Over they years Rachel Weisz has become one of the most successful and versatile acresses as she moved from blockbuster movies such as The Mummy to picking up an Oscar for The Constant Gardener.
The Lovely Bones sees her take ont he role of Abigail Salmon in the big screen adaptation of Alice Sebold's popular novel, which has been directed by Peter Jackson.
- Hi Rachel. Your performance in The Lovely Bones was amazing. Were you a fan of the book before you agreed to the role?
I have to be honest, I may be the only person on the planet that hadn’t read the book when I was offered the film.
I became a huge fan of it and I read it many, many times. It became my bible while I was making the film.
- So did the offer come to you and then you felt compelled to read the book?
Yeah. I should have lied about it. I should have just said I’d read the book.
- For people who are yet to read the book or see the movie, can you tell us about your character, Abigail Salmon, and what sort of a person is she like?
She is a mother of three kids in the early 1970s and her oldest daughter, Susie, is murdered.
The story is narrated from her 13 year-old daughter’s point of view and the daughter watches the family as they fall apart and then come back together again.
My story is on earth. A lot of the film takes place in heaven where Susie is. My part is the earth-bound story and it’s about a mother trying to come to terms with the loss of her child.
- You have a son, Henry. As a mother, was it hard for you to do this performance?
I actually don’t think it was harder because I am a mother. It’s a hard question. It’s like saying ‘Would it be easier if I wasn’t a woman?’ It’s hard. That’s what I am now. I’m a mother. It’s hard to imagine being anything else.
As a parent, you always check to see your child is breathing. It’s just part of being a parent. I’m sure it’s just part of nature; we make sure they are safe all the time. I’m sure there’s some evolutionary reason for it.
- For any mother, having their child abducted must be the most frightening thing.
What’s interesting about the book is, and we say this in the film too, it was the early 70s and I’m not American either, but there was a time I guess in the 80s when children started disappearing and they would put their pictures on the milk cartons.
At breakfast you would see these missing children and the idea is I think it was a more innocent time in the early 70s, there was less of this kind of thing.
People lived in the suburbs; they didn’t lock their doors. It was a more innocent, naive time. I guess it seems the world is becoming more awful.
- Some people would say your character is not sympathetic. What do you think?
What interested me about her, which you call not sympathetic and I totally understand, was that she was the opposite of a heroine. She’s kind of an anti-heroine in many ways. This tragedy befalls her family and she doesn’t pull together nobly.
She completely falls apart and does everything wrong and that really interested me.
I love stories about very noble people too. I loved the idea in this though that, like reality, something like this happens and someone would completely fall apart.
- In some ways, it is a very truthful portrait of some women.
I think it was a very truthful portrait of a woman and a woman who has been denied a career by circumstance, who’s had child after child after child and part of her feels like she shouldn’t have been a mother and there are millions of mothers who feel that way.
It makes a lot of people look at her in a very unsympathetic way, which I understand, but I think it’s very truthful.
- Can you talk about working with Peter Jackson and what he was like?
Very sweet. He works very closely with Fran Walsh who is his longtime partner and Philippa Boyens who is his producer. He surrounds himself with these two Kiwi girls and they work very tightly together.
They’re eccentric in their own way. They’re very sweet people, very unassuming. Maybe that’s a Kiwi thing. Really sweet people.
- The film was partly shot in New Zealand. A lot of people who visit New Zealand fall in love with the place. They call it the ‘Kiwi Bug’.
It’s beautiful. It’s really, really beautiful. I didn’t quite get the bug, just because it’s so far and I don’t like planes. Not because I think I’m going to die.
I’m just not that into flying long distances. It’s beautiful and the food is incredible. Some of the best food I’ve ever eaten.
- Are there any restaurants you loved going to in New Zealand?
The caterers on the film. Honestly, it was some of the best food I have ever eaten.
- Do you feel like you were meant to be a mother?
It turns out I’m really good at it. But I didn’t know before, no. It was really scary to me before, but I’ve really taken to it. Really love it.
- What is the best thing about being a mother?
I love hanging out with my son. He woke yesterday and asked me if the big light was on and I realised he meant the sun outside. Chatting with a three year old is fun. Chatting to my son is great fun.
- What else has he said?
Lots of things. That’s the most memorable one. The rest, I don’t think you’d find very interesting.
- Do you write them down?
I don’t. I should.
- What other projects do you have coming out?
Coming out is a film called Agora. It was huge. It’s a very expensive art house film and it’s very radical. It was the second biggest grossing film ever in Spain, which is crazy because it’s very art house.
It’s in English with subtitles. But it’s so art house. That’s why I am showing off about the box office, which is not something I’d normally do. I’m doing a film in Romania called The Whistleblower.
- What was more career changing - winning the Oscar or having a baby?
Winning an Oscar means very interesting directors offer you very interesting roles so it definitely opens more doors for you. For that, I’m very grateful.
Being a mum, I feel like I’ve talked about it a lot, so I don’t know what else to say. They happened at almost exactly the same time. Two big events in a short space of time.
- Your character in The Lovely Bones doesn’t want her daughter’s abduction to be solved. Can you understand that?
I can totally understand that as a mother, feeling like you could go one of two ways - that everything will get better if you only find the murderer or nothing will change if we find the murderer and thinking I don’t care and I don’t want to talk about it.
I can understand both points of view and one is the husband, one is the wife. I think it might be more of a male response to want to find the person and bring them to justice, whereas for a woman it won’t in fact change anything for her.
