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Its my job!Lucas Hedges:Her worst nightmare.
MP: I like it a lot more, honestly, doing it over Zoom.
Its much less of an ordeal, all around.
You dont have to travel or anything like that.
You only have to dress from the waist up.
you could do your own lighting.
I kind of agree.LH:Everyones in their bedroom!
They have to be themselves.
MP: Right, like, Im wearing my pajama bottoms right now.
So am I!LH: You love to hear it.
MP: I dont, actually.
LH: She outed you, Rachel.
Nowyoulook like an idiot![Laughs.]
MP:I really led you right into that, Rachel.
You fell right into that.
I wouldnt say I found my groove with her until we started filming.
But with you, it was like I met you on set.
It felt like I met you through the character.
And from there I felt most comfortable in our relationship.
Did you have a lot of rehearsal time?LH: Not really, no.
MP:We did, but not together.
I feel like we spent more one-on-one time with Aza [Jacobs].
We only had maybe a few hours together, and it was sort of reading through material.
So I get what Lucas is saying.
MP:My head was in a million different places.
And then we did a sort of very disjointed reading together.
It was kind of weird.
For me, I just didnt know who Frances was yet.
I didnt know what this world was yet.
I felt this pressure to be making choices when I wasnt ready.
LH:Thats cool.
Thats cool to know.
Were having group therapy.
How did your impressions shift over time?
I never shut up.
MP: But I loved itsomuch.
LH:I would say I was like a squirrel around Michelle.
MP:A squirrel?
LH:A squirrel with a lollipop.
Thats how I would describe the energy.
Not unlike the energy you experience from me today.
MP: A squirrel with a lollipop?
I cant even imagine what you mean by that.
LH:You were with me on set!
Was I the lollipop?
LH:No, you were Michelle.
I was the squirrel with the lollipop.
MP:[Laughs.
]You were such a delight.
LH: I did a drawing of us.
I wrote Michelle a letter and did a drawing of us.
And the drawing is so heinous.
You look like a blind person walking with a cane, and Im just its irrelevant.
MP:Where did the cane come from?
LH: I dont know.
Maybe you didnt have a cane.
It just looked like one.
I think that was part of the brilliance of casting Lucas in this part.
He doesnt have a tremendous amount of dialogue.
But he doesnt need it.
You know even when hes not saying or doing anything, theres so much going on underneath.
If I was surprised by anything, its that hes got a throwback poetic soul.
LH:Oh, wow!
MP: I dont feel like I have that.
I show up; I work.
Im not that poetic.
I always kind of wish I were.
Hes a little like a squirrel with a lollipop.
Who thinks of that?
I want a whole poem about the squirrel with a lollipop.
LH: I will do that.
And send it to you.
I was surprised by how much of a master Michelle is at what she does.
MP: He was surprised by how unpoetic I was.
Your poetry came out in a way.
There was not a moment that you wasted.
You didnt waste anything.
You were so agreeable.
You were so kind.
You were so not a burden to a single person on that set.
That was a huge surprise, to me.
And you did it in such a humble and generous way.
It was almost like you took up no space when you had to take up the whole room.
You didnt obstruct anything.
MP:Thank you.
It was such an enormous amount of work and such a condensed schedule.
It was just pages and pages and pages of dialogue, and not easy dialogue to remember.
Its not exactly how we speak.
To that point, the tone is so specific in this movie.
And I did, in this case.
But it was wrong.
Its uptown faded glamour.
Its a hard thing to articulate.
Susie Diamond [fromThe Fabulous Baker Boys] was a little this way, too.
Its not like you could send a shopper out like, Oh, bring me this and this.
You know when you stumble upon it.
And you know when its wrong.
I liked the group scenes in the end.
I loved getting punched in the face.
I guess I did vibe there.
But at the end, in the kitchen, I felt really connected to you.
LH: Loved that.
MP: That would have been my favorite.
LH: And walking down the hall [of the apartment before going to bed], too.
MP: Waiting for you to come and walk with me.
I get emotional thinking about it.
LH: Its so sweet.
MP: I bet you have.
MP:You had that in Montreal [while filmingFrench Exit]!
And she was like, Something terrible happened in this house.
Im aware of how when you make yourself susceptible to that sort of thinking it manifests itself.
Im not sure, but I will say, it didnt feel right, being in that house.
So, yeah, my experience in Montreal began with what felt like ghosts.
MP: And Im not sure which one it is.
And then I get an email or I get a call.
It happens all the time.
Its not that I feel what I did is bad, even though I do feel that way sometimes.
I just feel like theres a kind of first of all, I wanted dark hair.
And I think because Winona [Ryder] was dark, they kept me blonde.
I think Winonas character in the book is blonde.
Shes sort of the fair-haired kind of thing.
And [my character] Madame Olenska is a bit darker, more poetic.
I wish I could have gone more in that direction.
Which experience did you prefer?
Or how did they differ?LH: One was literally [snaps] this long.
The Soderbergh movie was that long.
That didnt even feel like a movie.
Its hard for me to differentiate between them.
Months of getting to know the character, going to Montreal and filming.
Im deeply romantic about that time in my life.
I loved filmingFrench Exitso much.
