The Box Q&A

02 December 2009

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Cameron Diaz is a four-time Golden Globe nominee, earning her first nod in 1999 for hit comedy There's Something About Mary. She’s also earned nominations for Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich; opposite Tom Cruise in Cameron Crowe's 2001 film Vanilla Sky; and in Martin Scorsese's epic drama Gangs of New York, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio.

She made her feature debut in the 1994 Jim Carrey comedy The Mask and has gone on to star in films as diverse as Any Given Sunday, A Life Less Ordinary and The Holiday. Among her upcoming film projects are the action adventure The Green Hornet, with Seth Rogen, and a romantic action comedy directed by James Mangold in which she reunites with Cruise.

James Marsden recently wrapped production on director Rod Lurie's remake of the thriller Straw Dogs, opposite Kate Bosworth, and has also just completed the comedy Death at a Funeral, directed by Neil LaBute. Among his other credits are 27 Dresses, Enchanted, Hairspray, Sex Drive and Superman Returns.

In The Box, written and directed by Donnie Darko’s Richard Kelly, Diaz and Marsden star as Norma and Arthur, a couple living a normal life in the suburbs with their young son...until a mysterious man with a horribly disfigured face appears on their doorstep and presents them with a life-altering proposition: the box.

- When talking about The Box with your friends, have either of you met anyone who straightaway said, ‘Yes, I’d press the button’?

James Marsden: I have. People have come up to me in the street and said that they would. And my family! Honestly, when you tell people the basic premise they say, ‘Oh yes, definitely press the button. That person’s probably going to die anyway.’ I’m like, ‘Okay. Fantastic. Off to a good start!’

Cameron Diaz: I haven’t met anyone who said they would.

James Marsden: You’re clearly around good people. I surround myself with misfits and hellions!

- You mentioned people coming up to you in street and wanting to talk specifically about what you have done on screen. Does that happen a lot for you?

CD: All the time. A lot of the time it’s Something About Mary, and I also get a compliments about the Penis Song. People are always telling me that they love the penis song.

JM: Definitely, yes. Which is good. People are into what you are doing. For me anyway it’s not got to the point where it is bothersome. It is still nice and quite flattering at this point.

- Cameron, I heard that a few fans have given you their boxer shorts. You’ve got a bit of Tom Jones thing going on

CD: I have no idea about the boxer shorts. I may have gotten them somewhere, sitting in a corner. I have no idea. I think that may have been one of those little tales that get made up. Just to fill the space up on the page.

JM: I’ve not been given anything weird, at least not in person.

CD: I have just remembered, actually. I did get boxers! I made pillows out of them! That’s right. I am sorry. I did get them. Obviously they weren’t pillows that I used, but I didn’t like to waste them!

JM: Very cool. I’ve had nothing scary. I have got some fan letters that get a little nuts, sometimes. But no underwear, sadly.

- Is The Box making a comment on where we are today as a society? It’s easy to gamble when it’s just a press of a button and you’re miles away from the consequences

JM: That’s a very fair comment. The way we behave when we are enclosed in our offices on the internet or in our car or just staring at a button. You are not seeing these consequences face to face. It is very easy. You are a couple of steps removed.

CD: You raise your finger and then ‘Click’. Then you have a million dollars and you don’t see the person getting killed. You don’t know how close, how far away, whether they deserved it or not, whether it was merciful or not so yeah, it is easy to remove yourself.

"It is such a simple thing right in front of you and you can’t see the consequences I would like to think that I would not push the button, no matter what!

- The love-story is important to the film and Richard Kelly drew on his family experience, which means that you, Cameron, are kind of playing his mum.

CD: Yes, you’re right. I was actually. I actually spent time with her and she was very generous with sharing her experience. My character has the same injury in the film that she has had in real-life, so she shared her experience of what it was like; when it happened to her, and all through her life; the struggles that she had and how she overcame them and how they made her stronger.

"What I thought was so lovely about this story was that when Richard was incorporating his parents into, he really got an opportunity to show to them what he really felt about their strength and how he saw them, how he saw his mother when he was a child and how he looked up to his father, how he looked up to his mother and her strengths.

"And I thought that only Richard Kelly would make a movie based on this relationship where it is like this fully psychological thriller, which is very intense in what happens between these two people, and yet it is a beautiful love story.

"It was one of the things that I loved about the script initially, the depth of these two people’s commitment to one another and their desire to be together.

- I understand his mum was around the set. Didn’t that put extra pressure on you?

CD: Yes and Richard often didn’t give them the script. He didn’t let them read it before they came to set so the first time they were even hearing the words, it was oftentimes out of context to the rest of the story, which is very Richard as well because he sort of vignettes his themes.

"They sort of stand alone and weave altogether. So he would bring his folks to the set and they would hear these words that they were speaking about themselves, or about one another, and it was the first time that they had heard those words.

"There were a couple of times where his mother was in tears, in fact, because she was so touched by what it was she was witnessing as her son’s interpretation of her as a woman and of them as a partnership.

- Did you talk to Richard about Southland Tales? Is he quite sanguine or still pissed off at the critical and commercial mauling?

JM: I think he is proud of it. I had conversations with him. I remember seeing the film in Boston right before he started shooting The Box and I admired what he set out to do on that film.

"I think on most levels achieves it. And he didn’t seem the type of person to hang on to something that there was a negative reaction to it or whatever.

CD: I think he is an artist and he just focuses on the next thing and then moves on to the next thing and then the next thing and doesn’t hold too much value on what people thought.

"Obviously he wants people to like his work and be affected by it and respond to it but he just is going to keep moving forward and turn out interesting stuff. I feel very lucky to be part of this one but I don’t think that it’s something that he necessarily holds onto. He seems very proud of it.

- You’re a lively duo. Is Richard a good laugh around set, or super serious?

JM: I admire Richard in that he knows what he wants and that to an actor is a big deal. You can have really nice directors and if they don’t really know want they want or don’t know what they see it can suck. You end up freefalling a little bit wondering what the hell is going on.

CD: Actually, Richard was very measured, methodical, very disciplined and he would go in and see it in his head and put it out there and it could be something as small as a half degree turn of a prop on the table just to create a symmetry of frame.

"I admire the fact that he didn’t just see this as some sort of a morality test, psychological thriller thing. He really, really truly believed in the love story between Norma and Arthur. I admire him as an artist and I admire him as a human being. He doesn’t subscribe to this idea that it has to be miserable on set.

"He has a great time. He enjoys what he does. He has to do what he does and that is a true artist. He epitomizes that kind of artistry: ‘I don’t care how much money I have. I don’t care what sort of car I drive. I just want to make films and I want to make interesting films’.

JM: That’s something I really I learned from him. Be honest with yourself and really do things that you believe in.

- You get on well. Did you hang out with each off set, or was it too cold to hang out in Boston?

CD: We were working. The only time we had really while on location is on set. We live our life there pretty much. We had dinners. We all had moments.

JM: You’re right. Frankly it was too cold in Boston. It was Winter. There is a lot of downtime on set, though and that is the time you usually get to know each other.

CD: We are fortunate in that we had some rehearsal time and getting together to really talk about the characters and what we wanted to achieve and where we believed these characters are in their marriage and as parents. That was an essential part of the movie but we worked long hours and most of the time you want to go home and go to bed!

The Box is released in cinemas across the UK on Friday 4th December

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