Rosemarie DeWitt has popped up everywhere recently, from the indie Your Sister’s Sister to the comedy The Watch. Now, with her role in Gus Van Sant’s Promised Land, DeWitt is showing other actors how to take on a variety of projects.
“If I could plot the rest of my career I would only do indie movies and have them pay more big budget salaries,” the actress joked in an interview with Moviefone. “I like the pace of the indies. I like being challenged in that way—quickly. I like having the time to prep. And I feel like it’s hard to keep up the energy on a big studio movie because there are so many obligations and you don’t shoot that much. Although it’s nice to have those resources.”
Promised Land, which opens this Friday, is sort of a combination of an indie and a big-budget film—the movie has a indie-like message about environmental woes, while still maintaining a pedigree of a famous director (best known for Good Will Hunting and Milk) and famous costars like Matt Damon and John Krasinski.
DeWitt was drawn to the project because of these assorted benefits. “It was obviously Gus Van Sant, it was the role, but more than all of that was that I wanted to be a part of a story like this,” she said. “The story was about something—it was about these big questions. I felt like it was important to be a cog in that wheel. And I liked my character. I related to her.”
Another attractive piece of the film was the two writers—none other than Damon and Krasinski themselves. DeWitt noted that she enjoyed working with more than one writer. “It was a tremendous resource because sometimes you just miss something,” the 38-year-old said. “At the same time you get a little nervous if you go on a little riff or change it up, that they’ll be like “No no no no no, say my words!’ But they’re not like that.”
DeWitt will continue making unexpected career choices by appearing in the second season of Aaron Sorkin’s HBO drama, The Newsroom, later this year.
