Extended interview: Rachel McAdams on her break from acting and more

[Music] thank you welcome I'm Lee Cowan and this is Here Comes the Sun a closer look at some of the people places and things we bring you every weekend on Sunday morning Rachel McAdams stars in the film adaptation of the blood Judy Bloom novel are you there God it's me Margaret it's a movie fans who wanted since the book came out in 1970 but the author wouldn't allow it until now Tracy Smith sat down with the actor to talk books and big expectations you read a lot of books when you were a kid yeah I did when I was little we met McAdams at Annabelle's book club in Los Angeles a store that carries what else books for young adults people love this book Judy Bloom wouldn't let anyone make a movie about it for 50 years so did you feel that pressure just a little bit we all just wanted to make Judy proud really later in the show Rachel McAdams on her first long-distance flight at the age of 21. you get your first movie 21 years old and they fly you to Sicily and that was the first time you'd been on an airplane I had actually been on one airplane with my grandmother when I was seven but that was to Ottawa from London Ontario so it was like a 30 minute flight so this was like the real first real deal yeah a flight from Toronto all the way to Italy by myself what did that do to you 21 years old boom well I thought the plane was going down I was like of course I got my first movie I'm on cloud nine and the turbulence was so bad I mean you know like the beverages are spilling everywhere and I'm looking around and and everyone's sleeping then Seth Doan brings us a behind the scenes look at the lavish balls of Venice Carnival the festival rooted in centuries of tradition this ball is an hours-long Feast for the eyes and yes dinner too there are some logistical challenges like large dresses blocking the roots with hawk-like intensity Antonius Sauter watches every over-the-top detail could you do this like this anywhere else in the world when somebody arrived to Venice immediately the fairytale began the city takes you in a very special and magical mood that's all coming up right here on Here Comes the Sun you may know Rachel McAdams from Hit films like the notebook and mean girls but you might not know she turned down lead roles in other big movies like The Devil Wears Prada and walked away from Hollywood at what looked like the height of her career Tracy Smith has more growing up is fun who can forget that special time when things were starting to happen she's changing from a child into an adult and it's a little confusing at times we've all seen films like Molly grows up but the book that might have described those times best is Judy Bloom's landmark and often controversial 1970 novel are you there God it's me Margaret let's do this one thing for me [Music] something just be normal and regular like everybody else just please please please please please please please please please now Bloom's tale of adolescent angst is a feature film Abby Ryder Fortson is Margaret hmm Bailey at 28 not even a double ray for understanding mom is oscar-nominated actor Rachel McAdams how does that feel I cannot wait to take it off yeah welcome to Womanhood you read a lot of books when you were a kid yeah I did when I was little we met McAdams at Annabelle's book club in Los Angeles a store that carries what else books for young adults people love this book Judy Bloom wouldn't let anyone make a movie about it for 50 years so did you feel that pressure yeah just a little bit we all just wanted to make Judy proud really we're getting committees together over at the junior high and I can think of at least three that you'd be perfect for oh Jan that sounds great McAdams does herself proud as a woman trying to balance motherhood and career I don't want to she's the queen bee it's a far cry from her breakout role as the utterly toxic Regina George sit down meanest of the Mean Girls you're like really pretty thank you so you agree what you think you're really pretty I remember where I was when I read that script for the first time and I put it down and I immediately called my manager and said please I will do anything to be any part in this movie any part give me one line get in loser we're going but she couldn't be more different than the diva you see on screen born and raised in a working-class family in Ontario Canada Rachel McAdams loved theater but she was also an accomplished figure skater with a part-time job in fast food one of your first jobs was working at McDonald's what did that teach you it taught me hard work and I was kind of a bit of a germaphobe when I started working at McDonald's and then I kind of got over that not that they're it's like particularly dirty or anything I was kind of like an obsessive hand washer when I was younger which was really terrible as a figure skater because like washing your hands all the time at the ice rink and then going out with wet hands on the ice I mean my hands were a mess can you still eat McDonald's now yeah oh yeah I love it when I was pregnant I said to my partner when I we came out of a movie here in LA and um I said uh it was like 11 o'clock at night and I was like take me to the first McDonald's I want to fish fillet and a chocolate milkshake and he was like oh you you're pregnant but between McDonald's and motherhood she broke hearts in Hollywood I waited for you for seven years The Notebook which came out in 2004 the same year as Mean Girls is a film some people can't even talk about without choking up it wasn't over still isn't over hi my name is Rachel McAdams even as she read for the role opposite Ryan Gosling as we see in her audition tape she had a feeling it was hers [Music] elf when you were in that audition did you know oh I got this I felt like my life was about to change did