Interviewed by: Victor Ozols
Source: Black Book

Brussels sprouts and beer. It’s not a pairing I’d ever considered, but for Vera Farmiga, it’s lunch. At least, that’s what she’s having on a brilliantly sunny July afternoon in New York when we meet at the restaurant of the Crosby Street Hotel, a posh spot in Soho with an attractive young staff and an old-fashioned drawing room. Yet these are no ordinary Brussels sprouts. These cute little cabbage cultivars are enlivened by the addition of bacon and sliced apple, which is a lot more appetizing than, say, hair.

“As a child I hated Brussels sprouts. They would make me gag,” says the stunning, blue-eyed Ukrainian-American actor who played one side of a love triangle formed with Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon in Martin Scorsese’s 2006 Oscar winner The Departed, and ruffled a few hotel bed sheets with George Clooney in the critically acclaimed 2009 film Up in the Air, a role that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. “But Mama was always looking over our shoulders because Stalin wants you to eat everything on your plate,” she continues, referring to her parents’ experience under the ever-present watch of the mustachioed former Soviet Premier. “I would wrap the Brussels sprouts in a napkin and excuse myself to the bathroom, but I wouldn’t flush them—I would just put them on the bottom of the wastebasket. Sure enough, Mama comes in, goes straight to the wastebasket, picks them out—with hair on them and everything —and makes me eat them. And now I love them.”

Farmiga, 38, gracefully sips her Chimay and picks at her Brussels sprouts, insisting that I try one. She’s right, they’re amazing. They’re also easier to digest than the controversial subject of her latest film, Higher Ground. It’s her debut as a director, and she plays the adult version of the film’s protagonist, Corinne, who comes of age in an evangelical Christian community in the Midwest and begins to question her faith as her marriage falls apart. With a delicate yet confident touch both in front of and behind the camera, Farmiga creates a narrative that makes the Christians—who are as fervent as they come—relatable, and renders Corinne’s search for something to believe in as vivid as a baptism in the cold waters of a mountain lake.

The material is pretty deep, and despite how smoothly the story unfolds—writer Carolyn Briggs adapted the screenplay from her 2003 memoir, This Dark World—it takes a while to absorb. I arrive at our interview fresh from a screening of the film, feeling somewhat off balance as I meet its maker. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting to feel much sympathy for the hyper-religious characters in the film, my youthful experiences with the church having left me indifferent at best to organized worship. But Higher Ground challenges the notion that anyone can be reduced to a single dimension. In a film that could have easily trafficked in clichés, her characters—from the adolescent Corinne, played by Farmiga’s kid sister, Taissa Farmiga, to the adult Corinne’s husband Ethan (Joshua Leonard), to Pastor Bill (brought to brilliant life by Norbert Leo Butz)—are complex, nuanced, and conflicted. You’d have to have a lot of scar tissue to not be touched by it on some level.

I’m still processing it, I admit to Farmiga, explaining my initial hesitance to embrace a group so certain of their own salvation. “Yeah, so am I,” she replies, as the waiter fills our water glasses. “But those are my favorite kinds of films. You can have an entirely different perspective, and yet have empathy or compassion and feel for the characters. This is something that challenged me emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually.”

Much like her character in Higher Ground, Farmiga is envious of those who have their relationship with God all figured out—part of the reason she took on the project more than three years ago. As the second of seven children from a religious household in New Jersey, she knows how it feels to long for a deep spiritual connection.“I grew up in a Catholic home, and my dad is a believer,” she says. “I yearn to attain what he has, and I’m jealous of it, and I covet it, because he is someone who feels the breath of God on his face.”

But what of those so-called Christians who spread intolerance, stoke xenophobia, and cast judgment on those with different belief systems? “I know Christians can be very un-Christlike,” she says. A handful of scenes reflect this: Corinne stands idly by as her husband throws her drug-dealing sister out of their house with no second chances offered; a smug Christian marriage counselor explains away Corinne’s internal conflicts by saying, “You are worshipping at the altar of yourself.” Passing judgment, however, isn’t Farmiga’s goal. “I don’t have a bone to pick with the community,” she adds. “I’ve taken many, many parts of it and still hold on dear to them. But it’s hard to talk about. It was just easier to put all these perceptions, these feelings, these ideas, these struggles of my own and just throw them up on the screen.”

Higher Ground certainly includes plenty of struggles. There’s Corinne’s growing doubt in her own faith, of course, but there’s also jealousy, temptation, dishonesty, resentment, abandonment, and a healthy measure of good old American sexual weirdness among the other characters. Corinne’s husband, Ethan, listens to Christian sexual self-help tapes in an ultimately futile attempt to learn how to pleasure her better, while her friend Annika amuses herself by drawing pictures of her husband’s penis. (“Ned loves looking at his penis drawings,” she says to Corinne.)

Yet, as the Bible tells us, those who search for something with all their hearts are bound to find it sooner or later, and Corinne, while not quite reconciling her religious faith by the end of the film, certainly seems to find a measure of peace within herself, as well as the strength to move forward. “My favorite films that I’ve participated in are stories of women experiencing an awakening,” she says, anticipating a question about her predilection for strong female roles. “It’s that simple.”

Higher Ground drew nearly unanimous praise from audiences at Sundance, the Los Angeles Film Festival, and the Tribeca Film Festival, but perhaps the most surprising endorsements come from conservative Christian audiences, who, Farmiga says, appreciate the realistic portrayal of their flock. “There has been a tremendously positive response from [Christian] viewers who are just relieved to see something fully dimensional,” she says. “Some of the Christian films that I’ve tried to watch are kooky and one-dimensional,” she continues. “Good films about faith challenge me in ways that keep me open, receptive, and vulnerable, and my intention was to portray the story—the search—in full. Doubt is a part of faith, and I don’t think that makes it anti-Christian.” And how has the other side taken it? “I’ve had agnostics and atheists who’ve seen it and are moved,” she says. “I think that there’s no way that you can’t acknowledge this film as being a part of a real journey.”

Farmiga’s own journey has taken her a long way, from practicing 10 hours a day with a competitive Ukrainian folk dancing ensemble as a child and teenager (which involved “hopelessly romantic Catskillian nights”) to Syracuse University, where she studied acting, to an Australian television series called Roar (in which she acted alongside the late Heath Ledger) to her breakout role as a drug-addicted mother in Debra Granik’s independent drama Down to the Bone.

It was around that time that comparisons to Meryl Streep began being made, and roles opposite some of the world’s most famous actors started materializing. Still, the old trope about staying grounded seems to describe Farmiga to a tee. When she’s not working, she spends her time with her husband, Renn Hawkey, who was the producer and musical director of Higher Ground, and their two young children—one of whom she was pregnant with during filming—in their Hudson Valley home.

And while she no longer tends a flock of angoran goats as she once did, she still gets plenty of dirt under her fingernails. “I’m an obsessive gardener,” she says. “I’ve been working on my garden for seven years now, and I’m about two planters and a dumptruck load of mulch away from getting it where I want.” With that, she’s off to spend Friday night tending to more domestic matters, such as a dermatitis-afflicted husband, a sniffly baby, and some backyard grilling—the reason for her light lunch. “I’ve got poison ivy to scratch and a runny nose to wipe,” she says, as she gathers her belongings, wishes me well, and disappears into the busy streets of Soho.

Vera Farmiga wasn’t supposed to direct ‘Higher Ground’, a film premiered and acclaimed at this year’s Sundance festival. The actress, who made an impact in the 2006 Scorsese thriller, ‘The Departed’, and won an Oscar nomination in 2010 for her performance in ‘Up in the Air’, was brought into the project to play its main character, Corinne Walker. As the script went through one draft after another, Farmiga found herself committed not just to the story but to how it should be told. “The topic,” she says, “the struggle with spirituality, is something that is not often addressed. I could see it as a feature, putting a magnifying glass to this woman and her life transitions, those moments when we need to remove ourselves from our families, from our deity, to experience solitude—and within that solitude you choose growth.”

