it was my first movie everything i
learned
was new i mean so any piece of
information i learned it's not like it
was something being reinforced it was
like being introduced to me for the
first time
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everything about doing that film was
incredible i mean like i'd never
been in a movie i had a very weird
experience where someone saw me in a
high school play
and cast me on that 70s show so that was
my first audition
and then very quickly after that
i met steven soderberg and i i got a
chance to do traffic so it was like
i wasn't even that
good at acting
i certainly didn't have a lot of
experience and then
i never shot anything outdoors before
because all of 70 show was shot in a
sound stage
steven rarely gives direction he comes
he's a documentary filmmaker originally
and he kind of shot that film like a
documentary it was all there were no
lights
it was all used using available light
i'd only seen movies with
you know movies about movies i've never
been in a movie so i thought the
director had like a bullhorn and would
like you know be yelling from another
room
we'd be on a set and here we were really
in
a rough neighborhood
and you know we were really filming on
the streets and
i remember going to stephen and saying
like
is there something you want me to do in
the scene and he said oh i don't know
he just walked away and i realized oh
he's like like years later i realized oh
he's a great filmmaker he's so confident
that he's just trying to kind of capture
what's going on but one of the rare
times he did give direction
to me he wanted me to do something
faster or something i just i learned
this from michael douglas who's the
first actor i worked in the film michael
just walked away i'd never seen anything
like it and i realized
again later uh when i was on other
movies i realized what a
pro move that was for michael douglas
because
yeah you know sometimes it's a little
embarrassing when the director comes up
especially if it's directly like that
who rarely talks to the actors if he has
something to say to you
um
and i love that michael just kind of
you know i mean he has an opinion he's a
you know great producer and actor and
uh
you know has every right to stand there
and have an opinion a lot of the film
was happening because he was in it and
he just walked away like he had nothing
to do with him and he gave me my time
with the director so i always thought
that was a really classy
um thing i learned from michael another
thing i learned from him was
we finished us where we thought the
scene was gonna go
and michael just kept going until he
heard cut i thought
you know we kind of rehearsed it up
until we walk up to the car and then
michael just got in the car and started
driving away and i went oh i gotta i
gotta stay in it i didn't know any of
these rules about acting so it was uh
kind of a learn as you go process she's
talking about erica christensen too it's
funny she was she was younger than me
about four years younger than me but
she had so much more experience than me
she'd been in movies and i've been on tv
shows
and uh
that was another introduction i had to
someone who was closer to my age
showing me how to just be a total pro
even though she was 17 years old and um
and
you know some of the stuff we had to do
something to say to each other were very
awkward
and uh
i i realized from her oh this is how
another actor can make you feel so
comfortable and so um
it can make your performance better in
the scene
i
realized working with steven through
that process both on set
and then watching what he did in terms
of editing
and you know he is uh very involved with
the editing the writing but he's also
shooting it himself and he's there with
the camera
so it was such an intimate experience
with a great filmmaker um
what i learned through that process the
most is why you got to work with
great people
because they make you look better i mean
i i'm so happy to this day that stephen
hasn't shown the alternate takes because
i had
i certainly had a core of something i
wanted to do but um
you want to work with someone that's
that um brilliant
who can uh help shape your performance
and so it was a great first experience
to have for a lot of reasons such a
well-received movie but mostly because i
learned oh the better
the director is that i work with the
better
i'll look if you can work with someone
like stephen if you can
connect yourself with someone who does
have something to say
and help them say that
i don't think there's any better day
on the job than when you're actually
going to see that finished product and
you realize oh this is going to speak to
a lot of people about something that's
very important that people should be
walking at a movie theater talking
you