Eva Mendes new film, “Last Night” opens on May 6 and co-stars Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington as a married couple lured by temptation. Mendes, who plays Laura in the film, says she liked the gray areas threaded throughout this film, because she feels life is neither black nor white.
“It’s not anything that calculated as far as when I’m presented with a film. I look to see obviously the script. And if I respond to it, I look to see whose directing it and who I will actually be onscreen with. So I’m really particular about the people I work with. I make my decisions based on character, director, co-stars. And a lot of times those roles call for being sexy, some call for being goofy or emotional or whatever it is they call for. In no way is that a thought in my head.”
Mendes says an actor need not draw upon personal experience in order to portray a certain type of character, rather it is all in the prep work.
“I do what I do with every character, I go over the script with my acting coach and we break down a character, whether it’s a cartoon, a comic book character. A big movie I did with Werner Herzog, playing a prostitute, obviously I had no experience, thank god, playing that role. So what you do is you just break down the character and it becomes somewhat of a case study and that’s what I love about acting. That process of sitting down and breaking down a character and finding out the reason why someone does what they do. We all have reasons for doing things and I think the more extreme the act the deeper the reason is. It’s just about getting into that head space and really exploring that.”
via speakeasy
1 Comment
i always find different actors’ methods really interesting. Their breadth of research and background work is really a testament to their careers.