Gay&Night Januari 2014

What’s the hardest part
of playing a transgender
woman?
There are little things, technical
things like the voice and the walk
and remembering not to all of a
sudden go, ‘Hey bro’ in the middle
of scene. But I think it’s probably the
commitment over a long period of
time – 5AM, covered in sores, a ton
of makeup and wigs, sitting in the
makeup chair for hours and hours
and hours. The commitment, the
concentration and the focus are the
hardest. Sometimes you want to
just rip your wig off, walk down the
street, escape and never come back.
Did people treat you
differently, considering you
were always in character
during the shoot?
What I found interesting is how
the most masculine, toughest guys
were the ones that treated me the
most gentle. After just a couple of
days I think in their eyes I became a
different person. There was a lot of,
‘right this way ma’am’, and holding
my hand when I got out of the van.
People took good care of me. It was
very sweet to be a dainty little lady
like that.
What have you been up to
for the past six years?
Thirty Seconds to Mars. I am in a
band and if you are old like me, you
probably don’t know about it. It’s
funny, I was an actor, although I
had always made music since I was a
kid. I played music with my brother,
he’s in the band, and we had tons of
success, we had more success than
we could have ever dreamed, if I
can say that without sounding like a
jerk. When that happens, do you say
no? We toured the world; we played
from Africa to Asia to the Arctic and
did the biggest shows that we could
ever imagine. We played at festivals
in Europe, sometimes in front of one
hundred thousand people. It’s easy
for five years to go by when you are
doing that.
You mentioned Chapter 27
earlier and I honestly didn’t
realize you were in that
movie while I was watching
it. How do you feel when
somebody tells you that?
I think it’s fine. I appreciate that.
I think I would much rather have
someone see the role. I remember
this story about Harrison Ford. His
first job, he played a bellman or a
bellboy and afterwards the studio had
brought him in and they said to him:
‘I don’t see a movie star there, that’s
not a movie star’, and Harrison Ford
goes, ‘That’s funny, I thought you
were supposed to see a bellman’. I am
kind of like that. It might not be the
path to movie stardom, but I think it’s
the path to delivering a
solid character.
What was the return to
acting like?
I think that the break from acting
is actually the best thing I have
ever done for me as an actor. It’s
almost like I started again from the
beginning in some ways, but with
a greater sense of myself, a greater
sense of confidence in my choices.
I think that I became a much
better actor.
Is this a denite return to
acting?
This is the last film I will ever make.
(laughs) No, I don’t know.
The director said there
wasn’t enough music
because of the budget. Did it
ever occur to you to put your
music in it?
No, separation of church and state,
you have to keep it equal and
separate.
How is Thirty Seconds to
Mars doing?
We’re still here, we put an album out
a few months ago, called Love, Lust,
Faith and Dreams, and we just won
an MTV award for Best Rock Video,
which shows you how that world has
kind of shrunken a bit probably, that
it’s not such a huge part of the pop
culture zeitgeist, but things are great.
We have a new single out called ‘City
of Angels’ and we are touring the
world, things are fantastic.
Have your band mates seen
the lm?
No, I haven’t even talked to them
about it. They have no clue.
How do you transport the
acting into music?
I don’t think I really do, except for the
music videos we make. We make these
kind of really elaborate music videos
and we’ve had a lot of success with
those.
You don’t bring your actor
when you perform as a
musician?
“I had
to lose
over 30
pounds
for this
lm”
No. The difference is, there’s no
character building there except for
yourself. You are you. I think on stage
you are sometimes more of you in a
way than when you’re in a one on
one conversation. It’s very intimate.
I feel more comfortable on stage. I
performed at the O2 Arena in London,
sold out show, 20,000 people, me and
the acoustic standing in the middle of
the crowd where the soundboard is,
so 360 degree view, one spotlight on
me and I felt more comfortable in that
moment than I do in most one on one
conversations at a party. I think it’s a
common feeling for performers. Being
on stage with a band is completely
different from making a film. The
nuance, the subtext, being on stage
can just be so overt, bombastic.
What was it like to
work with Matthew
McConaughey?
I think he may be the biggest reason
I made the film. I thought, if he is
willing to walk down this path, there’s
got to be something special, there’s
got to be gold in them hills, right?
He’s obviously making interesting
choices. There’s no mistake that
he’s reaching to a place that’s really
challenging, and interesting, making
smart films, smart choices, but he was
a force to be reckoned with. I don’t
know if you’ve ever played tennis; I
myself am not a great tennis player,
but I can return a ball if you hit it
to me probably. But if you got out
there with Andre Agassi or one of
those guys, if he was feeling gentle
or gracious, he could lob that ball to
you and probably keep you going
for hours. The greats like Matthew
are like that too. They have a lot of
control; they can send that ball to you
and make things really easy for you.
He was great, so generous, so kind, he
had been working on this project for
a long time and he opened the door
for me. That was really wonderful,
since I hadn’t been on set for almost
six years.
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