Amy Adams & Richard Madden - Actors on Actors - Full Conversation

[Music] first of all my husband wanted me to make sure and tell you how brilliant you are and how much you love the shells and we were discussing the level of commitment to that particular level of tension and how impressive is it is that you're able to hold that tension like in then in the pilot episode where you're talking to the woman to hold that tension for as long as you do like I'm like how do you do that like I mean I know it's it's like a big question but later that that takes a toll I imagine it's a waiter I think I mean it's the same as I suppose what you live with and sharp objects where you kind of live with something all the time yeah and it can be one tone I think anxiety was a huge tone I had to live with with that character because of what he's suffering as well and and yeah and yes it's hard because you tell you kind of I'm not a method actor in any way but you kind of can't come out of it between takes or at night because I get home and I've got it errors are telling back and make up again and you go I can't kind of get happy again because I need to bring myself all the way down to where that is and it's just a constant level of anxiety you keep so far and its destructive actually it can yeah I imagine what was it like sharp objects when you have someone who kind of herself yeah you know I have to be honest I am my when I had my daughter I was a lot more like that I couldn't come out of characters and I carried it with me in a different way and I went through a particularly challenging shoot and what I realized is I've got to figure out how to come out of it or I can't do it cuz I can't be the mother I want to be and live in that state of anxiety or distress so I've really worked on it so you know just making the decision and then it takes practice mm-hmm you know but I think that's where we were we were discussing that middle of the night wake up which I've talked about before where like it goes somewhere yeah and so usually it hits me at about you know 2:30 3:00 in the morning yeah I get that shoot and then yeah at the end of the shoot it's the shaking off of it yeah I still really struggle to do em because you want to shake it off and get rid of it but you're so deep down that rubber all it takes your work to me if it took me a few months after I finished body guard to kind of get myself get myself back because he spent more time and someone else's clothes and someone else's thoughts speaking someone else's words yeah you go right I've lost myself a bit there yeah absolutely it's funny cuz watching about again I was like I so identify with this character only because I'm just paranoid and anxious on edge so I really felt that from and then I'm I don't know what you feel about going into using your own paranoia and anxiety for things I try not to use my experiences meaning I can't I work really hard not to carry past experiences around with me on a daily basis so to access them for work feels like I'm trudging into stuff I want to work through you that make sense yeah so I try to create a space for my characters where I can live and use my relationship with whether it's pain or anger or fear anxiety I can use my relationship but I don't use my own experiences does that make sense yes something I find a I'm sure very much against actors using acting as therapy and I can see it sometimes and I'm really against it but so against it I've gotten my way a lot on jobs without doing access my own things because I don't want to use it as therapy and you end up not kind of doing the job you should because you can't access those things because I don't want to tap into those bits of me no I that makes a lot of sense and I think I I think I used to be like that and then something happened I'm and I don't know when the switch happened where I wouldn't go in thinking knowing what I was working out like I didn't know going in like oh I'm gonna work out you know my relationship with my mother or none of that but like through the experience I would find a catharsis that would allow me to open up and find how it did happen - something personal mm-hmm and that allowed me to go a little deeper mm-hmm that wasn't acting advice no no but for me that was really um that was a real turning point in my work when I could open up and understand not create not make it therapy but understand how it could create a certain catharsis yes I was able to open myself well I think when it comes to choosing jobs and I never I start where to what came first the chicken or the egg because I do a job and I come out the other end of it going I have no realized I needed to yes more that but about myself about my life and I go did did I gravitate towards that job because I needed to connect with that bit of that character and myself or dead doing that job make me connect with that bit of the character myself exactly I'm never quite sure which one I'm doing I I have that same that same awareness that you're talking I think that's the same thing that I was saying and I think now I'm able to see it a little bit more a little earlier and so do you can you be cleaner with when you choose something that that's somewhere you want to go and explore I mean like with sharp objects like what drew you to to choosing that character that path that those things you have to engage with I think the fact that I wanted to run from it is what made me want to do it absolutely so I've always had that philosophy that if I'm scared of it that's daring no this seems like a place I should probably explore if I feel like there's no way I could get there then I'm not good enough to do it that's the job I should try and do exactly yeah like well the worst I'm gonna be as bad so yeah