Based on a memoir by Carolyn S. Briggs called This Dark World, the project stalled, unfinanced, just at the point Farmiga found she was pregnant and would have nine months of downtime. “I felt the conviction,” she explains. “What I wanted to bring to it was music. I wanted to explore it with lightness and humor. My manager said, ‘Just take control. You tell the story.’ ”

And, boy, did she. In her dual role as director and lead actress, Farmiga has brought together a dream cast of actor’s actors. She also debuts her 16-year-old sister, Taissa Farmiga—“blatant nepotism,” Vera admits—who plays the young Corinne with lovely quiet and a luminous gaze. Faith demands that we close our eyes in prayer, but what if your eyes keep opening? Farmiga has looked at “this dark world” and made a movie full of light.

Interviewed by: Jim Schembri
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)

When opportunity knocks for Vera Farmiga, chances are she’s responsible.

To speak with Vera Farmiga is to speak with the most un-Hollywood actor you could wish for. No airs. No graces. No interview rote. No studio buffer. No specially connected conference call. No waiting by the phone. You’re just given a direct number to call her at a relative’s home in Colorado.

She’s in high spirits. Fresh from the artistic triumph of her directorial debut, Higher Ground, and best known for her Oscar-nominated performance opposite George Clooney in 2009′s Up in the Air, Farmiga is about to enjoy what she hopes will be a strong boost to her Hollywood stock. In the thriller Safe House, Farmiga stars as Catherine Linklater, an office-bound, exposition-spouting CIA agent trying desperately to track down an alleged traitor, played by Denzel Washington, who has been selling secrets to enemies of the US.

The role was first written for a man. ”My feeling is that there was probably a lack of oestrogen in the cast,” Farmiga says. ”I guess there was a great dearth of female characters, so they decided to take Linklater and give him a vagina.”

Legend has it that Vera Farmiga burns the scripts she doesn’t like in a ritual bonfire. It’s a great story, but only half-true and without the bird-flipping connotation.

“It’s not as anarchic as the media would like it to be,” she says with a laugh. “I live in up-state New York and we don’t have proper garbage disposal, so we have to take our trash to the transfer station and separate the plastics from the burnables. My scripts are watermarked and I don’t want them to end up being sold in St Mark’s Place in the East Village with my name on it, so it becomes fertilizer and the ashes get dispersed on my garden. But the media has turned it into something far more volatile!”

The chance to work with legendary American actor-writer Sam Shepard and Irish actor Brendan Gleeson got Farmiga excited, especially after seeing a rough cut of The Guard.

“I was on the fence about [it] for several weeks while they were wooing me,” she says. Then she heard who she would be sharing the bulk of her screen time with. “What can i say? They’re thoroughbreds. That was the draw for me. I knew that I’d be fending off Brendan’s advances when it comes to free-balling and improvisation. He’s the equivalent of a doberman. He’s just a great guy, a heart on two feet, a gentleman.”

But there was a more prosaic motive to take on Safe House.

”For obvious reasons, it’s the kind of film where the probability of it being successful is high, given its pedigree,” she says.

”And unfortunately – well, not unfortunately – the truth of it is that you have to balance the kind of career that I have, which is small, independent films that nobody sees, like Higher Ground, which are real projects of the heart, with things that will keep your digits up.

”Safe House is that kind of an opportunity for me. It’s not so much for credit, it’s also for stability.

”You earn very little money on independent films and I’m the provider for my home, so I do have to think of taking one for the accountant time and again and that means studio pictures.

”[You're not going to hit] a home run every time but it’s true, box-office clout is a real thing to consider for financing for distribution, it’s just part of the equation. When producers consider hiring an actor or actress, they’re also looking at who will sell this film abroad.”

Farmiga has tasted clout. Her Oscar nomination for Up in the Air helped turn Higher Ground into a reality. ”That was key in that scenario,” she says.

”I wanted to play the character so much that I could have made it for pennies … I would have bought my own Red camera and shot with non-actors.”

The film was still a low-budget effort, made for about $1 million.

”This was an opportunity for myself,” she says. ”I didn’t want to direct, it wasn’t something I wanted to achieve; it was by necessity I found myself at the helm. But without that momentary spotlight, the financing would not have come.”

Though the film was critically lauded and Farmiga describes it as the proudest of her career, Higher Ground struggled for an audience.

“I think it has a shelf life on DVD and I find the word of mouth is still getting out,” she says. “It’s inspired work for me, and it’s a universal message regardless of what your faith is and regardless of what your spiritual tenets are. It is faith presented accurately, it is Christianity in the trenches, it’s a great deal messier and far more frustrating than is usually portrayed in film.”

Taking her cue from such Hollywood greats as Carole Lombard and Katharine Hepburn, Higher Ground was also an expression of Farmiga’s firm belief that women need to create their own opportunities in film, rather than wait for offers. “It was me not wanting to stand by, it’s me not wanting to ask for permission,” she says. “It’s me saying ‘OK, I’ve done this over 30 times; I know what moves me, I know what kind of portrayal of women I want to see that I’m not necessarily seeing’. That was just me taking the reign in my own hand and cracking the whip.”

When asked how she feels as she approaches 40 – the age Meryl Streep (and many others) have nailed as being when Hollywood loses interest in actresses – she pauses. Not one to force an answer, she says she has to think about it and asks for an email address. Less than 20 minutes after the interview ends, this pearler pops up in the inbox.

”How do I survey the ol’ 40s approaching arid landscape of work opportunity? Hmmm. I can’t get my knickers in a twist about my age and ageing in an industry that caters to the ids of 14-year-olds.

”I’m from the school of, if you want more, you have to require more from yourself. I’m just going to advance confidently in the direction of my dreams. F— ‘em. As I age, I want to see stories about women my own age; inspirational, illuminating stories. I’ll develop them, I’ll produce them, I’ll direct them, I’ll finance them, I’ll distribute them if I have to.

”There are women who make things better, there are women who change things, there are women who make things happen, who make a difference. I want to be one of those women. If I turn 40 and overnight become frustrated with the scarcity of roles, I’ll vent through my pen and write myself some roles.”

More power to her.

Interviewed by: n/a
Source: Moving Pictures

Vera Farmiga’s career is anything but up in the air. With three films out this year — including her directorial debut, the Sundance sensation “Higher Ground” — the sky’s the limit for the Ukranian-American actress who picked up an Oscar nomination in 2010 for “Up in the Air.” Farmiga has a central role in Duncan Jones’ “Moon” follow-up “Source Code,” as well as Malcolm Venville’s rom com “Henry’s Crime,” in which she plays an actress and the love interest of star Keanu Reeves. In this wide-ranging interview, Farmiga talks about the making of “Henry’s Crime” and “Higher Ground,” the importance of film festivals to independent projects, the blueprint for what she sees as her ideal career and the causes her celebrity has helped provide public awareness of.

Moving Pictures: In “Henry’s Crime,” you play a theatrical actress who also appears in a TV commercial. “BUFFALOTTO!” — your catchphrase in the commercial — is projected with quite a bit of gusto. Did you ever do commercial auditions on your way up through the acting ranks?

Vera Farmiga: I was sent on a couple of commercials auditions in the early days. It’s a personality thing, [but it] wasn’t my gig. You’ve got to be persistent, bubbly and high-spirited. I just wasn’t gung ho to pitch tampons, corn cushions and douches. Dressing up as a life-sized booger for Mucinex wasn’t for me. Perhaps I wasn’t adept at pitching back then. I’m not a natural-born barker, although the Buffalotto commercial in “HC” was indeed terribly exciting for me. Go figure.