it change it did it did Claire we wait just a second in fact it seemed that she was suddenly everywhere in movies big and small but McAdams says it might have been too much too fast there's Wedding Crashers red eye Family Stone and then you left I didn't make a conscious decision to leave necessarily but I did I did kind of make a decision to pause I didn't think I was dealing so well with with my life changing so quickly and being um so much in the public eye I was struggling with that a little bit with the exposure it did allow me to just find myself Center myself in it and and know I could live without it if I had to if suddenly tomorrow they all decide you suck you can't be here anymore you're out of the club well I left the club first and she did leave for about two years and turned down Parts in movies like The Devil Wears Prada and Iron Man but when she came back it wasn't for a star vehicle she just wanted to be a working actor hi there we're looking for Ronald Paquin yes your father pacquin her performance in 2015's Spotlight as a Boston Globe reporter on the hunt for pedophile Catholic priests earned her an Oscar nod you're moving and now she's found another fulfilling role alongside Kathy Bates as a mom she was putting it together I don't think she was moving okay she shot are you there God it's me Margaret just after the birth of her second child and as you're playing this character you're balancing motherhood and your career it was a real method acting I guess yeah I was breastfeeding and pumping on the side and my daughter was five months old I think at the time and so you know I just had to give the signal this is the pumping signal it's done it's time they go okay you go right ahead it's clear she enjoys her life right now Rachel McAdams has found what works and if it doesn't there's always the door do you think you might take another step back at some point I don't know for me acting doesn't feel easy like it always feels like oh I don't know what I'm doing and you know I never feel like I can totally relaxed doing it so you know doing a project or two a year really you know it's it fills My Cup right now it I'm not feeling like I'm needing to shut it down [Laughter] up next an exclusive excerpt from Rachel McAdams chat something you can only see right here on CBS News streaming stay with us [Music] as promised here's more from Tracy Smith's chat with Rachel McAdams you said you could relate to Margaret did you have those awkward unsure moments in high school most of them I think we're awkward and unsure it's kind of all a blur but you know but yes definitely awkward not feeling very cool wondering if your normal trying to fit in wanting to be seeing all these great themes that Judy touched on and you know that we all still feel sometimes that's what I love about the film is you know you see through Margaret's mother's eyes and through her grandmother's eyes that you know sometimes those things they just shift into something else we're sort of always trying to find ourselves and reevaluating and yeah it's it's pretty Universal for all ages your parents were not stage parents nope no no no apparently I have long long long lost relatives who did Shakespeare in England which my grandmother gave me black and white photocopies of so I have those um in my little treasure box but no my mom was a nurse and my dad was a uh he likes to call a relocation engineer he was a mover a mover and he called it relocation engineer I love that and he was he was very good at it he moved me a lot oh did he very handy when I was that is very handy a year as the itinerant actor yes oh yes and it saved my life saved my butt a few times you get your first movie 21 years old and they fly you to Sicily and that was the first time you've been on an airplane I had actually been on one airplane with my grandmother when I was seven but that was to Ottawa from London Ontario so it was like a 30 minute flight so this was like the real first real deal yeah a flight from Toronto all the way to Italy by myself what did I do to you 21 years old boom well I thought the plane was going down I was like of course I got my first movie I'm on cloud nine and the turbulence was so bad I mean you know like the beverages are spilling everywhere and I'm looking around and and everyone's sleeping so I was like okay I guess this is normal so but I just had no no clue what was happening and I was trying to learn Italian because I had to speak Italian in the film I didn't speak any Italian and um eating my Italian desserts and my gelato and reading the newspapers like free newspaper I mean I really did have a nice time once I realized we weren't gonna die you're gonna be okay yeah and that gelato thing became a regular habit yeah you mean like in Italy yes yes you have to eat gelato Every Day in Italy and they also had in Sicily they do it where they put it on a bun like a nice almost like a hot dog bun but it's kind of sweet so you'd have a gelato sandwich every day to just shake it up a bit and yeah it was magical I really got spoiled on my first movie wow wow nice job yeah it really was talk about Mean Girls for a second Regina George the director told you to watch a certain movie and listen to certain music to get into the character of Regina George yeah yes uh yeah he asked me he told me to watch um Alec Baldwin's performance in Glengarry Glen Ross and uh to listen to a lot of whole to listen to a lot of Courtney Love and just like really tap into that angsty teenage energy yeah and it worked I think it felt like it was I felt angry oh it worked I mean it's amazing to me because my 15 year old daughter knows Regina George and I swear her 15 year old daughter is going to know Regina George what do you think the lasting impact of that character is yeah I mean we all most of us I feel like have a Regina George