Sarah Shahi Tackles Fairly Legal

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Tuesday, 03 April 2012 14:18

Written by Brad Balfour

Though Sarah Shahi seems far too beautiful to be the feisty lawyer Kate Reed in Fairly Legal, she proves to understand her character far too well.

As the series opens, Kate's father has just died, leaving Kate and the firm to adjust to the loss just as she changes her profession from lawyer to mediator to work at the San Francisco law firm her father started.

Q: What responsibility do you feel towards portraying lawyers?

SS: I actually don’t feel any responsibility towards lawyers, to be honest with you. To me, my responsibility is to the character and telling the highest degree of truth… for storytelling that I possibly can for every moment. My research for this character was never about opening a law book because that’s not what she’s about.

 She’s a much more intuitive, much more emotionally connected person than just a lawyer.  So in that sense, I don’t feel any responsibility.

Q: Would you agree that in the context of the series storyline, she represents what people go into lawyering for?

SS: Yes, absolutely. I feel like she’s Erin Brockovich, she’s a crusader for the people. She hears what people say they want and gives them what they need. And I do know some lawyers, after all.

Q: And coming from an Iranian family  where the parents all want their kids to become lawyers or doctors.

SS: Yeah, absolutely, or a carpet salesman. In that sense, Kate has been established as a hardcore family person, very close to her father, but that’s the whole point of this character, she rebelled against the law and in some way, her family.

 She has a line in the pilot that defines the show: “Laws are made by people, and people are often wrong.” So she’s going after what’s right at whatever cost that it is.

Q: The show tries to exemplify, in its own snarky way, why people go into lawyering with the best of intentions.

SS: On the other side of it, it is a system that’s corrupt and broken, where sometimes innocent people suffer, and sometimes the guilty go free. It’s not a true and true system, for sure.

Q: So your character changes over time from being rebellious to her family to now upholding the firm. It’s a similar conflict displayed in shows like Boston Legal or The Good Wife.

SS: I’ve never seen those shows.

Q: Never?

SS: Never. I don’t really see anything. I got a fulltime job and a two year old.

Q: Raising a two year old is a full-time job. Is that what made you not want to look at the other legal shows? 

SS: Well, Erin Brockovich [the film and the person] is the only thing that comes to mind that touches on what Kate Reed does. But for the most part I’m not a big fan or procedural TV shows. Kate’s objective is always a very personal, very biased, and very emotionally connected objective which above anything that’s procedural.

 It’s also about the character connections, like with the characters Ben and Warren. Those are the stories I really love to play. I’ve never been a fan of procedural shows, so I’m constantly fighting to prevent this from becoming that.

Q: We are going to see more of Kate in the courtroom as the season goes on...?

SS: It stays out of the courtroom most of the time this season. It’s a little more than last season, but it’s a character whose main objective is to stay out of court. So we do go to court a couple times, but it’s still not court heavy.

Q: So how do you inform the character in this context? You’re not exactly Perry Mason.

SS: [laughs] She’s not Perry Mason, no. To me, the center of the show is Kate Reed’s spirit and passion. Kate doesn’t have very many procedural heavy legal jargon things to say, so to inform myself in that way, it didn’t feel real.  

It’s the job of the other characters to know legal jargon and spit dialogue back and forth. But for Kate Reed, it’s all about how she feels and how the people feel, and you’re not going to find that in any law book. I try to play someone who is very emotionally invested in the people that she meets. 

To her, this not just a job, to her it’s a lifeline, a connection to her father, her morals, and her sense of truth. Then there’s Kate’s personal dynamic, which is to fix everybody up but herself. The more she throws herself into work and clients, the less she has to think about her own problems and flaws. 

I hope I manage to actually portray someone with flaws and not this perfect person solving cases left and right. Those things were more important to me than to be than to be accurate about law terminology with this anti lawyer character on an anti-lawyer show.

Q: The other side of Kate is this person trying to deal with a relationship. There’s a lot of back and forth.

SS: The character Justin tells her he cheated on her at the end of the last season and the goal of this season is to take Kate’s security blanket out of her hands, and we just ripped it out of them in this first episode. Justin confessed to cheating on her, and her boat, which was a connection to her father, blows up. So the boat kept her from growing up in a way, it kept her out of the city and sort of disconnected. 

She always used Justin as a lifeline, when she didn’t have anybody, she could trust Justin to be there. So they do get divorced, but they don’t stop sleeping with each other, so as the season goes on, there are a lot of ups and downs in their relationship. 

 And then there’s Ben Grogan who gets under Kate’s skin, but they have some sentimental moments as the series progresses and she realizes he’s more than just money hungry. So she’s torn, hearts are broken, she’s going on dates with them, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. 

It’s a really nice soap opera kind of romantic comedy element.