MP: As a community theater actress in the film, when was the last time you went to the theater to see a play?

Farmiga: I have a 3-month-old daughter and a 2-year-old son, [so] I can’t remember the last time I did anything for myself, let alone go to the theater to see a play. Wait, that’s not true. My husband and I went to the opening of the Metropolitan Opera in the fall and saw Wagner’s “Das Rheingold.” What a treat. In any moment of duress, try belting “Rheingold! Rheingold! Rheingold!” in A-flat minor — [it’s] a superior way to blow off steam or compete with the excessive whining of your child.

MP: In the film, the troupe you are a part of is acting a Chekhov play. Do you have a passion for Chekhov? Do you find the humor in his works, or do you think he called many of his works “a comedy” just to mess with us?

Farmiga: I like Chekhov. I’m of Slavic descent — I’ll stare at a leaf on the ground and go from mirth and giddiness to despondent heartache in two seconds flat. I do find humor in his work, not a guffaw kind of laughter but the smirk sort. I play an aspiring community theater actress in Buffalo who takes on the role of Madame Ranevskaya in “The Cherry Orchard” — a character whose failure to address the problems facing her estate and her family means eventually losing everything.

It’s quite tragic, to live an illusion of a happier past. But other people’s delusions are funny, no? Not funny ha-ha, but funny smirk. It’s comedy in a farcical way, not hardy-har-har. It’s tough stuff to act, the dual nature of things. Challenging.

MP: When you go to the theater or see a film, can you separate yourself from the business and enjoy it, or do you start imagining which part you would have liked to have portrayed?

Farmiga: If I last through a film — [it’s a] narcoleptic tendency: I slumber during 90 percent of all movies I see, not sure why — I do find it hard to separate myself from the business and just take pleasure in it, especially since having directed. I’m usually breaking it down in my head, noting editing or music choices.

MP: Keanu is often referred to as one of “the nicest guys” to work with. What does that mean on set? Is he giving everyone a back rub, or is it in the way he prepares and commits to a project?

Farmiga: Nice is a lame word to describe Keanu. He’s generous (though I never got a back rub). Earnest. Kind. Quirky. Committed. Forthright. Boyish. Offbeat. Funny. Diligent. Obsessive-compulsive about the character he is playing. Straightforward and mysterious at the same time.

MP: Is it different working with an actor who is also the producer of the project?

Farmiga: Extremely different. Actor-producers never complain about the quality of holding. On the other hand, you can be sure they’ll organize edible catering. You get twice the commitment, twice the fervor. They never take more on-set perks than the other actors.

MP: Jimmy Caan mentors Keanu in the film. Who’ve been your mentors on your path?

Farmiga: Mentors? The late prima ballerina Roma Bohachevsky, the choreographer of the Ukrainian Dance Ensemble Syzokryli I performed with in my teens and 20s. She was the quintessence of grace and elegance. She taught perseverance and the importance of hard work and discipline. Debra Granik is a mentor. I admire her moxie, her refusal to compromise, the way she operates from inspiration. The way she communicates. She’s a poetess. My favorite director I’ve ever worked with by virtue of articulateness and eloquence and her use of metaphor.

Vera Farmiga’s career is anything but up in the air. With three films out this year — including her directorial debut, the Sundance sensation “Higher Ground” — the sky’s the limit for the Ukranian-American actress who picked up an Oscar nomination in 2010 for “Up in the Air.” Farmiga has a central role in Duncan Jones’ “Moon” follow-up “Source Code,” as well as Malcolm Venville’s rom com “Henry’s Crime,” in which she plays an actress and the love interest of star Keanu Reeves. In part two of this wide-ranging interview, Farmiga discusses working with James Caan on the set of “Henry’s Crime” and the making of her directorial debut, “Higher Ground.”

MP: Off camera, at the end of each day, did you and Jimmy hang out? Did he talk about his experiences — “The Godfather,” riding rodeos, etc.? Did you ask him about any specific experience?

Farmiga: After a full day on set, I’m most craving family cuddles. As soon as the director yells “cut,” I’m sprinting to my babies and hubby. But Jimmy was the apple of my eye on set. He and I hung quite a bit during camera setups, communed over lunches. He is so full of vim and vigor, victory and vitriol. He has an arsenal of war stories from yesteryear cinema. He volunteered many juicy stories, none of which I feel comfortable parleying.

MP: Was Jimmy Caan’s hand never not on your thigh when you were doing press for the film in Toronto?

Farmiga: That letch is always trying to cop a feel. He’s got a thing for pregnant ladies, and my thighs were eight months preggers.

MP: With the momentum of your career, is it now less about just working and more about accumulating experiences with great collaborators? Some actors have a list of people with whom they aspire to work. Do you?

Farmiga: I don’t really have a “to do” or “work with” list. The blueprint for my ideal career or life has to do with creativity. Creativity comes by way of inspiration. Sometimes inspiration is a character, sometimes it’s a story, sometimes it’s collaborators, sometimes it’s the incentive of a paycheck. Add productivity and simplicity to any of those ingredients, and it’s the best equation for abundance. I would definitely like to reunite with Debra Granik again. Work with [Pedro] Almodóvar. My son would like me to work with Lightning McQueen.

MP: What’s your least favorite film-press question?

Farmiga: It’s a tie between what’s it like to kiss Leonardo DiCaprio and what’s it like to kiss George Clooney.

MP: The Sundance and Toronto film festivals have been great homes for your performances in recent years. What do these festivals mean to you as an actress?

Farmiga: I’ve a deep affection for both festivals. Without Sundance or Toronto to showcase the films that have been dearest to my heart, I’d probably be administering glaucoma tests in my own optometry business. Both festivals have been launching pads for films I’m most proud of.

MP: Do you ever worry yourself with whether a film has distribution in place when you take on a project, or is the business of film a matter outside your interests?

Farmiga: I never sweat distribution deals not being in place. That would be like worrying if people are going to eat cake at your birthday party before making the invite list. The right script feels like a party. Find a great recipe, use the right ingredients, bake the cake, and they will eat.

MP: Your character went through an awakening of sorts in “Henry’s Crime,” and “Higher Ground,” the film you directed shortly afterwards that made its premiere at Sundance, is also very much a film about awakenings. What is it about that search that so compels you?

Farmiga: I’m drawn to the topic of search and yearning and self-discovery in the same way I’ve always been drawn to it, in the vein of “Snow White,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Sleeping Beauty.” The same kinds of stories amuse and compel me that did when I was a kid — gal encounters hard times or challenging incident [and] meets a goofy, longing set of people that give her perspective and make her a better person. It’s a pretty simple formula, works every time.

MP: In Toronto, Keanu joked that even while you were pregnant, you were not the type of person who would stay idle, that you’d record a book on tape or write a novel. He wasn’t wrong. You went off and didn’t just make a movie but made a significantly poignant film that made it into Sundance. Is there no such thing as downtime in your world?

Farmiga: The last year has been robust. “Higher Ground” preproduction happened in first trimester, production happened in second trimester, and postproduction happened in third. Both film and baby girl were simultaneously born. … I love to nap — that’s the extent of being idle. Downtime for me is usually some type of work: pruning trees and perennials, leaf blowing, mowing the lawn, shearing goats [and] knitting my husband sweaters from their wool. Hiking. Exploring.