I can live with that or maybe yeah thing as you succeed and then you know oh god I've kind of you've kind of gone to something self-destructive I think we can all kind of do is is that test yourself go - I try to never do anything I know I can do I do the things I think I can't and then see if I can succeed at it or absolutely I get scared every time terrified terrified what drew you to the bodyguard what was it I mean I think it's brilliant so I can I can say thank you through you to that I don't know again it's that the chicken or the egg thing I don't know if there was his parts of his anxiety has his loneliness his isolation that was bits of me that I wanted to kind of explore within was then that and I think I did on it and kind of and maybe an inner non therapy we worked through some of that by being so isolated and realizing how self-destructive that is and and and living in his shoes for so long took its toll actually and maybe that was a kind of working through I kind of I wanted to get into his head he was he fascinated me because he's in such a morally ambiguous zone the whole time he's not clean-cut good or bad and particularly when I've spent so many years playing characters that are good and bad things happen to them yeah I was interested in playing someone that I don't know if he's good or bad actually and and we're gonna have to work on and and I didn't have the last two episodes when I signed up for how I didn't know so it was kind of like a gamble I suppose you go I don't know if I'm playing a villain or a good guy and and I think that's what makes him so human because he all or not you don't have to do this to change your minds don't do that please don't do that don't move stay still please just stay still please just stay still don't run please please with sharp objects your executive producing that and you have your production company dead I'm interested in home how does that affect your relationship with with the performance with the production yeah I I loved it and that's why I hadn't I didn't have a production company when I start when I produce sharp objects and that sort of drove me in that direction it made me realize how much I I've always been somebody who looks at the big picture of anything I'm working on and I always want to serve the story and sort of get to do that in a different way and to have the to get to use my voice and my experience in a way that can improve the experience for everyone around me as well that became something I was really excited about when you're when you're the lead actor on something you end up doing so much more than just acting that can end up being 40% of your job because you're doing all these other things already and I always I always want to take care of people not you know whether it's creatively like in a scene it's something I've had to really work on like I always want to be the kind of scene partner that supports what the other person has to do as well as communicate with what my character has to do that's always been important to me and so to be able to it's strange to say it's but till I gain the trust that when I'm talking I'm not just talking about my character because I think sometimes in the past I felt uncomfortable using my voice because I was afraid that people would think I was just thinking about myself and that's just not my nature yeah so I think to let go of that fear and to just dive into trusting myself really to use my voice in that way when you're like what you've got coming up producing wise are you acting and all of these things are you taking a step I am yeah some of them I am um but we right now have a really broad slate of things we're pursuing and I think one of the things I really love doing is introducing new talent or giving people opportunities to step outside of people's expectations of them that gets me really excited like on sharp objects we brought Eliza Scott Skillman in and she's unbelievable yeah it was her first big job and now she's like and I'm I'm more excited about introducing the world to her than I've ever been about anything that I've done myself like I get super excited hearing about her success that makes me happy and so when I think about what I want to do in my life and when I think about what I want to do even with my career I have to listen to that little voice or that thing that gets me excited and when I realized I'm more excited to hear what Eliza's doing than anything I'm doing myself I thought I want to keep doing that that's crazy yeah I can create something that then inspires you back it gives you excitement again and pushes you oh my gosh more than anything and I love what I do but this excited me in a way that I really felt like I had to listen to you were drunk at the Chiemsee but even if I was this is windgap everyone's drunk Camille and was throwing a fit and you're giving me a lecture about drinking I guess it's just that the nature of and being really honest first thing it makes me uncomfortable because I don't know as actors we think about exposure before we take a project I've never taken a project thinking about what this would mean for my career and so I wonder when when you've taken certain projects whether it be Game of Thrones or whether it be a body bodyguard have you thought about how that would shift perception of you or has it been a surprise and like what is that surprise to you or what does that meant to you it's not been it's never been intentionally yeah I shot this this show and in England I thought it was just gonna be this the small thing that hopefully was going to do well because we all had really good intentions when being into it and it obviously got much much bigger than that and and there's certain things of that I'm really thankful for