What were the toughest scenes for each of you to shoot in this movie?
**SPOILER**
Sophie Nélisse: The scene where everyone dies and I had to cry all day. It was fun though because it was like a challenge for me. At the end I was really proud of myself, but it’s just so depressing. At the same time it was awkward too because I had to kiss Nico which was not fun at all. We were like brother and sister and then we were looking at each other as if to say, “We can’t believe we’re doing this.” We would speak all the time, but that day we rarely exchanged a word with one another (laughs). What happened is that I kissed him twice during the scene because I had to, and then they only put it in once. I’m like, “Can’t you tell us this before we do the scene?” I counted and I kissed him 24 times. I did the scene 12 times and kissed him twice each time, and I was like, “If you were to tell me this before, I would’ve only have kissed him 12 times.” It was awkward when we were doing it, but the rest of the day was fun.
I was really happy that Nico was there because he’s joyful. He brings so much joy to everyone and he’s so cute. Even if you’re really tired, he’d be jumping around nonstop and saying, “Hey you want to do this, you want to do that?” So when I had to cry it was a bit annoying because he would jump right next to me when I’m trying to concentrate. I’m like, “Nico I’m trying to cry here so can you please like jump somewhere else?” But at the end of the day when I was really depressed and so tired from crying all day, he would just be there and we would go and watch America’s Next Top Model.
**END SPOILER**
Geoffrey Rush: Nothing specific. We spent a lot of time in the studio doing the kitchen scenes, and then the weather got good enough to do Liesel’s arrival in the snow. One day it was really snowing so they were able to use natural powdery snow, but then the next day we still had to do the reverse shots and it wasn’t snowing, so they would bring out the machines with whatever it is (potato-based something) which then makes a noise so you go, “Oh we’re going to have to loop all of this.”
On this role, I was really attracted to it because of its lack of flamboyance and its quiet ordinary quality. Sophie really shifted the goal posts of what I thought screen acting was about. She’s somebody that doesn’t go out to the camera; the camera comes in to all of everything that’s going on inside of her.
So I even looked forward to the tough scenes of having to explain who Max was, where that accordion fits into the story, and what you’ve got to do. To play that to a 12-year-old actress who’s sitting there, and I can feel her processing the burden of what the family now has to do, in a way I was always projecting my own daughter at 12 or 13 onto Sophie even though I was getting a beautiful response.
Geoffrey, you have played many memorable characters over the years, how do you choose your roles?
Geoffrey Rush: There is something that goes, “Do me! Do Me!” I don’t know what it is, but I certainly know when it’s not there. With Shakespeare in Love, by page 4 of that script I said to my agent that I have to be in the story. It was the same with this. When I read that opening, I was like “oh my God, so much has happened on the first page. The mother’s gone, she’s been taken to these foster parents, what’s happening here?”
It was just magic and, to be honest, not the sort of texture of script that’s around too often. For Fox 2000 to take this on as a studio, because they are mostly doing fantastical comic book adaptations or whatever, was bold and brave. They break the mold of what we think could be in the theaters, and I think that’s fantastic.
That concludes our interview but we’d like to thank Geoffrey and Sophie for their time. Be sure to check out The Book Thief and let us know what you think of it in the comments section below.