Interviewed by: n/a
Source: The Film Experience

You may expect, when sitting down to discuss a serious and deeply felt indie with two award-winning actresses that the air would be heavy with purpose or self-reflection. The film in question is the provocative Higher Ground, a drama about a born-again woman named Corrine (Vera Farmiga) struggling with her faith in a tight knit religious community. But the initial conversation proves more sartorial than spiritual.

Vera Farmiga, who has walked her share of red carpets (especially two years back with that well deserved Oscar nomination for Up in the Air) has forgotten the shoes she intended to bring for the next stop on the publicity circuit. Dagmara Dominczyk, her friend and co-star, is immediately sympathetic. Dagmara, you see, has just been shopping. Since she’s arrived to the interview first, her contagious sense of humor is already familiar.

“Between the dressing room and my house it changed from ‘Awesome!’ to ‘what was I thinking?’,” Dagmara confesses, laughing, about the dress she’s just purchased.

Higher Ground, Deepest Chemistry

The actresses have such an easy warm rapport — they quite literally finish two of each other’s sentences and speak in unison twice during our time together — that their mesmerizing chemistry onscreen as two Jesus-loving housewives with a physically intimate and spiritually edifying friendship is suddenly right there all palpable in three dimensions. Not the kind you have to wear glasses to see.

“Chemistry is a funny thing. It’s either there or it’s not. And if it’s not it’s a bitch …but it is possible.” Vera says with Dagmara instantly agreeing that it was just there for them; they can’t even remember how they met. “I personally think it’s incredibly difficult to not have chemistry with Dagmara.” Vera adds with a smile, and explains the very obvious: the moment one meets Dagmara one feels close to her.

“My first girl crush!” Dagmara interjects about Vera. “I’ve never had a girl crush before. I’m just putting it out there!”

The actresses had both been with the labor of love project for some time. Vera was attached as an actress for three years when one of the screenwriters Tim Metcalfe was set to direct. They massaged the script and tried to get financing. Dagmara played Annika (Corrine’s best friend) in an early table read when both actresses were pregnant. When she got the call a year later she couldn’t believe it was happening.

“I got a call from my agent.” Dagmara recalls reenacting two separate conversations. “‘Vera’s doing it and she’d love for you to play her best friend in it.’ ‘WHAT? She hasn’t seen me in a year!’ and I said ‘I can’t. Stop!’. It was the most amazing wonderful experience; no auditions! I remember that first day we shot the car scene and I was so nervous as I’d taken a long break from acting, three years. I looked at Vera and I said ‘I’m so fucking nervous’. She says ‘You’re amazing. Shut up.’ And I’ll never forget that. After that I was in her hands.”

“You should have seen her on set,” Dagmara says eyes wide, when I mention how beautifully patient some of the film’s best scenes were. They really allow you to experience the performances, no rushing. “We could go off the page. Her most important thing was having the actors tell the story. She was so generous. I don’t know if there were fights about it — we had time constraints and money constraints — but on set it was an actor’s dream. Even down to the person who had a line. It was amazing to watch genuine care for other actors.”

“In turn they actually had no creature comforts,” Vera says, interrupting the love-fest. “No trailers. No shelter from the scorching sun. I was just trying to keep them happy.”

“You mean to tell me you had a tiny budget in an actressy drama about religion?” I ask facetiously.

“Surprise! Surprise!” Vera responds, laughing. “We had a major loan from God we have to repay, just FYI.”

We discuss acting with the praise flying back and forth between the stars and my head ping ponging back and forth with it. (Try sitting between two beautiful talkative women. Dizzying!) I remind Vera of her praise for Michael Fassbender’s work in Hunger and commend her great taste in actors relaying that I’d seen Dagmara on stage previously and was thrilled and surprised to see her get such a good part onscreen after so many years away.

“Part of that ‘good taste’ is also that it makes you a better performer,” Vera says. “You want someone by your side that will cajole you to give your best performance. When I experience story as an audience member, I’m drawn to actors whoa re very powerful in silences, who speak volumes with expressions.”

Dagmara and I agree that describes Vera herself. The star actress and first time director is flattered but deflects the praise turning it into practical self-preservation and advice. “If it’s your first time directing, my advice is surround yourself by people who think you’re great,” She laughs, remembering this type of cheerleading on set. “That encouragement makes you think it’s possible and that you’re capable of achieving great things.”

Lofty Goals, Big Careers

The actresses become more serious and soul searching when we move from their rapport and on set experiences to the movie’s themes and their own careers.

“I’m always impressed by people that God is immediate to their lives. No matter what their spiritual tenets are or what faith they’re from — it could be sweat lodges! I’m really impressed with people who make a concerted effort to find what holiness means to them and operate from that.” the actress says before praising Carolyn Brigg’s memoirs which Higher Ground was adapted from, making it quite an unusual film. “Films about faith. There’s two distinct kinds: preach to the choir and poke fun at the choir. Her story seemed like something the embraces both sides of the pew. Concepts of god are feuding… why not participate in storytelling for the sake of positive tolerance?”

Vera is also spiritually minded when it comes to her career and opportunities.

“We draw things to ourselves and things are drawn to us. I believe in energies like that. Things come my way. I take most of the things that come my way, surprisingly enough, considering that we’re talking about choice.” she says before explaining that there’s already a natural winnowing process with these magnetic forces bringing us opportunities.

“Sometimes when I don’t necessarily want to take a job but I have to because I’m a provider for my family … the challenge is to find something within that material that, you know, you can find something in these roles. Certainly your job description is to flesh them out and work hard to dimensionalize them.”

“There’s so little rhyme and reason in building a career. I don’t understand actors who map it all out.” Dagmara offers.

“Like, an Oscar in 2015?”

“Right! There’s no finish line. There’s so much that’s not up to you.” And Dagmara proves an amusing and self-deprecating realist about her own career choices recounting her own avoidance of the LA rat race after her first major success (The Count of Monte Christo, 2004) and her decision to have children while her husband’s (Patrick Wilson) career was taking off. But she admits she had those universal movie star career dreams coming from an immigrant family “You have those dreams but it [the dream] was lazy in me. I was always like “Ooh, that boy’s cute. I’m just not going to that audition…” She says both actresses breaking into laughter. “That’s who I was!”

The actresses tease each other about making a movie set on the Polish/Ukranian border where they can speak in their family’s native tongues. They should! One look at what they’re both capable of in Higher Ground makes you want them to reteam again onscreen immediately.

“We have the great privilege of our occupations being vocations. And sometimes it’s more vocation and sometimes more occupation.” Vera says, serious again. With Higher Ground, both actresses are clearly experiencing the vocation part again.

“It feeds my soul” Dagmara says, warming to the memory of working with other fine actors. Given this compelling opportunity she’s had to show Hollywood what she can do again, more roles of this quality should surface. For Vera, already regarded as a major screen actress, the movie could mark a whole new chapter where she plays to both sides of the camera.

“It’s a trek, a continuing trek.” Vera concludes about living life as a professional actor. “The thing is to maintain openness to it all and receptivity.”

Interviewed by: n/a
Source: Flicks and Bits

In Duncan Jones fantastic sci-fi thriller ‘Source Code’ the always lovely Vera Farmiga stars as Colleen Goodwin, the main ‘real-time’ contact and “Source Code” coach for decorated soldier Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), who wakes up in the body of an unknown man, discovering he’s part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. In an assignment unlike any he’s ever known, he learns he’s part of a government experiment called the “Source Code,” a program that enables him to cross over into another man’s identity in the last 8 minutes of his life. With a second, much larger target threatening to kill millions in downtown Chicago, Colter re-lives the incident over and over again, gathering clues each time, until he can solve the mystery of who is behind the bombs and prevent the next attack. ‘Source Code’ comes to cinemas April 1st, 2011.

First off, how did you get involved with the film?