in our lives it resonates do people still say lines to you on a regular basis yeah yeah I in this bookstore they have a a shirt that says um get in the car loser we're going to the bookstore which is based on a mean girl's line I was like that's so great um and it was so funny that was such a one-off line one day I mean uh uh I think I hadn't slept enough or something and I just had no energy behind me and you just never know the life these things are going to take on it's so funny to look back did you improv that line I didn't I was just kind of lafear that day and I I don't know I mean I actually lived right behind the house where we were shooting um in Toronto or sorry right behind the school we were shooting at in Toronto was an abandoned school and I lived right behind it I was like 26 years old I lived on my own I was I was the oldest girl in the in the um show and by quite a bit and um and I would go home and have a nap I got my lunch break and then just come walk back to work it was great that's nice it was really nice so it could have been one of those days you just woken up from a nap Yeah well yeah you're supposed to be mean so it works [Laughter] care Regina does what she wants yeah how do you define success wow yeah that's a tricky one um I feel like finding balance for me uh riding that middle somehow between work and home life and feeling like I'm present in both when I'm there and beyond that I mean it's all the exterior but my family's happy and I feel like I'm being pushed and stretched you know for now that feels like my version of success anything that you would tell that seven-year-old who was hiding under the bed scared to tell her parents that she wanted to be an actor uh you can come out from under the bed and uh you're not gonna be in trouble um it's gonna be okay you're gonna be surprised you're gonna be it's gonna be exciting you're gonna go on a great adventure so just hang in there for another how many years did it take it's not gonna be as fast as you hoped but uh relatively quick in the grand scheme of life up next having a ball in Venice [Music] welcome back in Venice Italy's famous Carnival festival is known around the world for its elaborate costumes and masks and balls Seth Doan got an inside look at what it takes to create and dress for such a grand event he deckard's arrival by water taxi was certainly the most colorful leg of the journey she took with her husband lawn thousands of miles from home we're a long way from Florida very but we're still in Venice while there is a Venice Florida the deckard's destination was this former Maritime Republic in Italy and a carnival Time Event where period costumes even for reporters are mandatory I'm excited to get inside and see whether Antonia has in store for us this year it's their third pilgrimage to this masquerade ball a Fantasyland imagined by Antonio here we are my dream has been turned into reality she's a seamstress who began designing events 30 years ago creating ever more extravagant backdrops for her ever more extravagant costumes we met Leslie Deckard as she was choosing hers fun to play dress up a certain correspondent might agree with the Perfect Touch when you put it on it transports you to a different time masquerade balls have been held across Europe since the 1300s they became popular in Venice during the Renaissance especially during Carnival ahead of the more sober period of Lent modern Incarnation called ilbalo Del Doja is a nod to the dojo who ruled the Venetian Republic from the 7th Century until Napoleon's troops came in 1797 who is the dojo the dojo was the highest political officer daniele Danza told us he was also the symbol of Venice Danza curator of the doja's Palace Museum explained the dojo would sit beneath this work by tintoretto the dojo would sit here directly below the image of Christ not so subtle symbolism when we think of Venice why do we think of scenes like this this opulence evidence evidently it was a way of demonstrating one's power Venice could not compete with the great kingdoms it managed to survive in part he said because of the extraordinary Fascination that Venice has always exerted on the foreign visitor that Fascination holds today yeah we're not usually quite this dressed up at home a golf shirt and sandals generally that's what you're in yeah well that's four to formal this ball is an hours-long Feast for the eyes and yes dinner too there are some logistical challenges like large dresses blocking the roots with hawk-like intensity Antonius Sauter watches every over-the-top detail could you do this like this anywhere else in the world when somebody arrived to Venice immediately the fairytale began the city takes you in a very special and magical mood but for a price tickets can cost upwards of five thousand dollars isn't all of this a little out of touch no first of all because invalid induction means for Vanessa lots of work for a lot of people this city must be populated by young people who have projects and cumulate the creativity craft art Sauter told us she employs up to 300 people to pull this off it's not out of touch word without Joy is not a good word [Applause] chance to indulge in the decadence of another time it's a 5 000 mile trip from Florida to Journey Back centuries until you see it I think you'll understand how it just cannot be communicated [Applause] [Applause] I'm Lee Cowan thanks for joining us we'll see you right here next time on Here Comes the Sun foreign

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 274,729

Keywords: rachel mcadams, rachel mcdams, rachel mcadams interview, are you there god its me margaret, movies, entertainment, masquerade ball, Italy, rachel mcadams movies, Rachel mcadams mean girls, judy blume

Id: 1FK_jc89lHU

Length: 22min 20sec (1340 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2023