because I think I was known from from Game of Thrones that was you know that was a kind of the biggest rule that kind of brought me across the the water and opened up kind of things a bit bigger for me and and it was kind of remarkable that this has kind of helped move me on from that yeah and I think it's just we are imma and my life again murdering like we're the characters are is going into a different phase yeah and I've kind of I mean I've been acting since I was 11 so you kind of go through these different phases of exposure I suppose and then actually on a kind of M on an annual basis because of Game of Thrones even though I'm not in it there becomes that bear every year when it severed back and everyone's psyche leaks is back on but then you can have ramps up again and then drops down again TVs interesting because having doing sharp objects it was a totally different relationship with them with the audience I found then in film even yeah and how personally people connect to the characters I think because they're in their own home and they have a personal relationship yeah I do have to confess though when I first met you I was like that Richard is so nice I mean he's so good in that bodyguard show what else has he done I was like Game of Thrones I mean I felt so stupid I told you but it's just because you did such a good job and your own natural energy is so different than that character so it was just it's funny cuz of course you were but it's just yeah I thought I should throw myself under the bus there yeah and I'm like the kind of like person who's now binge watched all of it from the beginning again yeah like yeah it's a monster yeah someone's there's a great monster that time but then that's there's a huge amount of hours and what's that what's that like for you from from doing so much film where you can go as deep and be as engulfed by the project you're on to then take your night and going actually I'm going to be doing this for six months I mean how long was your project I shot for four months and the way that John works shoots spoken about it before it was it was a marathon and it was um it was humbling mm-hmm especially to look at the work that people are doing on television and to realize the level of commitment that it takes to sustain a character and the prep it takes you don't have time to find it back when were there as much I feel we find it you got to do your prep and be in it and and expect more of the actors that you're working with and give more than your then you're used to because we just don't have time you know don't have the time and I like I said just humbling is the best way to describe it and but also very exciting which is why I'm really interested in kind of doing more television you want to do more elevate oh yeah I do yeah I think I got very excited by being able to take my time with a character and not feel like I had to like serve each act you know like here's where we need to be the arc is much shorter in a film so you have to move a little more with more intention yeah and in television to get especially playing somebody I mean the characters we played are both so intense and so layered it's it to allow the audience to get to know them over a season as opposed to over two hours was a gift me got to be braver as well I find because I've got to be braver of going I'm not going to give you this payoff I'm not going to give you this hint for five hours you're gonna wait until we pay that off and you're like should I be doing this where we lose the audience by the time I get to give you that payoff to the seed I planted that's fun that's long it would have to be braver with it and and I like that and it's it's asking an audience to trust you and to kind of go with it and I enjoy playing with the audience in that way or I'm gonna set something up and then what four hours later we're gonna go somewhere else whether the thing is David slash Dave I don't need you to vote for me only to protect me rest assured mum I'll do what's required mom forgive me because I sort of binge watch so there are no seasons of Game of Thrones for me there's just one long episode what season did you leave I died at the end of season 3 season 3 okay how has it been for you with the show going on did you feel like you were able to divorce yourself from that experience even though it's it was such a big I had such it was such a hard thing to finish because from first pilot to my death was five years Wow and I think five years as an actor to spend with any one character cuz you just kind of put them on the Shelf for six months and then you take them back again yeah and I think that's something what's so strange about kind of these recurring TV shows is is it feels more unnatural and to kind of keep coming back to someone particularly when you can age three years and the characters only aged the year so you're like well this is I'm having like an arrest and myself back when I'm actually going somewhere else but you know five years was a great time to be on the show and to do it and I was I was really I had the best image you know it it it helped me so much with my career and my experience I learned just a lot from shooting thirty hours of television you kind of really start to learn my trade doing that and then was thankful to kind of to leave it I think the actors on an hour are must be what 11 years into playing these characters and and that is they you know that's like you know give these guys some medals here because that's a marathon and I was happy to I was sad to leave my family I spend more time with my on-screen mother than my real mother so you know you get very attached to people um but I was happy to move on from that and and try and kind of just work through the rest of my