Vera Farmiga: I received the script and a request to speak with Duncan Jones, that Duncan would like to have a word if I needed more persuading. I hadn’t seen ’Moon’ at this point, the script came with a DVD copy of it. To be honest just knowing Sam Rockwell was going to be in that film was enough for me to watch it. But I genuinely loved it, I saw it seven more times (laughs). I then pedalled it to everyone I knew. I thought this guy is special, he’s a visionary, he’s got a bold vision and new ideas. I loved the puzzle ’Moon’ was, I reacted to the same puzzling quality ’Source Code’ has.

Were you thinking about the limitations your character has? She doesn’t get to move around much.

Vera Farmiga: Candidly yes (laughs), I was really excited to work with Duncan but I was scared the part would be…I saw the limitations, it was apparent in the script. But I wanted to be a piece of this puzzle so badly I just saw it as a challenge. I genuinely had to like her before I could have an audience connect with her. To me the key to unlocking that was not so much what’s written on the script, but more what’s in-between the lines. Not so much what she says to Jake’s character, more what she’s not saying, the secrets she’s keeping, what’s difficult for her to say, what she doesn’t quite know how to say. That’s where the character came to life for me.

Did you have to create a back story for her? Obviously there’s so many layers in what your character’s not saying.

Vera Farmiga: Yeah, you don’t have to write novels about it, but you make up enough for the audience to know this is a women who’s married to her work, who spends a lot of time in the office, and as a result of that someone who probably doesn’t have much of a social life. This kind of becomes that for her. Someone who’s used to operating in a certain capacity, then who starts opening up.

How was it working with Jeffrey Wright? He’s the one you’re interacting with face to face.

Vera Farmiga: In the flesh (laughs). Even he would just hobble in from time to time, mutter something eccentrically then just hobble off. I’m a fan, big fan of his so it’s always a treat to watch someone who you admire work and observe them. It’s Jeffrey Wright (laughs), he’s a fascinating actor. He always makes the most interesting choices, unexpected choices, I dig it, he’s inspiring.

Now that you’re directing yourself now (Higher Ground), do you observe them more, do you emphasize with them more?

Vera Farmiga: I’ve always been pretty director friendly (laughs), by nature director friendly, and production friendly. I’m pretty accommodating. I’ve been privileged to work with REALLY great directors, hopefully they’ve rubbed off on me. I’ve been inspired by them in different ways. It took me by surprise, directing. I was attached to the script, and developed it, the more I developed it the more my personality and sensibility became a part of it, I just wanted to defend its tone because it’s tricky subject matter. It’s so rare for a film to be actually made these days so when financing comes you seize the day. It was snowball effect, even before I could realize.

I think if anything in hindsight now I’m more considerate of the editor, in terms of continuity and how important that is. The fact that your performance will be better if you consider that. Maybe that way I changed. More of an awareness.

Interviewed by: n/a
Source: Flicks and Bits

Up in the Air sits itself comfortably in my list of favourite films of the last year, it’s been showered with awards gaining eight Broadcast Film Critics Association, six Golden Globe nominations , three Screen Actors Guild nominations, six BAFTA nominations and six Academy Award nominations including Best Supporting Actress nominations for both Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. Check out my interview with the both of them below.

From Jason Reitman, the Oscar nominated director of ‘Juno,’ comes ‘Up in the Air,’ the timely odyssey of Ryan Bingham (Oscar winner George Clooney), a corporate downsizer and consummate modern business traveller who, after years of staying happily airborne, suddenly finds himself ready to make a real connection. Ryan has long been contented with his unencumbered lifestyle lived out across America in airports, hotels and rental cars. He can carry all he needs in one wheel-away case; he’s a pampered, elite member of every travel loyalty program in existence; and he’s close to attaining his lifetime goal of 10 million frequent flier miles– and yet…Ryan has nothing real to hold onto.

When he falls for a simpatico fellow traveler (Vera Farmiga), Ryan’s boss (Jason Bateman), inspired by a young, upstart efficiency expert (Anna Kendrick), threatens to permanently call him in from the road. Faced with the prospect, at once terrifying and exhilarating, of being grounded, Ryan begins to contemplate what it might actually mean to have a home.

The script has been nominated for nearly every award going, how did you assess your character when you first read them?

Vera Farmiga: I didn’t have the luxury of reading the script and knowing what happens in the end so I had some preconceived ideas. It was challenging to play a woman who is very much like a man and often it was a fine line to tread, to have the softness and yet be forceful unapologetically and make demands you usually see men make in scripts, I really like the male perspective on heartbreak which I hadn’t read much of before.

Your character is a bit more explained, what made her appealing?

Anna Kendrick: Well first off it’s a rare thing that you have this girl who’s so intelligent and complicated and her character does not revolve around a romantic storyline, that was fascinating in itself for me, it just doesn’t happen, you don’t read scripts like that. In real life I’m usually pretty timid so I guess I’m excited to play someone who tells people off and to tell off George Clooney was pretty awesome (laughs).

One of my favourite scenes in the film is when you go to pieces in the airport after you get the message from your boyfriend, how did you prepare for that?

Anna Kendrick: I don’t actually remember what was in the script other than she just starts crying, I knew that some of the scenes are in some ways really heart breaking and there’s a desire to play it that way but I knew it was supposed to be funny, but that it couldn’t be funny for me . It was a long day of trying different noises (laughs), it was kinda of brutal because all day I was so upset, Jason would demonstrate sometimes because he knew I was running out of juice. We had to get something that was not funny to me but hopefully to other people.

What was it like shooting in actual public places like the airports?

Anna Kendrick: At times it was a little uncomfortable, when I had that little wobbly it was in a hotel lobby that we sort of shut down, there weren’t that many looky loo’s but there was still this space and even though the people were extras and apart of the film, you don’t know them so it was sort of embarrassing, I think on that particular day it was less about the people and more about the space.

Vera Farmiga: For me it most often controlled or closed sets, for me what I found most interesting was the fanaticism for George Clooney, that was overwhelming, it was so odd, for me no one ever knows who I am, they probably think I’m a producer, but watching George just opening a door and seeing a standing ovation that goes blocks and blocks from him just peaking his head out. He’s so gallant and gracious with it, I didn’t find it very difficult though working in public places, I think its more difficult for the crew than the actors.

Your character has her views on love and life challenged in this film, how did you find that? Especially with someone like George Clooney trying to bring you over to the lone wolf side of things.

Anna Kendrick: My character had very specific ideas with what she wants and what she expects, I don’t have many of them same ideas, I know that there are things in life I want that I won’t get and refuse to except just yet, but her views on love are not my views on love.

You’ve gone from playing a small role in Twilight to play a big role in this, how did you feel when you got this role?

Anna Kendrick: I was shocked beyond belief, I thought Jason hated me, my audition was very strange, I think Jason was trying to sike me out by not showing any enthusiasm, but when I got the job I was so shocked, I thought he’s just like that, he’s gonna be a tyrant on set, but he’s very very nice, I was very surprised, thrilled beyond words. I didn’t really really think George was doing it, I thought that would be too good to be true, for a script to be this good and working with George Clooney I just thought it was rumoured.

Interviewed by: Amy Curtis
Source: We Got This Covered

Co-starring in the sci-fi thriller Source Code, Vera Farmiga took a minute to sit down with me at the SXSW film fest to discuss her role. Farmiga, who has played strong women before in films like The Departed and Running Scared, plays soldier Carol Goodwin, the main liaison between Colter (Jake Gyllenhaal) and the source code creator, mad scientist Max Denoff. Her character must deal with Colter as he struggles to understand what is happening to him, and tries to find out who planted a bomb on a train.

