(soft rhythmic music)
- I'm curious how important it is for all
of you to, sort of, shift what people expect
from you based on your choices?
- It's so different now,
the climate is so different now.
There's so many wonderful opportunities for women
of every age to play all different types of people
and, I feel when I was working in my early 20s
and even my late teens, early 20s
I felt that I sort of got, somehow, typecast.
I was very, kind of, hyper-sexualized.
Which was, I guess, at the time, seemed okay to everyone.
It was another time.
Even though it wasn't part of my own narrative,
it was, kind of, crafted for me
by probably a bunch of dudes in the industry.
And, I guess, that worked then,
but, it was really difficult for me to try
to figure out how to get out
of being an ingenue or the other woman
because it was never anything that I had intended.
I had been working since I was eight years old
and, certainly, that was never a goal of mine.
I, sort of, had to shake it up a little bit
because I just couldn't seem to,
I just didn't want to work on stuff
that I knew how to do
and knew I could do it
and it was like, what is this?
I remember thinking at the time,
maybe I need a different job in this industry
that would, sort of, be more fulfilling
'cause there seemed like there was just nowhere to go.
And so, I actually had the opportunity to do a play.
To do an Arthur Miller play on Broadway
and it totally reset my whole way of thinking
about how I could work
and what the different kind of opportunities
that could be available to me.
And it's amazing how theater is limitless.
And it just felt so,
even though it was terrifying,
it felt, it was liberating because I actually felt
that every night I had the opportunity
to change the narrative.
And I had, as Lupita had said earlier,
you have control of your own fate on stage
to some degree and you're in charge
of your own destiny up there.
(soft rhythmic music)
- Now, you have two very different films
that have come out.
Is there one that was, sort of, more intimidating
for you than the other?
- I don't know if intimidated is really
the right word exactly.
I think both of those films,
even though they're really different,
and the thing they do have in common is
that the scripts were like beautiful little gems.
Both scripts.
And Laura read, obviously, "Marriage Story"
and it was such a,
it was incredible.
I mean,
I think what people that have seen it
don't necessarily realize is that every hesitation
and every unfinished sentence is all scripted
and no one is really.
You know, it's, the words are the words
and you have to stick to that,
- [Jennifer] It was there.
- Yeah, it's all right there
and he's a real stickler about
that, which is fine.
But, you have to,
you have this, kind of, structure
and then you figure it out.
It was challenging at times just because,
Noah's relentless and he works to exhaustion.
I've never really been able to have that experience,
just burning film like that.
It's something you do when you do theater
because you just keep,
it's one of the beautiful things about doing theater
is that you get that chance over and over again
to figure it out.
You figure it out every night and it's so exciting
'cause you have,
you surprise yourself all the time
and you're stuck with this text.
And that's, kind of, the experience that I certainly had
and Laura had, too.
You had all this opportunity to just try it all out
and it was challenging,
but, it also,
you, kind of, keep coming back to,
okay, I can't stray from this
so, I'm gonna make these discoveries
within the confines of this text.
And it was,
I wouldn't say intimidating,
but, it was it was challenging, definitely.
- I was intimidated when I read your monologue
and watched you tirelessly learning it.
- [Scarlett] Fumble through it?
- No, my God, no.
In makeup and hair, and we would run lines
and I would listen to you memorizing it
and take one was flawless.
This human being, opening her heart
and telling this entire story.
Not one word missed.
I was just mesmerized.
It was amazing to watch you do that.
- All the actors were hand shy when Noah walked past.
I didn't add a then!
I wasn't a then! (laughing)
(soft rhythmic music)