Melissa Leo had spent more than 20 years carving out a nice little acting career before she signed on for a low-budget film called "Frozen River" in 2008.
The movie would win critical acclaim, garner Leo a best-actress Oscar nomination and pretty much change her life. She's since been in "Everybody's Fine" with Robert De Niro, "Conviction" with Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell, and now "Welcome to the Rileys," with James Gandolfini and Kristen Stewart, among many other projects. The film opens Friday, Nov. 12.
Leo and Gandolfini play the parents of a daughter killed in a car accident; Stewart plays a teenage stripper and prostitute Gandolfini's character meets on a business trip to New Orleans and tries to help. Leo's character goes from a by-choice shut-in to a better-adjusted, if still hurt, woman. She talked recently about the transformation, her big break and how she cheated a bit.
Question: Your character, Lois, disappears from the film from time to time. Did that concern you when you read the script?
Answer: I read in the script a very balanced story between the three of them, intricately bound with one another. I think now, in my viewing of the film put together, it's almost better that you miss Lois for a little while. And then you get to be with her again. It endears you to her in a deeper way.
Q: Did Lois shutting herself off from the world appeal to you?
A: I was really looking forward to meeting (director) Jake Scott and working with him once he saw, in me, Lois Riley. Because she had to be, at the beginning, so internal and so still and so quiet. It's not my first choice as an actor. To get that opportunity to play somebody so insulated, rather than extroverted, with their feelings and emotions was a joyous challenge, let's call it.
Q: There are scenes in which Lois basically stares out the window. Do you do something to make that more compelling?
A: You can't attack it by saying you have to make it interesting. You attack it the same way you attack any scene, in that you know where your character is coming from. You have an idea of where your character is going - if, indeed your character has an idea of where they're going - even if it's just into the next room, or in Lois' case sometimes just into the next moment. I answered the practical, rudimentary, rather stupid questions that an actor must ask themselves going into it. The richer the script is, the richer the character and the richer those things are. I knew very well what Lois might be thinking as she gazes out her window. I don't know that I could describe it to you, because it's a lot of emptiness, is what she's thinking.
Q: Did you create an image of the daughter Lois lost?
A: That's kind of a clever question, because you caught me. No, I did not create the child. I certainly did not use my child. I was selfish and I created a mother's pain, much more so than the child, which is really a bad acting choice.
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via KstewAngel
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