In the film, Farmiga does a lot of acting against a computer camera as she’s communicating with Gyllenhaal’s character. Of the challenge of playing such a stationary role, Farmiga said, “yeah, there’s not much movement. You have a roller chair so you can roll back and forth and swivel right and left. You’re confined and you’re movement is confined. Especially the way you are filmed from two perspectives; the audience’s perspective and Jake’s perspective. Also, knowing that your face is going to be massive and probably skewed in the way cameras skew your face when you are iChatting, it just forced me to think about their psycho-spiritual connection and kind of maneuvering from an ocular standpoint and to focus on the camera.

And to me I think also, just in general, how I choose roles… because this isn’t something in general that I’d be drawn to because it was so opposite of what I usually am drawn to… Duncan Jones on the cover sheet was enough of a yes for me and to be a part of an intricate puzzle was enough of a yes for me, but I think the challenge therein is to figure out what the character is not saying and what is between the lines. I think that allowed for more life and I think the challenge is to convey all of that. Because in all candor that kind of dialogue, expository dialogue, is just boring to execute. So the challenge for me was just to find life beyond the information. I am an information giver. I’m a whip cracker in terms of making sure this guy stays on mission, but to also within that convey what her moral dilemma is and how that plays out. But to be confined in that way and just limited to a face and the eyes was the biggest tool I had in conveying the dynamic between these two people.”

She added, “yeah, and Jake wasn’t there. I don’t know why that was so hard for me to grasp from the start because I read it and I was like “Great! I’m acting with Jeffrey Wright,” which he was there in the flesh, and “Great! I’m acting with Jake Gyllenhaal”. But I read the call sheet for the first day and it’s just me that shows up on set. We had rehearsal time, we had a week and a half of rehearsal time and he was there for that. And he was gentleman enough to show up for two days on set where his voice was broadcast. But it was just something I had to get accustomed to. You spend so much time ignoring the… you know, holding up that fourth wall and when it comes crashing down… I’ve only been asked to do it once, in a film called The Manchurian Candidate.

The director wanted to mess with the audience a bit and each character at one point stared directly at the camera and it was one of the hardest things to do. You find different ways of making yourself comfortable because it can be very self conscious. I would look at my image reflected back at me, a tiny little image, but I think it brought me cross-eyed so that went out the window. We were fortunate, since it is only one space, to be able to shoot in sequence. And just considering the emotional journey of the character, you get used to the technique of it.

Farmiga’s character seems like it wouldn’t leave much room for improvising or fleshing out, due to the fact that she’s an uniformed soldier who is under strict orders. But Farmiga said, “Yeah, like I said it’s what happens between the lines. A lot of it is just informative jargon that is informing the audience and this character of what has just transpired and keeping him on mission. He is always veering off mission and I’m pulling back by the collar and saying “No, no, no, no. This is important and you can’t dilly dally. You can’t dawdle. This is not about you and your life. This is about other peoples lives.” I can’t count how many times I said “This is beleaguered castle. Acknowledge transmission.” And making that, each time…. inventing ways and different feelings behind it. But there is an arc to my character and she does start from looking at him as a scientific experiment to growing to like him and admire him and know him and respect him and to see him for what he is. And that is a human being, not just an experiment.

That was important to form a connection. As their relationship changes, her mission changes. And how she speaks to him… that’s a lot to consider. More than I even thought. At first, on the written page it just seemed simple… but the more we delved into it the richer it appeared to me. There was actually a lot of room to explore this moral issue and look at what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Interviewed by: PatrickMcD
Source: Hollywood Chicago

As an actress, Vera Farmiga broke out big in 2009 with her Oscar nominated performance in “Up in the Air.” Farmiga is now taking a total filmmaker’s role, playing the lead character and directing the new film, “Higher Ground.”

Farmiga began her career in the late 1990s, scoring a featured role in the TV series “Roar.” After working some supporting parts in TV and film, including HBO’s “Iron Jawed Angels” and “Touching Evil” (both 2004), she began to appear in more prominent feature films like “The Manchurian Candidate” (2004), “The Departed” (2006) and “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” (2008). More attention came in 2009 opposite George Clooney with her Oscar nominated role in “Up in the Air.”

“Higher Ground” is her first film as a director, and she also plays the lead character named Corinne, a circumstantial convert to Evangelical Christianity. The film explores the phases of her faith and the life associated with it, and also deals with the role of extreme religiosity in everyday existence.

HollywoodChicago.com interviewed Vera Farmiga on a recent promotional swing through Chicago for Higher Ground. The candid actress explained the bigger picture of the subject matter of her directorial debut.

HollywoodChicago.com: As an actress, and in this case a director, you have to absorb a lot of the inner spiritual traits that the religion brought to Corinne and the rest of the characters. How did this immersion effect your own personal spirituality?

Vera Farmiga: Yes, the material came at me. You do absorb it, there is so much joy and wisdom in that realm. That is what I strived for as a storyteller and director, approaching it with reverence and respect, not trying to figure out whether God does or does not exist. I was just looking for what it means to trek spiritually. The ups and downs, the ebbs and flows, the highs and lows, it’s a rocky road. But it is a trek toward heaven, whether it’s a concrete idea or abstract one.

I was effected by it. I did what touched me in this woman’s journey, and also what the power was that touched others. No matter what your path is or what your spiritual tenets are, the film examines at the core what it means to be holy, and what it takes to achieve that.

HollywoodChicago.com: One of the issues I thought the film raised was about the self and personal growth of the soul versus the church, family and community. Was that an issue for you and the character you played in the film?

Farmiga: Sure, it’s a big issue when you’re portraying a faith-based community. According to sources, there are thousands of Christian denominations, and within these rules and regulations there are manmade interpretations of the word of God. There is a mystery and mystique that made the film easier to make than to talk about, because people experience it in many different ways. You can talk about it in the belief community with a certain vernacular, but outside of that it’s different. The way I talk about faith is making this film. It’s not about what I think, it’s how other people experience it.

HollywoodChicago.com: Higher Ground is a obvious statement about women’s roles in Evangelical Christianity. What does the film express about the danger of religious sects that rely heavily on patriarchal leadership, either diminishing or dismissing it’s feminine side?

Farmiga: My personal experience in my time spent in churches and within different denominations, it is not something they’re contending with as much. The film was set in a very specific time period in the 1960s through the ‘80s, where women were struggling to find their voices. This was second wave feminism, and what was happening in church, was happening in politics and was also happening in society. This is the experience of Carolyn Briggs [author of the book and screenplay], I am not making a statement about how Christianity confines women. It depends on who is preaching that verse, and how we obtain wisdom from it.

HollywoodChicago.com: In your portrayal of what is essentially Carolyn Briggs’ story, how did you make sure it was about her, than maybe your experiences in organized religion?

Farmiga: It wasn’t a problem, I bleed into every character I play, you have to use your own instrument, which includes your emotions and memories. It is very much me, but not me at all. It combines the kinetic energies of the two of us. We forged the narrative from there. In order to touch people in a personal way, you have to come from a personal place. It challenges me, inspires me and I’m still trying to figure it out.

The story to me simply was about a woman who was trying to live a passionate existence, and have intimacy in all her relationships, but not to sacrifice her authenticity or sense of genuine self. It was easy to relate to that idea.

HollywoodChicago.com: You have referenced the 1997 Robert Duvall film, ‘The Apostle’ in the press as a template for your film. Did you as well want to show all sides of religion as The Apostle did?

Farmiga: The Apostle is one of my top five favorite films, I would say. And Duvall was a case study in both his acting and directing. One of my favorite scenes is when Duvall screams at God, ‘I’m angry at you! I’m angry at you, Lord!’

