NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...

particular folly, and their counterparts seconded
them. Ms. Irglova said most of those scenes had b
een either improvised or shot with little rehearsa
l, and that she and Mr. Hansard — neither of whom
had acting training — basically riffed on their ow
n personalities.
“Girl was a kind of woman I would aspire to be som
eday, because she had great honesty and integrity,
which are important to me,” Ms. Irglova said. “If
part of the character isn’t in you, I don’t think
it’s believable.”
Ms. Milioti took a somewhat different point of view
.
“I like acting because you have so many things you
can do in performance to hide behind, when you’re
nervous during a moment onstage,” said Ms. Miliot
i, who has appeared in dramatic roles at New York
Theater Workshop in “The Little Foxes” and “The He
art Is a Lonely Hunter.” “I often paint my charact
ers in broad colors, big expressive moments, where
as in reality I’m pretty direct and unsentimental.”
Those two adjectives, as it happens, are good desc
riptions of Ms. Irglova’s performance in the film.
During one scene, in both the movie and the music
al, the two main characters sit in his bedroom and
Guy suddenly asks Girl to spend the night. It was
one of the hardest scenes for Mr. Hansard, he rec
alled, but relatively easy for Ms. Irglova.
“I felt the proposition came out of nowhere,” Mr.
Hansard said, “but Mar was grand. She just sat on
the bed in that scene and held my gaze and looked
like someone you could say anything to. No pretens
e.”
Mr. Kazee said he and Ms. Milioti were performing
the scene in a similar way, but not because they w
anted to ape the film.