Rene Russo as Nina the News Shark in ‘Nightcrawler.’
Veteran actress Rene
Russo has been working in film for quite awhile, gracing the big screen
with her talent in a number of widely beloved movies such as ‘Get Shorty,’ ‘Tin
Cup’ and many others. But suddenly back in 2005 she decided to take a break
from it all, completely dropping out of the film world to pursue other avenues
to her heart’s content. It wasn’t until she was presented the opportunity to be
a part of ‘Thor’ that she finally returned to the fold of the film industry,
and in a big way.
Now it’s been a couple years
since Russo decided to emerge back on the scene, and multiple roles have been
thrown her way since that point, but there was a special one that really caught
her attention. A particular script about competitive news coverage came from none
other than her husband and filmmaker Dan Gilroy. Originally he approached Russo
with the script for ‘Nightcrawler,’ claiming that she would be perfect for the
role of the Nina. All because Russo is married to Gilroy doesn’t mean she’ll
accept any role he passes along, but it took a little bit of convincing for her
to commit to the role.
Did you
get a chance to talk with any news anchors, or news women, about this kind of
hanging on that your character seems to be trying to do?
I don’t usually do that, as an actress… when I played an
epidemiologist, I spoke to an epidemiologist, but I didn’t really get that much
from it. So I didn’t really have Nina for a long time, and it wasn’t because I
didn’t know a news anchor, it’s because I didn’t know who she was. If I can’t
use my own colors and life experiences, then I don’t know where to go. And I’m
naturally just a hard-ass bitch, who is going to get what she wants at any
cost. I’m not that. I don’t know how I necessarily would play that, but I have
been desperate, and I have crossed moral boundaries in my desperation, so it
wasn’t a stretch for me to understand Nina. She’s older. She could lose her
health insurance. I’ve always had health insurance, thank God, but to be alone,
to be older, to be on the lowest rung possible, in your career, knowing you
could get shipped off, God knows where. I didn’t want to judge Nina for any of
that. Just like I wouldn’t want to be judged for any of the moral boundaries.
They’ve always been because I’m scared to death, really. Some people do it out
of greed, some do it out of fear, and some maybe out of both, but for me, I
kind of had to find Nina in that desperate place.
Having said that, it’s not
like she didn’t slip into that comfortably. Once you cross that boundary, and
she made the pact with the devil, out of possible desperation, to suddenly go
further and further down that road. I still didn’t necessarily want to judge
her for that. It’s interesting, talking to people about her character, or about
Jake’s character, in that it’s really funny. It’s not always gender and age, I
want to make that very clear, because I don’t want to make it out like we’re
bashing men. I have heard in Europe, where the guys will sit down and go, “Man,
she was a hardboiled bitch!” Okay. And the women are like, “No she wasn’t. She
was sympathetic. We get it!” And it was interesting, because some younger
people, who maybe haven’t been there at that age, ready to lose something,
maybe they would judge her more than an older woman. So far, woman my age have
been like, “Yeah, I get that.” Everyone judges Nina or doesn’t, depending on
where they are in their life.
When you
two first meet, when you and Louis first meet, do you think she consciously
realizes what she’s getting into? Do you think she’s aware?
I think she does. I think she makes that deal right there. I think
when he had her, dead to rights; look, she’s a business woman. She’s probably
been at many of these board meetings. When he says, “You want to keep your
health insurance, you want to be on a rated TV station,” I think she
was stunned! There was a moment, like, “You little f–ker!” And she wanted to
fight it, and she was going back and forth, but I think he got her. He really
got her. She had to pull herself up and go, “This is it.” And this was it. And
he was like, “Okay, game on.”