Q: It has a post-modern or post-feminist context with all these conflicting elements.

SS: I don’t know if it’s post-feminist or not. My whole goal was to make a character people find relatable, whether it’s… more so women than men, you’re right, but it’s a woman who is lead less by her emotions than her heart, and I think people can relate to that.

 Whether it’s your boss being your step-mother to being in an off-again-on-again with a relationship with an ex that’s good and bad for you, she’s challenged by being in this world where everyone is telling her to grow up. But if growing up means giving up on your ideals and not fighting for what’s right, then she doesn’t want anything to do with it.

Q: How does this role fit into your evolution of who you are and you as an actor?

SS: Kate and I are similar. Definitely what I play of her is a combination of Michael Sardo, who created the character, and me. I slip into this role without any kind of vanity.

Q: You sound invested and passionate about it.

SS: It’s refreshing to find a character that is unapologetic in her boldness, that is flawed. A modern day successful woman that’s playing in the big leagues, but doing it in her own way and is a good role model. Kate and I are very similar. 

We’re both very feisty, we’re both very carpe-diem and bold, but the way we’re different is that Kate is a bit childish immature, and Kate has to grow emotionally. I’m different. I’m a wife and a mother, I don’t want to be immature, I have to be ready at all times.

Q: In a way, Kate allows you that outlet.

SS: Absolutely. I love playing her because I get to act out, I get to be the child, I get to stomp my foot and say this isn’t fair. Those are all the things Kate gets to do. She says things other adults think, but are too grown up to say.

Q: Does your husband see you or another side of you in Kate?

SS: Both. She is a big part of who I am, but she’s not all of who I am.

Q: I realize that. Do the objects in her office reflect you and who she is?

SS: I like the record player.

Laura Osnes Sings Rodgers & Hammerstein (Again!)

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Wednesday, 28 March 2012 05:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Pipe Dream
Starring Laura Osnes, Will Chase, Leslie Uggams, Tom Wopat
Book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; music by Richard Rodgers
Directed by Marc Bruni

The Sound of Music
Starring Laura Osnes, Tony Goldwyn, Brooke Shields, Stephanie Blythe
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; music by Richard Rodgers

Since 2007, when she won the lead role of Sandy in the Broadway revival of Grease on the reality show You’re the One That I Want, Laura Osnes has become one of the most sought-after young musical performers in New York.

Read more: Laura Osnes Sings Rodgers &...

Bérénice Bejo & Jean Dujardin Turns "The Artist" Into Wins

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Sunday, 26 February 2012 22:37

Written by Brad Balfour

Q: What excited both of you about doing a silent film?

JD: The challenge. The love story, the body language, maybe, [acting] with the dog -- and Bérénice.

BB: We're never going to get the chance to do that ever again. I thought it was never going to happen to me again. As an actor, you never dream about doing this movie. I never even dreamed to be here and talking with you, but that's another story.

I was happy to see myself in this movie. Sometimes actors say, "I don't like to watch myself." I was very pleased to see myself onscreen in these images and this story, and of course my director directed it. 

Q: What was it like shooting in Hollywood and recreating that period of Hollywood?

JD: Shooting in LA is very motivating -- the set, the Paramount lot, the Warner lot, the Orpheum Theater.

BB: The house of Mary Pickford. He actually wakes up in Mary Pickford's bed, so that's not nothing. Every morning we had drivers or we drove, but going down the hills of Los Feliz, going to Hollywood, Warner, Paramount, it was like being the character -- arriving on set, speaking American with the crew. 

But for me, it gave me an authenticity and I really felt I was part of the movie. I read the Gloria Swanson autobiography so I could have a feeling of the atmosphere back in the time. 

So when I arrived in LA and I actually drove past Charlie Chaplin's studios, Sunset Boulevard, and Hollywood and everything, even if it's not the same, you feel like you're really into the story. It was great. I love it.

JD: And the American faces.

BB: Yeah, the extras. We were so amazed about the extras. Everybody worked. Everybody had a little story in the head, even if he's in the background, he cut his hair and he's really into it. In France, people read books, [then] "Action!" "What is it about? Yeah, whatever." Here, we were like so pushed up. We love it.

Q: Were there any particular silent actors that you saw in a US film that you got the inspiration from?

JD: Yes, a lot. I watched a lot of Douglas Fairbanks movies. Gene Kelly for his smile, his energy; Vittorio Gassman; Clark Gable -- and me, pretending to be a movie star in the 1920s. 

BB: I watched a lot of Joan Crawford when she was like 20, 25 years old, because she started exactly like Peppy. She started as a flapper and then she did silent movies and then talking movies. So I really thought that her energy was close to Peppy. 

I needed to find how to be an American actress. I'm not an American actress, especially not an American actress in the '30s, so I had to really look at her. So I looked at her in Grand Hotel with [John] Barrymore and I thought she was so beautiful and adorable. At one point you have to forget everything, all of your references, because we've been watching so many movies. 

