JOY IS AVAILABLE ON DIGITAL HD, BLU-RAY™ AND DVD ON 25TH APRIL FROM TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Q: What interested you about this film and the character?
A: “Every actress in town wants to work with David Russell! David is a genius. He tested several stars for my role. I didn’t have to test for the part. All David did was talk to me on the telephone. He offered me the role and I was thrilled. I love the film and what a beautiful name: JOY! And it opens on Christmas day? [The film comes out in many countries on 25th December] What a wonderful Christmas present for everybody.”
Q: Can you discuss your inspiration for your character, Mimi, Joy’s grandmother?
A: “You know, the Indians have a saying that the soul of the grandchild lives in the heart of the grandmother. I love that saying. I told David that. And when I first walked in that day to begin rehearsal, Jennifer [Lawrence] was standing there and David said, ‘Jennifer, meet your grandmother.’ Mimi is a woman who loves her granddaughter and sees something in her. There is a soul bond between Mimi and Joy.”
Q: What is that bond all about?
A: “Mimi is kind of like an angel. She has been waiting for this child, who has the special gift of imagination. Everybody else in the family is putting her down, telling her, ‘no, you can’t do that, behave, grow up, stop your daydreaming.’ But her grandmother is different. When Joy is young, Mimi subtly takes the child aside and tries to talk to her and inspire her. Joy has a pretty dysfunctional family, but she can survive it with the help of her grandmother. If one human being loves you so much and whispers into your ear, ‘you can do it,’ you can get up the next day and go back out again. I was lucky, because I had a father, a veterinarian in Mississippi, who said, ‘Diane, you can do any damn thing you put your mind to, girl.’”
Q: You’ve worked with many great directors. Can you discuss your experience of working with David O. Russell?
A: “I think he’s a genius, one of our great filmmakers and I’ve had the privilege of working with a couple of them, like David Lynch (WILD AT HEART 1990) and Martin Scorsese (ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE 1974). David’s right up there with them. He doesn’t hit you over the head or preach at you. He lifts you up emotionally and lets you see things for themselves. That’s great filmmaking. I am so privileged to have worked with him. At first you have to get used to David’s way of working because you can be in the middle of a scene and you turn around and he is there. To begin with I thought, ‘what are you doing in my scene? Why aren’t you over there telling me what to do?’ It takes a while to learn how to communicate with him, to find out how he works, because it is a new relationship. But when you get there, he is fantastic to work with. That is why a lot of directors like to work with actors they know, who they’ve worked with in the past, because they have already broken that barrier. They see inside each other.”
Q: What is special about Jennifer Lawrence?
A: “She is a born actress. Her talent comes from her intuition. I watch her work and she goes into that ‘higher intuitive self’ almost without knowing she’s doing it. It’s like swimming. You watch some swimmers swim so smoothly that they don’t even think about what they’re doing. They cut through the water. That’s the way Jennifer works and she’s magnificent.”
Q: Do you think it’s true that some people like Jennifer have an innate gift?
A: “I do. I think God gave her an incredible gift. When I was 17, someone asked me ‘what makes you think you’re such a great actress?’ I answered automatically, ‘I was consummated an actress and given birth to become a better one.’ It was a very ‘young’ answer, but there’s a lot of truth in that answer. And that’s what I feel about Jennifer. She was consummated to be an actress. That’s also what I’ve thought about my daughter, Laura (Dern). If Laura and Jennifer were to work together, woo hoo! The roof would come off the building (laughs). They met each other, and said they felt like they were sisters. You know, I think some people know they are going to be a doctor or a lawyer or a politician, or an inventor, or a musician, whatever it might be, and I think that Jennifer’s soul knew that she was coming in [to the world] as an artist.”
Q: What was it like working with Jennifer?
A: “She was lovely, she never pulled rank, she never played ‘star ’ and she is a star, she won an Oscar. But she was wonderfully nice and loving to me and very calm, and oh my goodness she is such a terrific professional. A lot of people have an attitude that something is owed to them. They get very snobbish when they get famous. But Jennifer is down to earth and she gives one hundred and fifty percent of herself. That’s the key. The harder you work, the luckier you are. And I can tell you this young lady really works hard. She’s a pro.”
