(213): How did you get involved with Puccini for Beginners?
GRETCHEN MOL: I got the script and I read it and I was looking for something... it just struck me that it was really fun, especially the role of Grace - it was something that I thought would be different for me because she was so kind of playful and ditzy and yet still had an emotional center so I just thought the story moved along in a great way and the dialog was fantastic. So I wanted to meet Maria (Maggenti) and when I went to meet her we just had a fantastic meeting where she's so bubbly and full of life it's infectious she just gets you so excited that you want to be apart of it.
(213): How was working with Maria Maggenti (the director)?
GM: The same! She's very good with positive reinforcement and she just made it fun. For me, she gave me movies - she wanted me to watch My Man Godfrey [there are two versions of this film - one from 1936 and one from 1957. Both are comedies] and some screwball comedies and we did a little rehearsal and all that but once we were on set the trust was there. She seemed so happy and excited with everything that we were doing, so she gave us a lot of room to play. It was just a fun experience for me. It was an 18-day shoot all around Manhattan at these great locations and I was living in the West Village at the time so I would just walk a block to work, so it was great!
(213): Do you enjoy doing romantic comedies?
GM: I do. I think they're really tough to pull off and I haven't really done that many of them. But the thing that attracted me to this was that all of the characters were so well drawn and the conflicts were real so I think that's what made it work for me and it really worked for me as a script and I think a lot of times romantic comedies... you do feel like they fall into the same stereotypes and everything and there is something different about this, some of it being the gender thing and the gender bending and it's all really interesting to me.
(213): Your character starts dating a lesbian. Were you comfortable with the role?
GM: It wasn't difficult, it was totally easy because I thought Grace was... what I loved about her was how non-judgmental she was and she was open; she had such an open heart. She would fall in love with someone not because of their gender but because she fell in love with them. There was something about Elizabeth (Reaser, who plays Allegra)'s character that was so unique to her and so exciting and she was just coming off of this other relationship that wasn't working and it I think that, with her longing to be a glass blower, she was stuck in this straight world and she wanted to shake it up a bit.
(213): Do you think there will be a wide appeal to this film?
GM: I don't see why it wouldn't. It's starting off in a couple theatres in New York and I think New Yorkers will love it simply because it's a fun way to see the city and it's through an old-fashioned lens in the way I think we like to romanticize the city, not the way it always is. We'll see. I really hope the best for it. I think it has an appeal to all people, I think people are open enough to enjoy the film and not be freaked out by it. It has such a playful quality to it.
(213): Do you live in New York right now?
GM: No, I moved out to Los Angeles but I still have an apartment in New York. I've been out in LA most of the time, trying it out here but I do go back often. My family is still there and my husband's whole family so we get back a lot.
(213): Living in Los Angeles and New York, do you think the story of 'Puccini' would work in LA, what with New York playing such an integral 'role' in the story?
GM: I think there's probably a way... I'm so much more familiar with New York that I understand how these odd spontaneous moments can happen, like when you walk into an elevator and there's this person you're trying to avoid and they're just there and you're stuck in the elevator with them for a few floors. I feel like I've actually experienced situations like that so I understand that that's the nature of New York because you're kind of walking around on the streets and once you find your coffee shop you go there all the time. And I'm sure that world exists in LA but it would not be so much about walking around. I think Swingers has that kind of vibe of capturing this thing of LA, the way that people socialize and everything that I've never partaken in because I spent most of my twenties... all of my twenties, actually, in New York.
(213): How was working with Woody Allen in Sweet and Low Down?
GM: It was wonderful. I wished I had had more time. I also worked on Celebrity, briefly. So, it was my second time around and that is sort of the quintessential New York City set and everyone is in the dark because they haven't read the script and it really makes for a fun situation, a liberating one in a way because you don't know and you're taken totally out of context and you're just doing your piece and there's a lot of freedom in his way of working... and he'll tell you if he's not happy or if he doesn't like it.
(213): You were Bettie in The Notorious Bettie Page. How long did it take you to study for that role?
GM: Oh, about two years (laughs). The first time I met Mary (Harron) for that film was two years prior to shooting and then it took so long to get the film financed and get a company to make it with me attached to play Bettie Page. So, it was just a long time in the works and I didn't think about it constantly. I did other jobs in the meantime but it was kind of always on the burner and I was always dying to do that film and once I read the script I did a lot of research just for the audition. And then I had to go back in about a year later to do a screen test and that was a whole other round of just figuring out who she was so I kind of felt like I lived with it for a while; certainly not as long as Mary Harron did but I got a good chance to really feel like I knew something about Bettie so by the time the role was mine and I was on set I was pretty confident. I felt like I really worked for it.
(213): You were in Rounders. Do you think it helped start the Texas Hold'em craze?
GM: You know... I don't play poker so I don't know if it did. It's such a strange thing because if that film came out now, I wonder how it would be received because at the time it came out it wasn't really a huge box office hit. It sort of gained a following over time. I really don't know which one came first because I don't really follow poker but it really is amazing that there are these tv shows and everything and it's just amazing. Are you a poker player?
(213): Yes, I am!
GM: That's just the thing, there's always a poker audience and now it just seems to be a more social thing, like bowling or...
(213): But you don't lose as much money at bowling as you do in poker! (laughs)
GM: True! I guess that's why I avoid it because I don't want to give away even a hundred dollars - I just want to spend it on something I'll enjoy! (laughs)
(213): Do you ever put yourself in the characters you play?
GM: I think you end up putting yourself in the character. I mean, at least that's how I seem to work. It does always end up coming from you. Each role is kind of an opportunity to learn about a part of yourself that you haven't explored or just kind of reveal a part of yourself you knew was there but you never really got to reveal.
(213): You've been in the business a long time - do you still enjoy it?
GM: I do! I love it. For me, the joy of doing this and rolling with the times when you're not working and you feel like you're never going to work again - it's that opportunity to play different characters all of the time. I look at my year last year and there were for different characters I got to play in varying levels.., I mean, I had different amounts of stuff to do in each film but I love it. It's just so much fun to me and the fun of it is never knowing what's going to come next.
(213): What's coming up for you next?
GM: I actually don't know what I'm doing next! I just finished a couple of films right before Christmas. I'm part of the remake of 3:10 to Yuma, that is James Mangold directing. I have a part in that. I'm always filming another independent movie called Boy of Pigs, which is set during the Kennedy assassination. My character is having an affair with Kennedy and it's kind of a coming of age story of this young boy and his loss of innocence and his fascination with this woman across the street. It's got a lot of intrigue and it's great. I'm really proud of that one.
