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. 14
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