I didn't know [Frank] Borzage movies, [W.F.] Murnau movies, King Vidor, so what I really liked the first time I saw all those movies was that the actors were very modern the way they acted. 

They were not pantomime or anything like that, and I realized that you didn't have to do so much to express things. Because it's all about your face, and because you can't hear any noise, people really focus on everything on your face. 

Q: Some actors might feel that because of motion capture, what James Cameron did with Avatar, and some other technology, there's some debate over whether or not that will be the future of cinema.

BB: I don't think so. I think we'll have both. As an audience, I love to see actors, too. I love to see animation and everything, but human beings [are] always going to be human beings. We always need [that]. 

And even if you have lots of emotion with Avatar, it doesn't mean that you don't have it when you see a normal movie. You have lots of different kinds of things and sometimes you want to see Avatar and sometimes you want to see The Artist. Today [it] is The Artist. 

It's like having kids -- when you have one, then you have another one, it's not less love, it's more love, and again more. You don't split, it's just more.

Q: A lot of this movie is about the film industry going through a transition. What part of the film industry do you wish more people would appreciate before it's gone? 

BB: What I think that I really like in The Artist is the way it's edited, because you take the time to see a scene and it doesn't go so fast. 

I think today everything goes so fast that you don't have time to watch a beautiful shot. Some directors, yes. But I think the movies are going too fast and [have] lots of special effects, and the story is actually smaller than the effects sometimes. 

But then it's not against 3D or special effects, because I love them. I love animated movies, I love 3D. It's just [that] you have different kinds of movies, and that's another kind and that's another experience. 

It doesn't take something from us. Special effects or 3D doesn't change our way of acting, our way of approaching a character. It's just for the audience [that] it's something new.

JD: It's not at all the same transition today. From silent films to talking films was probably violent for actors at the time. Special effects improve and add things to movies.

Q: So how did you two work together? What was the process?

BB: We sat down maybe twice. We rehearsed a lot of the tap dancing, but we didn't work too much at the table.

JD: Tap dancing for five months.

BB: Yeah, tap dancing was five months. But we read the script [together] maybe twice.

Q: Were there lots of takes?

BB: Not a lot of takes because we didn't have lots of time. So maybe we [did] four takes, five takes. We had just 35 days of shooting. We knew each other, we worked together already, so we were really so happy to be on set together and work again. And we knew Michel.

JD: Comfortable. It was comfortable.

Q: Working with this director, was it easier or harder for you?

BB: I met him on set with Jean. I remember Jean and I going back to the hotel speaking about Michel, and the fact that we were so amazed at how calm he was on set. 

It was a big movie, and it was his first big movie. I loved the way he directed everything and everything had a purpose, like every object was in the frame for a reason. 

I was very excited to do another movie with him. He was the director, I was the actress, so there was no husband-wife thing on set. And [Jean] was his "wife" too, so I had to share my husband with him. It's like a little joke we had, the three of us.

JD: No, no joke.

BB: It's not a joke? I had to share.

Q: So you had a certain degree of intimacy?

BB: Oh, yeah. You didn't share the bed. But he's very calm on set and he's very focused on the work, and he loves actors. 

That sounds silly to say, but some directors don't really enjoy working with actors. He really enjoyed working with us and helping us to find new directions. He loves watching actors act. He's always saying "I'm the director, you're the actor. You do your job and I watch you and I help you if you need some help." But [he's] not a manipulative director.

JD: He's very calm, he thinks a lot. He prepares beforehand so that he can take his time on set. We have the same method. I try to really prepare everything ahead of time and then I can have fun on set.

BB: He storyboarded the whole movie. And it's mine, it's my book.

JD: He's not like a "directive" director. He trusts his actors. They propose things and then he'll give nuanced direction.

Q: And the dog? Were you ever fearful of him upstaging you?

BB: Well, yeah. He had the best actor. I didn't get anything.

JD: Yes, because we are the same character, Uggy and me -- Siamese twins.

Q: Since this film has raised the bar for you two, how will it affect the way you choose future roles?

JD: It's a story. It won't change anything. It's just a passage. I don't want it to change. I want to stay intact, to keep the fun and the pleasure I have, to keep my doubts. It's healthier to have doubts.

BB: For me, there will definitely be a before and after The Artist, because I think for the French audience, really, it's a character that really put me somewhere else. I enjoy the body language so much, and I trust myself more than I used to before the Artist.

[As] for choice, it's very hard, because when you have the chance of doing such a beautiful movie, everything looks kind of faded after that. 

But then I think, okay, I'm not going to do that ever again. That doesn't mean that I can't do anything that really challenges me. So I just keep that in mind and go on.