WYATT
RUSSELL
Kurt and
Goldie’s son
talks beats
and Marvel.Are you somebody who reads the book
when you’re doing a project like this,
or do you build the character purely
from the screenplay?
Normally, I’d read the book to get as
much information as I can get. This one,
because David, the character I was
playing, had no understanding of what
was in Anna’s head, I felt like it wasn’t
beneficial to read so much prose that
was only known to her. So the less
I knew, the better it would actually be.Did you enjoy the rehearsal time?
It was great, rehearsals were a luxury,
and a benefit – we’d always find
something in rehearsal that we hadn’t
thought about before. Joe [Wright], you
know, his movies are kind of known for
their pacing, and that was something that
we worked on in rehearsal – that pacing,
and that tone, and trying to pace it out,
so that we were all in the same
pentameter. I did something which I’d
never done before, but I thought it was
beneficial, and I thought it could help me,
so I tried it – I rehearsed lines to a
metronome to get the pacing, because
the beats were like music.What was it like working with Amy?
Amy brings this natural, innate ability
to bring people in, and to get people
to sympathise and empathise with
somebody who they don’t really have
the slightest clue what it would be like
to be her. As far as being with her,
and acting with her – she listens and
reacts, and is there in the scene as
good as anybody you could ever hope
to act and be in a scene with. I think
that part of her magic is that she’s taking
something that’s terrifying and making
that somewhat relatable.You’re filming The Falcon And
The Winter Soldier – can you tell
us anything about that?
[laughs] Uh... I can’t say much about
my character because there’s going to
be a big claw that jumps out of the sky
and picks me up, and puts me in Marvel
jail. All I can say, I guess, is that it’s been
really fun. All the people are awesome.
I hope it turns out good. I hope that
people like it. Other than that, I can’t
really say much! JCAdams, who describes Wright as
“at the top of my list”, could see a
“commonality” between her Sharp
H[c^\ml character and Anna in how they
deal with trauma, but was interested in
Wright’s internalising of Anna’s
murder-mystery. “He really broke it
down, almost like a character study of
anxiety. I thought that was a really
interesting thing to explore. I think that
most people I know have some level of
a form of anxiety, so it’s something that
I could really relate to.”
Anxiety is certainly universal (hello,
corona) but another aspect of the film
that will chime with audiences is the
interest in other people’s lives. “My
husband gets very frustrated becauseif we’re in a restaurant and there’s a
conversation behind me, I can’t help
but listen into it,” Adams laughs. “I’m
a complete voyeur in that way. I have
a curiosity about people’s internal life,
and their ‘public versus private’
exploration.” Adds Wright: “It’s a
natural human impulse, really, and
I certainly do it. I try not to literally spy
through the window of my neighbours,
but I think we want to engage with
other people, and our singular
perspective is often incorrect.”
Julianne Moore, playing, Jane
Russell, one of the neighbours that
Anna spies on, agrees when we catch up
with her on a Sunday in NY: “We all
do that, you know? We’re endlesslyTOTAL FILM | APRIL 2020MAKING OF