HollywoodChicago.com: Is that the idea in your film that religion and faith is powered by anger, frustration and crisis?

Farmiga: From personal experience, that is was makes us fall on our knees, we are in crisis, we need help or we are grateful. It is the restless moments of our souls that elicit prayer. Prayer shouldn’t be limited to religion, it is a powerful utensil to tap into our strengths, abilities and potential. It’s hard enough to do it in your own presence, but to actually vocalize it is wild.

HollywoodChicago.com: What was the greatest change in your career once the attention started to culminate regarding your Oscar nominated role in ‘Up in the Air?’

Farmiga: Personally I didn’t see how acclaim and awards changed much. I was still attracted a certain kind of storyteller before the nomination, and didn’t see much of a change afterward. Maybe there was a slightly greater household name, but when I offer to someone I’ve just met that I was in Up in the Air, they will ask me who I was. [laughs] It’s hard to gauge because also I took my second maternity leave just as the Oscars were announced. So afterward I took action, I wanted to experiment with creating interesting roles for women.

During awards season, you inevitably get these articles saying ‘look at all the great roles for women,’ but it’s always the same five women, playing the same five roles. For the guys, there is more of variety as to who and what get nominated. I just get tired answering that question in the same way without saying ‘it sucks.’ [laughs] I simply found the dream role for myself.

HollywoodChicago.com: Since you’ve worked with some pretty high level and famous directors, what specific trait did you pick up from them when you directed?

Farmiga: What my favorite directors – Debra Granik, Martin Scorsese and Anthony Minghella – all have in common is joy. The good cheer that they spread on the set. Their zeal goes all the way down to the production assistants. It’s about their passion, and I want to be that person. I want to live a passionate life, exude that and pass it along to other people.

HollywoodChicago.com: Ultimately the film seems to be a cautionary tale about obsessing in a faith. In your opinion, at what point as human beings do we have more of a responsibility for our individual growth over and above a belief in a higher power?

Farmiga: That is for you and me to decide. I find abominable ‘holier than thou’ attitudes, but what one person labels obsession might also be defined as passion. If it comes from a good place, where religion is and should be, and ultimately it is for self awareness and self transcendence, for the betterment of self. And that’s a good thing. That was the direction I came from as a storyteller.

HollywoodChicago.com: You’ve really had to answer some pretty deep questions in association with this film…

Farmiga: Yes, and in a very direct way. It’s making me miss questions such as, ‘what was it like to kiss George Clooney?’ [laughs]

Interviewed by: Terry Keefe
Source: The Hollywood Interview

The first time we interviewed actress Vera Farmiga was in early 2001, at Swingers Diner on Beverly, over French fries. It was around 8 in the evening, as she had to spend the day auditioning for a network pilot. She was promoting a supporting role in a relatively forgettable Robert De Niro-Ed Burns cop thriller called Fifteen Minutes, where she played a Eastern European hairdresser who witnesses a murder. Parking was scarce in the neighborhood, to the point that we first met that night while angling for the same spot. Today, things have changed somewhat. We’re meeting at a ridiculously large and posh board room at the Beverly Hilton, which reminds of the one in Network where uber-exec Ned Beatty chews out Peter Finch’s Howard Beale. Valets take care of the cars. A number of publicists and assistants abound. It’s all part of the studio publicity machinery for Up in the Air, the feature film directed by Jason Reitman, in which Farmiga stars with George Clooney. Strong Oscar buzz abounds on the film, not just for Reitman and Clooney, but also for Farmiga this time around.

Up in the Air introduces us to Clooney’s Ryan Bingham, a corporate down-sizer who travels the country some 300 days of the year firing vast numbers of employees for companies too gutless to do it themselves. Bingham has been aptly referred to by Reitman as a sort of “new species” of human, in that he travels so much that his home is in the air. He obsessively collects frequent flyer, hotel, and rental car points, and seems to have adapted the philosophy that if he just keeps moving, he’ll never have to get too tied down to any place…or anyone. At a hotel bar, he meets someone he perceives to be the female version of himself, Farmiga’s Alex, who shares a uniquely modern courtship scene with Ryan, as they seduce each other with the power of each other’s preferred traveler club cards. “Just think of me as you with a vagina,” Alex says to Ryan, and with that, he believes he has found his perfect woman. What Ryan doesn’t realize is that in his relationships with Alex, and his unlikely young protégé Natalie (played by Anna Kendrick), he is unconsciously forming a sort of surrogate family. In the sky.

The films of Jason Reitman walk a fine line between comedy, often black comedy, and drama. Deep characterizations of unlikely heroes are found in his Thank You For Smoking (2005), Juno (2007), and Up in the Air, but the films are also sprinkled with sharp comedic dialogue. Farmiga fits well into the Reitman universe, as she is able to deftly hit the comedic beats, but also bring to the surface the largely unspoken levels of loneliness which are definitely an element of what drives Alex. The world of plane-rental car-hotel-conference-plane that she inhabits is in part a role-playing fantasy, something she knows inherently but which Clooney’s Ryan must learn the hard way.

Between our first meeting with Farmiga and this most recent one, we also spoke with her in 2005 about Down to the Bone, the low-budget character study in which she plays a sometimes-recovering heroin addict (read that interview here). Down to the Bone won a Special Jury Prize for Acting at Sundance, and although few in the general population of moviegoers saw it upon release, Farmiga credited the film, at the time, with helping her land a role which just about everyone saw, as the psychiatrist Madolyn in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed in 2006. It seems likely that Farmiga was consequently offered a lot of paycheck-style studio film roles in the wake of The Departed, although one has to assume that Farmiga has largely avoided those projects. While she has made somewhat larger commercial films such as the recent Orphan, she has also continued to pursue roles closer to the indie Down to the Bone in both scope and spirit, playing a disability-obsessed sexual explorer in Quid Pro Quo, the wife of a Nazi officer in the bleak children’s tale The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and a woman in an interracial marriage in the lower-budgeted Never Forever. She had mentioned at the time of Down to the Bone’s release that these type of smaller, character-driven roles were where her heart was. You hear talk about wanting to mix more commercial projects with smaller, higher-quality ones from actors on the rise all the time, but Farmiga has actually followed through on it. With Up in the Air, she’s landed the rare project that is the best of both worlds these days, a studio film with dynamite characters.

[Note: There are some indirect plot spoilers in the text of this interview.]

Jason Reitman wrote this role for you in Up in the Air, but he also made you audition.

Vera Farmiga: Yeah [laughs]. Yes, he did.

What’s up with that?!

[laughs] He’s a master of contradiction. Look at all his characters. You know, I was very pregnant when we met. And then I was even more pregnant when he handed me the job, and by the time we started filming, I weighed more than George Clooney. I had just delivered a baby, and the studio was stressed about the decision. And so, he just said, “Vera, I hope you don’t mind,” and we’d already met, up for a chamomile tea, at Gramercy Park Hotel, early on in the process, but he couldn’t quite make the decision, because it was a big decision to make for him. I kept insisting…I said, “Call up every director. Call up Scorsese, he’ll tell you about my record…” [laughs]

Scorsese should be enough of a good recommendation, right?

But Jason said, “No, I talked to everybody!” And so I said, ‘Well, if I tell you I can do it, I can do it.”

Was your pregnancy the main issue?

Yeah, I think he was more…not so much physically…he was more worried about my mental capacity, and if I could handle all of it. In my eighth month of pregnancy…I think it was in my favor that everybody else that was being considered probably was pregnant, too. [laughs] But so, he actually made me read the scene with Anna Kendrick’s character. And he came back, to the Gramercy Park Hotel, with a video camera, and he’d hired two local actors from the city to sit in and read for George’s and Anna’s characters, and he videotaped me, and I got a call that night. [laughs]
(George and Vera compare frequent flier and travel mileage point cards.)