I think she’s been a great mother up until the moment of her daughter’s murder. Just because you have access to her mind as a reader in the novel and you find out sometimes she thinks she wasn’t meant to be a mother doesn’t mean she hasn’t been a great mother. The two things can co-exist alongside each other. There’s lot of room for doubt.
- This film reflects an afterlife. Does it make you think of an afterlife?
I’m more just on earth, but yeah, heaven is a huge part of it. It’s super natural because that’s not in the bible, the in between. She’s not in limbo.
It’s kind of like a supernatural thriller in that way and I think that’s very much part of the zeitgeist right now, the supernatural. What do I think about it personally? Uh, I don’t believe in it, but I think it makes good stuff for stories.
- What is heaven for you?
Heaven is moments here on earth. I think it’s all right here. Heaven and hell. Easily found.
- Your partner is also involved in the business. Do you talk a lot about the film business at home?
No, we have a normal family life where we largely don’t talk about it. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t. It’s nice to have someone who understands my job and vice versa.
- What was it like working with Mark Wahlberg. Was there anything which surprised you about him?
He’s very professional, very serious and committed. I don’t know if that surprised me, but he is. Very professional actor.
- And what about Saoirse?
She’s great. She’s the real thing. She’s a real young actress, she really is. She’s incredibly talented. She lives in Ireland, not in Hollywood, so I think she is incredibly grounded and she has lovely parents who are really good people. I think she’s got a tremendous career ahead of her. The sky is the limit.
- What was the mood on set?
Very un-depressed considering the subject matter. It was pretty fun. Lots of kids around and the dog, Holiday. I don’t know if there was a backup dog. We had another dog, but he was fired before I got to set. I think he bit someone. When you have kids around, you have fun things which happen.
- How would you like the audience to think about Abigail after they watch the movie?
However they want. I wouldn’t want to dictate anything. I think what is great about the film is, you know that element is there in the book, it’s a really tragic story but then it’s got an awful lot of hope and optimism. I think that’s what Peter wanted. He didn’t want a totally somber movie.
- Thanks Rachel.
- Thank you.
The Lovely Bones is out on DVD now.
Over they years Rachel Weisz has become one of the most successful and versatile acresses as she moved from blockbuster movies such as The Mummy to picking up an Oscar for The Constant Gardener.
The Lovely Bones sees her take ont he role of Abigail Salmon in the big screen adaptation of Alice Sebold's popular novel, which has been directed by Peter Jackson.
- Hi Rachel. Your performance in The Lovely Bones was amazing. Were you a fan of the book before you agreed to the role?
I have to be honest, I may be the only person on the planet that hadn’t read the book when I was offered the film.
I became a huge fan of it and I read it many, many times. It became my bible while I was making the film.
- So did the offer come to you and then you felt compelled to read the book?
Yeah. I should have lied about it. I should have just said I’d read the book.
- For people who are yet to read the book or see the movie, can you tell us about your character, Abigail Salmon, and what sort of a person is she like?
She is a mother of three kids in the early 1970s and her oldest daughter, Susie, is murdered.
The story is narrated from her 13 year-old daughter’s point of view and the daughter watches the family as they fall apart and then come back together again.
My story is on earth. A lot of the film takes place in heaven where Susie is. My part is the earth-bound story and it’s about a mother trying to come to terms with the loss of her child.
- You have a son, Henry. As a mother, was it hard for you to do this performance?
I actually don’t think it was harder because I am a mother. It’s a hard question. It’s like saying ‘Would it be easier if I wasn’t a woman?’ It’s hard. That’s what I am now. I’m a mother. It’s hard to imagine being anything else.
As a parent, you always check to see your child is breathing. It’s just part of being a parent. I’m sure it’s just part of nature; we make sure they are safe all the time. I’m sure there’s some evolutionary reason for it.
- For any mother, having their child abducted must be the most frightening thing.
What’s interesting about the book is, and we say this in the film too, it was the early 70s and I’m not American either, but there was a time I guess in the 80s when children started disappearing and they would put their pictures on the milk cartons.
At breakfast you would see these missing children and the idea is I think it was a more innocent time in the early 70s, there was less of this kind of thing.
People lived in the suburbs; they didn’t lock their doors. It was a more innocent, naive time. I guess it seems the world is becoming more awful.
- Some people would say your character is not sympathetic. What do you think?
What interested me about her, which you call not sympathetic and I totally understand, was that she was the opposite of a heroine. She’s kind of an anti-heroine in many ways. This tragedy befalls her family and she doesn’t pull together nobly.
She completely falls apart and does everything wrong and that really interested me.
I love stories about very noble people too. I loved the idea in this though that, like reality, something like this happens and someone would completely fall apart.
- In some ways, it is a very truthful portrait of some women.
I think it was a very truthful portrait of a woman and a woman who has been denied a career by circumstance, who’s had child after child after child and part of her feels like she shouldn’t have been a mother and there are millions of mothers who feel that way.
It makes a lot of people look at her in a very unsympathetic way, which I understand, but I think it’s very truthful.
- Can you talk about working with Peter Jackson and what he was like?
Very sweet. He works very closely with Fran Walsh who is his longtime partner and Philippa Boyens who is his producer. He surrounds himself with these two Kiwi girls and they work very tightly together.
They’re eccentric in their own way. They’re very sweet people, very unassuming. Maybe that’s a Kiwi thing. Really sweet people.
Tagged in Rachel Weisz