twenties doing other jobs other characters and I think there's a restraint that comes from doing these TV shows because sometimes you can't you're not allowed to do other things and scheduling-wise between shooting them and then doing the press you've got two months off which she needs a break and then you back to her again as an actor I've really enjoyed being able to kind of mix things up and and do different things so I was so thankful to be part of it but I was also very very comfortable and ready to leave when I did yeah what do you want to do next that's like one of those questions I totally know but I just am always curious artistically what people where they want to go like what are what are your hopes for what kind of characters you get to explore I'd like to explore I'd like to explore things that are but a bit not Romeo I think I've spent 10 years playing different versions of Romeo from Robb Stark to to literally playing Romeo twice on stage once when I was 21 when I was 13 and I've kind of played a lot of these good guys that bad things happen too and with bodyguard that was my first really experience of getting into something which was a man who was a father yes I mean I don't have any children and I just I think there's something that happens there's a your mainframe changes you own concept of your own mortality changes when you have a child and I think that really affects characters and and I'm interested in those characters and learn more and I'm interested in in this kind of this moral space that isn't so clean cut as good guys and bad guys I want to kind of delve into that that's human yeah I suppose both playing these these these very troubled characters when we go into kind of their intimacy it becomes even more complicated and troublesome and I think particularly when when love and hate being such tied close things and then you throw passion and he gets very complicated we both had intimate scenes with and these TV shows which are kind of messed up because of our our drive for doing them and our need for intimacy and our manipulation on the other person and what we're taking from them and how do you how do you get your head into that because when the characters aren't Wizkid out of all these people be really intimate with in a very troubled mind space tonight I need some John Mark sat in some interview she was drinking I was like I didn't drink at all except once and that was because I felt that the character had to come from such a raw place and her need had to be there mm-hmm you I could not hide her need yeah and that was scary for me to go to a place yeah that deep dysfunction and sort of the way she went about it which then ties in with all your own things which that we talked before is not so personal and and especially intimacy inside of a sexual relationship is so personal and to have to try to emulate that on screen is just so it's such a vulnerable place for me because especially when a characters motivations aren't sexual yeah like it's easy to like do that yeah but that's not easy that's not yeah but what about you like it did that feel I mean you you touched on it but do you feel really vulnerable I just feel so vulnerable that's just so vulnerable doing no it's not it's being open yeah it's being open and then that's for as so your people often ask me were always very interesting about sex scenes and nudity with actors for some reason it's a big it's a hot topic and there and and I always find that there's something when you've not got your clothes on when you are in bed with someone there's there's a way you speak to each other there's a side that you expose that we just couldn't do if we were both fully dressed you know and yeah but you know I agree that's even that's even harder to do the thing that you're supposed to there and you're naked but you're closed and hiding something that's going on and had to be super choreographed yeah oh my god yeah I just the word super a lot I do that I think I did that last I'm exposing something about myself right now it's just the word super in my natural no mama no no I'm just in town on business house is not up to par for visitors I'm afraid I always love when I'm over in the UK and being exposed to the different television shows and the history of television is so different over there mm-hmm like what what did you watch like what were the shows that you were into seen as if funny you see that because I'm in the UK watching all of this and chilling and pulling everything from America that I love yeah I suppose the first thing I really made me fall in love with was with television one of the first things was the series 24 I just became my first it was my first binge watching where you'd kind of you'd lose six hours you'd be like whoa I've just lost six hours to Jack Bauer um and then I see really embarrassing I saw Kiefer Sutherland in the street once and I think it's that most are stuck I've ever been I was you know like season 54 of 24 and I said I'm in the street and that kind of just waves because I can like I kind of want you to be my dad and my friend and all these things yeah so I'm always I'm always interested to see nah antigen and to the stuff and in Europe I get you know the kind of French TV shows that are kind of under the radar and in the thanks we have Netflix to kind of to kind of give us and share these things yeah was there anything in like Breton particularly that you shouldn't into that wasn't over here first or Benny Hill my dad watched Benny Hill and I grew up Richard little mmm wasn't he was he English or did he just pretend to be English he did a lot of impersonations it's funny because we didn't I didn't have cable early on and there was my relationship with television through my 20s I worked in