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| ASYLUM |
| An Interview w/Natasha
Richardson |
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By
Tonisha Johnson
Are there elements of other films?
Natasha Richardson: There are
elements of Hedda Gabler and Madame
Bovary.
What made you
hold on to this film when you were
originally supposed to do this with your
husband, Liam Neeson, but then a change
came in? What made you hold on with such
a grasp?
Natasha Richardson: From the
moment I read this book…I just couldn’t
put it down. I was so gripped by the
story. I thought it would make a great
movie. And I just had a total empathy
with this woman; this character. I
thought…I’ve got to play her. This is my
part. I thought that it would be chance
for me to explore the territory that I’m
best at and I’ve been able to fulfill
that on stage and not so much on film.
So, for all those reasons I said I
cannot, event though there are so many
struggles to get this made, I just think
it’s so miraculous in the end to play
the part. In the end I just couldn’t let
it go.
Did you
research or visit mental institutions?
Natasha Richardson: It was
shot in an asylum. It was shot in a
mental asylum in England that only
stopped being a mental asylum for only 4
weeks before we started shooting. So, a
lot of atmosphere came in from the walls
but I’d like to think it wasn’t the
asylum. My thoughts came with the book
and the novelist Patrick McGrath and
letting this woman sink into my heart
and soul for over a period of years.
There is no
dramatic license here. Really; it’s a
“pent” up feeling kind of part. How
difficult was it to complete this role?
Natasha Richardson: Well, it
was difficult. We were under a great
deal of stress financially. We had to
shut down for 4 months. It’ amazing on
how so long it took to get this film
made. Now where half way there and we’re
shutting down. Are we ever going to get
going again? In terms of emotional wear
and tear…? There was a lot of it. But in
the end it’s so gratifying to do the
work you love. The sex scenes; I mean,
their going to be so hot and so real,
and yet this woman feels a bit defiled,
like a prostitute in some way.
Were the sex
scenes story boarded?
Natasha Richardson: No.
Do you feel
your character was mentally ill from the
start or was damaged by the events
happening to her?
Natasha Richardson: I do
think she’s a bit damaged to start with.
A little frazzled. You can tell by the
way she behaves that she’ potentially
loose cannon. I think she’ probably,
already, an alcoholic when the movie
starts and becomes progressively more
so. Personally I think she is somebody
who’s been pent up for so long with this
unhappy marriage. This suffocating
society was…true to a degree in the
states but more so in England where,
women of that class didn’t have jobs.
There’s no outlet for intelligence. No
creativity or her sexual personality in
this marriage. So, it’s like an accident
waiting to happen in a way. When people
hold that in…pent up…it doesn’t take
much to snap!
There is love
and then there is sex. Do you really
think people can notice the difference
in when both start?
Natasha Richardson: You know,
I don’t know where is that line between
hopeless romanticism and passion and
lust and when it becomes an unhealthy,
obsessive, addictive relationship. Some
of the great romances of weathering
heights…is she unhealthily obsessive or
is that what true love is? I think in
this case, she makes a decision and once
she makes that decision, it just
spiraled out of control and she thinks
that she’s not the best mother for her
son and she can’t live without this guy
and she will die inside. So I think it
becomes a chain of events. I think a lot
of us looked at those moments and stared
at oppressive and think am I (Stella) am
going to go over. And go no. But she
does. And she’s like fuck it and she
burns her bridges with this catastrophic
result.
In one of the
best scenes where Stella’ son dies; the
director doesn’t come back to it. He
doesn’t explain it; as a character, what
do you feel happened in that scene? And
why didn’t you do anything?
Natasha Richardson: I feel
that she is in such a place of…just a
whole of depression. But she’s like in a
haze of thinking about this life and
this guy and she is actually so much in
that fog that she’s not seeing what’s
happening right in front of her. And
that she’s suddenly snaps out of it. I
don’t she is sitting there thinking, ‘oh
look there goes my son. He’s drowning.’
In the ending
scenes of the film, Dr. Peter Cleave can
be seen as an opportunist or
manipulative. Which do prefer as a label
to the ending Natasha?
Natasha Richardson: I think
he’s sought of a manipulative
Machiavelli. He just wants to own in
some way and manipulate these two
people.
Mr. Neeson said
the recipe to marital success is to
argue all the time with your spouse. So,
do you think the character thought…’if I
had just argued with my husband this
would have never happened?
Natasha Richardson: lol
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Copyright © 2005 Gesica Magazine |
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