Continued from page 2.
You see that hunger in the first scene after the skating, when it's so clear that their physical connection is not about sexual satisfaction--it's about human connection.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
But for anyone who knows more than the basic facts about Aileen, her sexual identity has always been complicated. Clearly Selby identifies as a lesbian ...
Selby's definitely the character that I think a lot of people [will identify with] who have been in that situation, where they're trying to live an honest life but nobody makes it easy for them. Selby definitely represents that, whereas Aileen represents everybody, not just the gay and lesbian community. I think she represents--honest to God--just that search that I think we all [share] in our life, just to be loved.
Yet--because when the murders were taking place Aileen was with a woman--to the news media, therefore, she was a lesbian. End of story.
"The first lesbian serial killer"--yes, definitely.
Do you think that because she was labeled a lesbian, her claim of self-defense was a lot less credible to the prosecution and the jury and the public? Because it was easier to paint her as a man-hater?
That's why the character of Thomas [Bruce Dern, who plays an older friend at the Last Resort] was very important to me, because she had guy friends. In talking to everybody, at the Last Resort especially, most of them are guys. I really, truly believe in my heart that she wasn't a man-hater, and she even admitted it herself. She said, "I don't hate men--I hate johns. I hate men who pick women up and rape them and abuse them and use them." My God, this woman was a prostitute from the time that she was 8 years old--I can understand that. That makes sense to me. But she was not a man-hater. It's one of the huge misconceptions about her. "Well, if she was a lesbian, then she was a man-hater, and that's why she killed all of these people." That wasn't the case.
Do you think that if she hadn't been with a woman at the end and therefore easy to label that way, she might still be alive? Do you think she could have been spared execution?
No, I don't think so. The way her case was dealt with, the fact that she killed seven men, just who Aileen was, her past--I think "all of that just really played into the hands of a lot of politicians, and they were definitely going to use her at some point as a pawn for their good. I don't think whether she was a lesbian or not would have changed that. I think that her crimes on their own were quite horrendous, and they were going to be smart and use that, definitely, to their own best interests.
It's a difficult movie. What was the hardest scene for you to do?
Change it around: Which wasn't? [Laughs] One scene that I only now realize why it was extremely hard for me was the bus stop scene [when she says goodbye to Selbyl, where finally all her emotions, all her guards break down, which is so not the Aileen that I had played up till then. Aileen up till then had been like, Everything's fine, everything's good. A couple of beers, a pack of smokes, I'm good. Got Selby over there; it's all fine. And then all of a sudden you have to get to the bare bones of this woman who's been suppressing all of this stuff. And I was suppressing all of that stuff. But once I did open the path [to those suppressed feelings], then I was kind of fucked for two days. It was like, Now I can't hold it back again.
Was that at the end of the shooting day?.
No. [That afternoon] all of a sudden I'm [portraying Aileen as] "funny guy" at the restaurant [on a date with Selby], pushing the hostess around and trying to get into a fight, and my eyes are so swollen and sore. And Patty's like, "Just be that girl who can take on any guy," and I'm like, "I just sat in a fuckin' alley for two hours crying--this is insane!" That was a hard day. And then also, our second-to-last day was extremely hard for me because we had an entire day of shooting: 1 think three scenes--[including] the last murder, the last john, who obviously is such an innocent. And we had to do it fight from the beginning--the pickup and going into the woods and actually killing him. That was an extremely hard day for me. I just remember lying on the ground with nothing [left], just complete numbness. Patty would come up and rub ray back as I was lying in the dirt, unable to move, and she said, "Babe ... sorry, but we're gonna need one more." That's when you know you're with a good director-somebody who doesn't let anything else sabotage what moviemaking is about. No matter how exhausted you are, no matter how much film you're shooting, no matter how everybody else is saying, "You're killing the actress--please stop doing this," I never had to forgive her for it. I was like, Finally-here was somebody willing to expend the effort to actually push you out onto that edge [and not allow you to] just stop right before mid go, "Well, tiffs is it and I don't know and I'm just not feeling it and I'm tired." No--go, go. So all of that was great.
How were you after the film wrapped?
I was exhausted. I can't remember the last time I was that tired. And I had three days in L.A. to get my hair colored and pack for four months, then got on a plane and went to Montreal and went straight into another film. I was in a lot of denial. I kind of showed up in Montreal going, Everything, s great, so let's rehearse. I'm ready to go--no, it's fine, don't worry about it." I was training three, four hours a day, barely eating, trying to lose the weight--I only had three weeks till we were shooting--and I still had a lot of emotional baggage in me. [Fortunately,] I was lucky enough to be working with my boyfriend.
This was Head in the Clouds, right? Because you've talked about the relationship between you and Penelope Cruz in that movie--how there might be some assumed lesbian history between them.
Yeah. Again, it's very similar to Aileen: I play a woman who's very desperate, very, very love-hungry, and very much a nurturer the way Aileen wanted to be a nurturer. She wanted to take care of somebody. She wanted to be "the man." She wanted to be able to provide and support and do all of that stuff. And [Theron's Clouds character] Gilda's very much the same--she's kind of the caretaker of everybody and doesn't want people to leave her house. "Stay and visit, and let me take care of you, let me love you" and all of that stuff.
Do you think the line between love as comfort and love as sex is more blurred for women?
I don't know. I wouldn't be an expert on it, [but] I do think so.
You date men--you're as much an expert as anyone.
[Laughs] But I also think there's so many levels of gray--it's not just black-and-white, you know? I do think with women it is different because we are--the pagan religion of us is just different. We gravitate with the moon, and I think we're nurturers--we bear children and take care of them, and it's just a natural thing with us.
Tell me about your own nurturing, growing up in South Africa. Did you know gay people?
Yeah, my neighbor was gay--my neighbor whose younger brother I went to school with. Or is gay, still. He was about maybe 12 years or 13 years older than me. I grew up with it. I don't even remember my mom explaining it to me or anything like that. I remember going and having dinner at their house three times a week and having a barbecue, and he would be there with his boyfriend--and he would always have a different boyfriend. It was never an issue. And then for some reason, through my mom there was quite a big community of friends that we had that were either bisexual or gay. I guess I just understood it. I just got it.
And then you went into ballet and fashion!
[Laughs] Exactly! Yeah, you can't go through an art school and not experience all of that.
How have your gay and lesbian friends responded to the movie?
They love it. And the funny thing was, I never went into the movie going, I'm gonna have to research that or really think about that. It really came from such an organic place of I want this human being to love me so much that I'll do anything. So it wasn't I'm gonna go and play a lesbian, so I should really look at my friends--you know what I mean? Maybe it's naive for me to say that, but I don't think there's anything different. It's love. You have to kind of tackle it from your roots of love and wanting to be loved. But I have had some of my lesbian friends comment on what a beautiful lesbian I ended up playing [laughs]. But no, everybody has just been really, really supportive. And really moved by the love story.
You've said that the notion that gay marriage is still up for debate seems prehistoric to you.
Start Of Article
« Previous 1 2 3 4 Continued »