theater and was very poor and never paid for cable and so I literally watched Murder She Wrote and Matt so I was like Oh Murder She Wrote is awesome yeah but this whole new wave of television that came I think it was The Sopranos when I was like what's happening on TV or the wire the wire was like whoa I need to pay attention because this is really it feels like a Renaissance and it's really exciting and it's just kind of continued since then and so it's really fun to be a part of and so next would you will you put your focus more into television do you think the movies um probably both I still love movies vital I I love that it now feels like a very fluid relationship between television and movies whereas before you kind of had never picked them half and that was sort of what you did once teaching me about the other always Who am I go on to a film set after being on a TV set for so long I rush I rush everything because I'm so used today we've gotta shoot 15 pages today like and it's a no well okay we got three pages to shoot actually we can I think as long as you want to explore this scene and I've always kind of get in there get also it needs to be done I know but now I've become really impatient like um it's like a half an hour I'm here we've done that I shot I shot a film I'm with Joe right called woman in the window and in it there's a scene where she goes through something quite traumatic and it took eight days to shoot and I was like oh my gosh I missed you baby I had to stay in this devastated place for eight days okay and I was like oh and sharp objects this would have taken like yeah five hours Constable's yeah but it's a different it's a different muscle and it's great to learn to use both of them I find creatively remind myself when I go back to film then you're almost like your triple prepared because I'm so used to doing it so fast you go okay now I can stop a nice to me I can do all that prep and then have the time to play on you can play mm-hmm like isn't playing a gift so we both have of different relationships when it comes to song and dance performance yeah a big friend of this until I started enjoy it in song and dance yeah when you enjoy it as a medium yeah very much I don't ever get to do it like I keep playing these tortured characters tap dancing in the corner anybody and I've just done my first kind of well as a musical phone where I'm singing and dancing in it yeah and it's not my strength it's not my it's not messing my happy place why is that what is it about I'm not I'm not a strong singer okay so as that and I suppose there's a self-consciousness to I'm not a strong dancer either I mean I'm I shouldn't be doing music oh yes but I suppose there's something I find very just very very exposing about singing and dancing and I suppose what I enjoyed was trying to work out how you can be in a dramatic scene and then go into song and dance that's that that's what I learned and this was a new signal how to because it's just another way of telling a story it absolutely is yeah I I've I think because I started in musical theater I started as a dancer and so I that was my first love it's like you'll always love your first love and then singing is something I do all the time and I've never wanted to actually make a career of being a singer because I think it would make me self-conscious where it's getting to sing on my own makes me happy okay so it's like one of those artistic expressions that I get to just and would you like to find something soon that you're singing and dancing it yeah I mean if it if it feels organic I mean I'm getting a little just about to call myself long in the tooth no I mean it's true I've always been really realistic about age and maturity and kind of where I want to go with that but if something feels organic and it makes sense I'd love to do it I still go to dance class and yeah yeah I'm very bad I go to ballet class and it's oh I'm awful like all of that singing and dancing classes at drama school that was like I'm never gonna need there so now we're gonna do and then you oh god why didn't ya know I would have loved to go to drama school I didn't go so yeah did you I did I went and I left after the first year I Mother's too much singing and dance too much singing dancing and no I managed to get I got a job and and I loved being a drama school and I loved for the first time being around people my age who were passionate about this acting thing but you've been working since you were I've been working since I was a kid so I kind of and as much as I loved it I realized that I'm gonna learn a lot more from working with a couple of actors and their fifties in the studio theatre than I am in a room full of 20 rude actors in the same boat as me ya know I did one job at the end of my first year and learned so much more just through working with people and so that's something I kind of pursued and I think most people that haven't been to drama school feel like we've all know the secret we've all been taught this thing that we've know actually the best thing I learned was being around people passionate as me about this thing called acting yeah I find the people that we work with are the best teachers you already [Music] you

Channel: Variety

Views: 377,155

Rating: 4.9709725 out of 5

Keywords: Variety, Variety Studio, Amy Adams, Richard Madden, Rocketman, Richard Madden Rocketman, Bodyguard, David Budd, Richard Madden Bodyguard, Sharp Objects, HBO, HBO Sharp Objects, Vice Movie, Lynne Cheney, Justice League, Lois Lane, Nocturnal Animals, Arrival, Arrival Movie, Hillbilly Elegy, Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones Ending, Robb Stark

Id: 8XUw_bW7Tp0

Length: 31min 59sec (1919 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 10 2019