Q: How interesting was it working with the other cast members?
A: “There are so many great performances in this film. Some of us have known each other for years. I love working with Bobby (De Niro). He and I did a play 42 years ago that Shelley Winters wrote: ONE NIGHT STANDS OF A NOISY PASSENGER. We’re both ‘Actors Studio’ Stanislavsky Method people. We looked at each other, and we said, ‘we’re still here. We’re still doing it.’ It was wonderful. I love Isabella Rossellini; she is an amazing person. We are dear friends and she’s a good friend of Laura’s too. I think this is one of Bradley Cooper’s finest performances [as the home shopping network executive who supports Joy]. He came in to be part of the movie and didn’t worry about anything and the performance just flowed right out of him.”
Q: What do you think JOY is all about?
A: “I think it’s David O. Russell’s most important film. I look around the world at what is happening to the human race, we’re not living in the easiest of times and we need inspiration more than ever, now. The film is about not giving up. It is about being true to yourself. The humanity of the film is so touching and inspiring, not only to women, but men too. It is about what you have to ask yourself in life: did you put your dream aside? Where is it now? What dreams did you lay down in order to go to work and survive and make a living? Whether it is to write the great novel or a great piece of music or to open a pastry shop, different individuals, depending on their gifts, have different dreams. This movie says, pick your dream up, dust it off, and while there’s a breath in you, try to accomplish it. Go for it.”
Q: The film has been inspired by the stories of daring and courageous women particularly Joy Mangano, who invented the Miracle Mop. How impressed are you by her story?
A: “She is amazing. Has she had success, or what! But she did have to fight for it every step of the way, just like Joy in the film. I applaud that mop she invented. Why wouldn’t I want a mop like that? I use her coat hangers [that she invented] in my closet. Also, Joy Mangano was inspired by her own grandmother.”
Q: Your character narrates the film, how interesting was that part of your role and what do you think the narration brings to the story?
A: “Narrating the film was a great honor. I was not originally hired to be the narrator. I was hired only to play Mimi. So I finished my role and went away to work on another film called SOPHIE AND THE RISING SUN. When I came back from filming in South Carolina, I got a call from David and the producers saying they had made a decision that Mimi should be the narrator. They said it would give the film the thread of heart and soul and guidance, like Clarence [the angel played by Henry Travers] in IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE [Frank Capra’s 1946 classic starring James Stewart], because Mimi is the person who sends Joy positive energy. Doing the narration was the hardest work I’ve ever had to do, in that I had to lower my voice three octaves to a grandmother’s voice. I couldn’t have done it without David O. Russell’s genius guidance. His ear is unbelievable. David O. Russell is the ‘zing’ in amazing!”
Q: There are powerful and complex female characters in JOY. Is it getting easier for women in Hollywood do you think?
A: “It’s not easy because there are not a lot great roles for women, especially for women my age. I think it’s just as hard or harder. There are 23 male acting roles for every one female part. When I did the film, ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE, we all thought it was going to change things, because in the old days, there had been so many magnificent actresses like Bette Davis, Greer Garson and Barbara Stanwyck, but it did not happen and that’s not the case now. We need more women in great roles like we have in JOY and we need more human films to make people feel good.”
Q: You play Joy’s grandmother and you are a grandmother yourself, how enjoyable is that part of your life?
A: “I have two grandchildren by my daughter Laura. The oldest, a boy, is 14, and the girl just turned 11. I also have six grandchildren by my husband’s family and two stepchildren from Laura’s former marriage to the musician Ben Harper, (from his previous marriage.) And I consider them as my grandchildren. Then there are two more children I call grandchildren because we took them into our family. It means a great deal to me that I can share my life and impart something to the next generation. We are living in a more mechanized world than when we when we were raising our children. The world is faster. We don’t stand with our children around the piano and sing at night. They’re off in the corner playing computer games on their telephone. In life, there are always two steps forward and one step back, and the step back can be detrimental. I get the time to spend with my grandchildren in a different way than their parents do. The other day, one of my grandchildren had an argument with her mother. I took her out on the lawn, put a blanket down, and we lay on the blanket and looked up at the sky, and I said, ‘let’s just relax and look at nature. Isn’t it beautiful?’ She became so relaxed and talked about how she felt, and I had the time to do that with her. That’s what grandparents are for.”
