’s happy. (laughs)
Quint: It’s all good.
[Publicist notifies Catherine of what all she needs to do the rest of the day.]
Catherine Keener: Oh and I’m in a movie tonight, I forgot. CYRUS.
Quint: Oh nice. I’m actually really looking forward to that.
Catherine Keener: I was like “I know there’s one.”
Quint: The Duplasses are from Austin. That’s where I live.
Catherine Keener: Oh that’s where you are from?
Quint: Yeah, that’s where I live.
Catherine Keener: Do you know Jean Black? She’s from Austin. Do you know any of the Blacks? Dusty Black…
Quint: I know a Lewis Black? Does he count?
Catherine Keener: I don’t think there’s a Lewis.
Quint: He’s a big Austin icon guy.
Catherine Keener: Do you know T. Bone Burnett?
Quint: Not personally. [Laughs]
Catherine Keener: (laughs) He’s not from Austin, but he spends a lot of time there. I don’t know him either, I just love his music.
Quint: Yeah, definitely. Well it was a pleasure talking to you.
Catherine Keener: Same here.
So, yeah… that interview is all kinds of sprawling, isn’t it? That’s my fault. I geniuenly was getting caught up in the small talk chit-chat stuff. You know me, I get to talking early Spielberg and it takes about 40 teams of oxen to pull me back on track.
Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed it, even if it was messy.
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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