I also don’t think that she’s
a victim. If he did not bring the goods to her, then she was not putting out
whatever she was putting out. The only thing that I had with my husband, well,
two things. One was, when he handed me the script, I went, “Okay, I think the
girl needs some work.” The truth is, that not one word was changed. I couldn’t
find her. It really wasn’t in his writing, it was that I couldn’t necessarily
find her. And the other thing was that I think he always found Nina as more of
a victim, and I didn’t. I saw her as she knew what she was doing. She got
herself into it. Yes, there is a certain amount of victim, but she also wasn’t
going to play the game if he didn’t bring her what she wanted. Overall, for
myself, there is a sociopath in all of us, in a way. You look at Jake’s
character, and you could judge him, but on the other hand I think Danny always saw
[that] it’s a really tough job market out there for the youth, coming out of
college. They take internships for nothing. You look at Jake and you go, “Oh,
that wasn’t right.” Would I do that? I think that was always really
interesting, to Dan, what lines would we cross, whether it would be Nina or
Jake.
We get to
see Jake’s characters true colors pretty early on, but your character unfolds
throughout the film. Did you shoot in order to allow that to happen, or did you
have to piece it together day by day?
We didn’t shoot in order. It’s hard to shoot out of order
sometimes. It’s really hard, and there have been many of times where after
shooting a scene at the end after shooting ones later or upfront I’m like ‘Ah!
That came out different than I thought. I wish I would have known that so I
could put that in the end.’
Can you
talk about working with Jake (Gyllenhaal)? Also, what’s he like to hang out
with?
I didn’t hang out with Jake too much, and the reason I didn’t hang
out with him is because honestly I’ve worked with a lot of actors… But the way
he sort of slipped into this role and this dialog was amazing to watch, and he
made it look easy. It was like watching him like he was in labor. That was how
intense he was, because it’s very difficult for an actor to walk the tightrope
that he had to walk with all of the colors that he had to put in it without you
seeing, and he did it seamlessly. He was charming, but he was creepy. Is he a
psychopath? I don’t know. Is he not a psychopath? I wanna root for him because
life is f–ked up, but then what am I doing? I’m rooting for him? What’s wrong?
That’s not easy to do, and Dan wrote those words so beautifully, but he was
able to bring them to like and I have to say that I’ve never seen an actor do
that with that because that was a really difficult role to do, and like I said
he made it look easy.
It was
great when you came back to film – was it just time you took, or what?
You know, a lot of people ask me that, and I think that… I’ve been
telling people that I started ironing at nine years old. [laughs] I
really did, and I’ve had a job ever since. There was never any time, and then
when I was doing two movies back to back. Look. A lot of people started at
nine, and do two movies back to back. I think it’s just your constitution, and
for me there were other things that I wanted to do. At a certain point I had to
ask myself ‘Well Rene, if you don’t do them, what? Are you just going to keep
doing one movie, after another, after another?’ and honestly, there wasn’t
anything that I wanted to do in terms of parts either. Look guys, I don’t like
getting up at 4:30 in the morning. I don’t like it, and if I’m going to get up
at 4:30 in the morning and early to have makeup on my face and a cold …
Now I know I’m sounding like I should really not say this, like I’m totally not
grateful for my job, which I am because it’s a great job for a whole lot of
different reasons. But unless it’s something that I feel I can share my
feelings or my emotions so that I can be a reflection for other people to go
‘Wow. I’d do that!’ or ‘Wouldn’t I?’ or ‘I can relate.’ then it’s just not fun
for me. There were just a couple of other things that I wanted to do.
What did
you do?
What did I do? I Did things that are so boring to talk about. Ok. I
worked with the DWP in California to start a garden. So usually I don’t talk
about these things but I just feel like
California doesn’t necessarily have a sense of place because people have just
ripped everything out of the ground when East came West and brought their
water-loving gardens. We’re in a huge drought, so I’ve got in a completely
native garden that I spent a lot of time with the designer doing, and I loved
it. It’s really an amazingly artistic creative thing to do, and I worked with a
genius. I didn’t know anything, but she taught me a little bit, and then I
actually started a dairy company.
‘Nightcrawler’ is in theatres
nationwide on October 31, 2014.
Released and distributed by CAPTIVE CINEMA.
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