Was this your first time shooting in Austin?
RD: I had been to Austin before, my husband had worked there a couple times. It’s so great, you just love being there. This was one of those ones where you wish it was a four month shoot so you can be in Austin longer. It was great.
How was it working with such a large ensemble?
RD: It was really great. Talk about intimacy! Travis Tope, who plays our son, had some really heartbreaking scenes. I remember getting a text from my niece, and it was like, “you’re working with Ansel Elgort and you didn’t tell me?” I was like, “Am I working with him? I don’t remember working with him.” It was really exciting over the weekend getting to meet the other people [in the film]. I had worked with Jennifer Garner before, but to share a movie with people you never share scenes with is really cool. We’re all now connected by this film even though some of us hadn’t met until yesterday. There aren’t a lot of movies that are true ensembles. Usually there is a star-driven aspect to it, and there’s a lot of other people, but this one’s very truly an ensemble.
Other than your own plotline, was there any one in particular that spoke to you?
RD: The storyline about the girl with the eating disorder, and the way she loses her virginity. That actress in particular [Elena Kampouris], her vulnerability just slayed me. Those big blue eyes and her long blonde hair, looking out. Every time she came onscreen it broke my heart. I also think what’s so cool about the movie is, normally when I see a film, if it’s about the kids, the parents are cardboard cutouts. If it’s about the parents the kids don’t really matter. This one: everybody matters, and I think it’s not a movie I would want to watch with my kids, or I’d want to watch with my parents, so it’s kind of a movie you want to go see with your own group of people. I wonder if you’d feel compelled to talk about it together afterwards. It’d be like watching a two-hour sex scene with your parents [laughs]. You know how awful that is when it comes on in one small dose? This would be like a whole movie of that.
What are you hoping people come away with after seeing the film?
RD: Honestly, just conversation. Today, before you came in here, we were all talking to the group and I said “you guys, these conversations keep getting so heavy,” and someone said, “I think it’s the movie.” We’ve been doing this since last night, talking about “when we were kids, did you do this? What was that like?” It’s really provoked us to talk a lot and think a lot, and I know for me the biggest takeaway was – because I have a 16 month-old – that it’s okay that I’ve been living like a luddite, [but] it’s not going to fly in the future, because if I’m going to help her navigate this at all, I have to know something about it. So I can make jokes about not knowing what tweets are or being on Twitter, but I actually have a responsibility to know what that stuff is. Or whatever it’s going to be in 10 years! And it’s work if you’re not interested in it, and I’m not interested.
You don’t have a Twitter account or Facebook?
RD: I don’t have anything. Like, I remember when I was in New York I didn’t want a Metro card. Like, “I like my token!” Now I look back and think, “I was so stupid, the Metro card is awesome.” But with this stuff I’m not resisting anything, I just have other things I’m doing, and it’s time-consuming to be on the Internet.
Speaking of those other things, what’s on the horizon? You’re in the new Poltergeist.
RD: We did that, that comes out next year – next July. I did a part in Olive Kitteridge, that HBO miniseries with Frances McDormand that’s going to be on in November, and then I’m in a movie coming out – probably the same weekend as this movie – with Jeremy Renner.
You’re competing against yourself!
RD: I hope not! They’re very different movies; it’s called Kill the Messenger. And then I did a little indie but that’ll be out next year too with Jake Johnson and Ron Livingston and Sam Rockwell.
You’ve been keeping busy then.
RD: Yeah, it’s this nice balance between motherhood and working. She’s at an age where you can kind of strap her on your back and go off to set [laughs]. She comes, she travels with. There was a day the other day, we ran into Jon Hamm at a restaurant. He was chewing on her cheeks, and I’m like “women would envy you right now!” She doesn’t realize how cool some of the people are that she gets to hang out with.
What are you hoping the reactions going to be once the public gets out and sees Men, Women & Children?
RD: You always hope they like it, because you work so hard on things. You hope they work, you hope that they’re moved by it in some way. I felt it last night in the audience, people were really uncomfortable, you could hear a pin drop. Whether you like the film or hate the film there’s a takeaway in there. That I feel really sure of. It’s not something where you go, “where do you wanna go eat?” afterwards. I think you’ll spend a minute thinking about things.
It’s such a subjective experience, and different movies hit you at different times in your life. Something you didn’t respond to, five years later, you love, or vice versa. Or when you revisit it, it seems dated, like, “why did I love this movie, this isn’t that great.” It’s hard to talk about things that are happening, as they’re happening. Again, hindsight is 20/20, and Jason does that really well, like with the recession in Up in the Air. He seems to be able to make sense of something that’s going on right now, whether they like it or not.
That concludes our interview, but we’d like to thank Rosemarie very much for her time. Be sure to check out Men, Women & Children when it hits theatres tomorrow!