Q: It seems like acting is in your family’s DNA. You’ve often worked with your daughter Laura Dern, are there any plans to work with her again?
A: “Oh yes I would love to work with Laura. In RAMBLING ROSE (1991), we made history as the only mother and daughter in history to both be nominated for Oscars. It was a film Princess Diana chose as her favorite movie. She had a royal premiere in our honor. Laura and I worked together recently in ENLIGHTENED [the TV series]. We work very differently, but like her father, my ex-husband, the actor Bruce Dern, we still work incredibly well together. I think to work with someone you love is a gift from the universe.”
Q: I believe you did not encourage Laura to act when she was a child?
A: “That’s right, she wanted to be an actress and I said, ‘no, be a doctor, be a lawyer, anything.’ I said, Laura, ‘it is too intangible. You will be judged all your life.’ She said, ‘oh mother. You’re so spiritual. You always encourage everybody to use their gifts. If I could play the piano, would you tie my hands behind my back and not let me play?’ She got a small part in a movie called FOXES (1980) and the director, Adrian Lyne said: ‘Diane, I want you to see her in this movie,’ I watched her in the little cameo and I started crying. Everybody has given a gift whether it is to bake a cake or fix a tooth. Laura has the gift of acting. I am prejudiced (laughs) but I think she is an incredible actress. She is an incredible, caring, human being as well and a fantastic mother. Her father, Bruce (Dern) and I are still friends. There’s a line in JOY about Joy and Tony being the best divorced couple in America. And in real life Joy Mangano’s ex husband works with her. She has unconditional love. Well this Christmas Eve, my husband, Robert Hunter, myself and Bruce Dern, with his wife, Andrea, will be having dinner with our daughter, Laura Dern, and our grandchildren. We do it every year. It is wonderful.”
Q: You are so positive, what does joy mean to you?
A: “It means getting rid of the negatives. They’re all around you; you are going to step into them every single day of your life. You’ve got to rise above it all. Of course, my beautiful grandchildren bring me joy, the next generation. I believe we all have to fight together as a human race to become a human family. Joy is about gratitude. Can we take the time to say thank you or hold the door open for somebody?”
Q: Does your work continue to bring you joy?
A: “My greatest joy is fulfilling myself as an actress. I don’t always like the business, but I love my work, and my work is to reflect humanity so that you can identify with the characters. I’ve done four films back to back this year. I don’t want to retire until the curtain goes down on this play. No, I’ll hop out of bed and crawl to work.”
Q: How fulfilling is life and work nowadays?
A: “It is wonderful. I have a new book I’ve just finished called, ‘A Bad Afternoon for a Piece of Cake’. I just taught a course at UCLA (University Of California, Los Angeles) for 26 budding actresses and actors from all over the world and it was a privilege. I have a screenplay that is coming to fruition, an incredible film I have worked on for 36 years called WOMAN INSIDE. I am a director, I directed by ex-husband in a picture I did in Europe that won me three Best Director awards, MRS. MUNCK (1995). I am the only woman in history to direct my ex-husband! And now it looks like I’m going to direct and star in my own film soon. There are a lot of men who have done it. Kevin Costner won an Oscar for DANCES WITH WOLVES. Mel Gibson won an Oscar for BRAVEHEART. But they don’t let very many women do it. It looks like Diane Ladd is going to do it with the help of some wonderful people and I’m excited. Life is good. I have three wonderful dogs. I have beautiful flower gardens and I have a home full of love.”
JOY IS AVAILABLE ON DIGITAL HD, BLU-RAY™ AND DVD ON 25TH APRIL FROM TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT
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