You do a lot with silence in this film. Her non-verbal moments aren’t just reaction shots. She’s an enigma, and hiding a few things, and you can feel that in her glances. How much of that silence are you consciously filling, and how much is just your screen presence?

I love the silent moments. I cherish the silent moments in film. It’s even more important and telling of a character what they don’t say, what they choose not to say…and what they may be thinking but don’t say. What they can’t say. What they’re incapable of saying. That is as revealing, if not more, than what a person actually says, so I love that, and that for me is something that I focus on as an actor, and obsess over, and relish. [laughs]

It occurs that you have to be in the moment to do silence properly on-screen.

And sometimes I take it to extremes, because Jason’s biggest direction of me was, “Vera, you gotta say it faster. Can you pick up the rhythm?”

I guess I can also see that, because the first scene where you and George meet has a real Cary Grant-Rosalind Russell-His Girl Friday fast repartee to it.

Yeah, you’re right, because there is a rhythm…there’s a rhythm to Jason’s writing, and you have to honor it. It’s like the metronome’s on, and you do have to honor that metronome, and keep up with it. And that’s part of what’s so sexy [about the two characters], the rhythm, the tennis match, the banter. They finish each other’s thoughts, and they’re on very even, equal footing. But then there were moments, like at the wedding, when you see them exist without any words. What’s so sexy about this relationship is…it’s hardly anything that happens in the bedroom. There’s no allusions, there’s like one allusion to them having a romp, but I think what’s so sexy about it is that Jason is just very old-fashioned in the way he portrays a romance. Look at Juno. You root for the relationship, and it’s just so authentic and heartbreaking, but it’s really just the conversation between them, and who they are together, and words that they exchange…that’s what’s so sexy. I love that because I’m always on a hunt for a good old-fashioned romance.

What is true of all of three of Jason Reitman’s film is that he keeps this fairly light tone overall, but also has these deep characters and overall themes. How much of the tonal balance, and how it should be played, is obvious on the page, and how much do you have to find in the execution?

He’s a master of finding that, and we also struggled at times. There are certain lines that my character has that are hilarious, but could be as vulgar as could be if you don’t hit the right chord with them. The “vagina” line [Editor’s Note: the classic one-liner delivered by Farmiga’s character.] is an example. Just talking about genitals is a funny thing, is a tricky thing, and the word “vagina” is not a word that you hear all the time. It’s such a critical word, but actually, when you say it, there’s all sorts of imagery that pops up, and you know that line, in particular, is probably going to be a sound bite in the film. And there’s a lot of pressure on that line, and I find with Alex, she says the most …she’s a sexual adventuress, the things that she says are demanding and liberal and unapologetic, and yet the key was to find a dignity in delivery, and infuse it with as much dignity and self-respect in honoring thyself, herself, an integrity of self, as possible. That was the key to Alex.

The key one-liners like that one…how much did you practice them on your own in front of a mirror?

That one – in my trailer, all the time.

If I remember correctly, that line is also delivered on the phone with George. So you didn’t have him to play off directly on one of the biggest quips of the film.

Yes, but George was in the room. He’s very generous and he’s available, and he was there, that was one of the first things we shot. The first scene is always the hardest scene for me in any film, always the first scene. I gotta get that out of the way, and then I can relax into a performance. It’s just how it is with me.

As Ryan falls in love with Alex, did you play her as falling in love with him, also? Because she pretends not to, but -

Well, I don’t know if she pretends not to, and this is interesting about how Jason directed me, because I wanted to infuse it more…look, it’s undeniable what they have is a real thing. And obviously she’s pretending through it, but she wouldn’t be there if she sincerely didn’t enjoy it. You look at them, and I think what exists is a real thing. Call it love, call it what you may. She’s just someone who follows her rules, that she’s established. I always pressed Jason, I wanted to know, “What’s going on with her? What’s happening in her life? Is she insatiable? Is she uninspired? Is she … um … a player? Is she so dissatisfied” He said it didn’t matter. I said, “But it matters. I need a backstory.” Who’s to say, that in her home life, people aren’t condoning that kind of behavior, and saying, “You know what, you look like you need something I can’t provide…” And who’s to say that she doesn’t have a very liberal partner? Okay, so the thing was to not judge it, that was the biggest thing for me, was not to judge that character, and not even to determine why she is the way she is, but like a court-appointed lawyer, before the jury of an audience, defend that character. Find something to defend, and this is a woman … who is compartmentalizing her life, and you only see one facet of it. You see her as a romantic operative. You see her in the romance aspect of her life, and we don’t know what happens everywhere else, in those other compartments.

You don’t even know what she does for a living, exactly.

You don’t. That’s another thing I kept pestering Jason about. “What does she do? Who is she?” He goes, “I don’t know.” I’m like, “What do you mean you don‘t know? You’re the writer. Tell me what she does!” [laughs] And then he had to give me [something], because I said, “Listen, it’s gonna determine what shoes I wear, it’s gonna determine if I have a clutch or a handbag or a backpack or a briefcase.” He’s like, “Uh, let’s make it the same thing as Ryan – she instructs companies how to run a better business. She’s a businesswoman, in short.” But so, yeah, you don’t know much about her, at all.

It’s interesting because Jason also said last night at the Q&A that he doesn’t like back story. And back story is such the rage in American films today. We have separate films in super hero franchises just to explain the back story.

Yeah [laughs]. That’s true. It’s funny.

What did you have going through your head, though, in the scene when you are standing in the doorway, with him standing outside? You must’ve come up with some additional back story for her in that moment.

The staging of that scene is pretty genius. Jason’s got me at the top of the steps, with the exterior lighting of the brownstone highlighting me, and there’s George on the bottom of that staircase, looking up, meaning his big brown hound-dog eyes are gonna be the biggest, brownest hound-dog eyes he’s ever given, as he looks up, and she’s unattainable. So just that proximity and that elevation above him, in being on the top of the stairs when the truth of who Alex is unveiled…did a lot of the work. And then for me it was just responding to what I was being given. I was reacting to what George was being given, and was giving me, and that’s it…that reaction. I wasn’t really thinking, but sort of just looking at George, and reading his face, and just sort of serving back what he was serving me.

Jason has mentioned that George never leaves the set. Which could drive you crazy with some fellow actors, or it could be great. I assume the latter with George, because everyone seems to love him.

It’s good with George. You want him around, because he’s single-handedly responsible for that tone onset, which is a very frivolous jungle gym. Sense of humor is everything to him. He loves being at work. He respects the crew. He befriends them. He befriends everybody. He’s very open-hearted, and childlike, and happy-go-lucky, and eager to share himself. He loves to make people feel special about themselves. It’s a great gift that he has. He’s a magnet.

Let’s talk about the shooting of the scene where you and Anna Kendrick meet and compare your expectations of the ideal man in front of George. It’s one of the best scenes in the film and also reveals new levels in both the female characters.

That was a long day. We shot the whole morning, so it wasn’t the whole day, but it was the first time that Anna and I got a chance to work together. It was really two different storylines. She was never onset when I was there…and we established our different relationships with the crew, and so I got very quiet that day, and I just wanted to watch her work, because she is so compelling, and she’s such a force of nature, at her age, she’s so self-possessed, and has a wicked sense of humor, and so sharp, and I loved watching her work. I became very sort of quiet that day, and even took my cues from her, watching someone being given this tremendous opportunity, and using it as a springboard…and I love the scene, and for Ryan it’s wonderful, because it’s everything his character has fought against, which is paternity, and husbandry, and yet here he is, taking to his somewhat…his travel wife and his business daughter. That was cool.