The problem with interviewing Jess Weixler is that she makes you feel so comfortable that you forget you did your research and have a series of James Lipton-y questions to ask her. The minute I walked into the room where she was, she pointed at my new tattoo and told me she loved it. This made me smile and ask her if she had any of her own. "I have one tattoo in the middle of my back, it’s like a white geometric shape" she said "...it’s super geeky because I got it at Julliard, cause we studied the Alexander technique there which is all about your body and the energy moving through your body, so I got this in the middle of my back to remind me about my center". This down-to-earth quality makes her a real pleasure to watch in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them where she plays Katy, the sister to Jessica Chastain's Eleanor.
In Ned Benson's film, Weixler shares the screen with the brilliant duo of Wiliam Hurt and Isabelle Huppert who play her parents, and from the get-go we are convinced that she has known these people forever. Weixler brings a quiet sadness to Katy, which is quite the contrast to the vitality and wonder she brings to investigator Robyn Burdine who she plays in The Good Wife. Talking to Weixler was as fun as watching her characters.
Let me geek out first and ask you what it was like to have Isabelle Huppert and William Hurt as your onscreen parents?
Right? I was crazy intimidated at first because being also a geeky fan, I was like “I have to be able to pretend that I’m used to these people and not only that, but that I’m bored by them”, cause that’s what you’re like with your parents. So the first day I couldn’t keep the geek away, I just wanted to hang out with them and they both were so comfortable and good with us. Isabelle just plopped on the bed and started through fashion magazines with us and couldn’t be more accessible and then I got to watch them work, cause like a supporting character I was able to just sit behind the monitor and just watch what they did and their process, which is super cool! I mean after you’ve watched a [Michael] Haneke boxset and seen everything Isabelle Huppert has done…
All of you seem so comfortable in the house your characters live in, as if you’ve actually been there forever. Did Ned ask you to bring things or was this just the work of a great production designer?
Our hallway is actually lots of pictures of all of us and childhood pictures of me and Jessica, so those are real pictures and the rest of the house, we had no input, but we were able to rehearse in the space a few days before, so we had come to the house and when Jessica and the others were rehearsing I was able to go off and play with Wyatt [Raiff] who plays my son in the movie, so we ran around the house a little more than other people, creating mischief (laughs).
I’m guessing that being friends with Jessica was an advantage when it came to playing her sister, right?
Yes, it made it quite easy to act in this movie, since we have a sister-like relation in real life and we have been roommates. Jessica, Ned and I were all roommates about 5 or 6 years ago and that was when he was writing this, so he wrote the parts for us, which is so special. To have somebody write something and then actually have it made, since we were all so close.
I’m really looking forward to seeing Him and Her…
Yes!!!
...where I’m guessing we see more of Katy, right?
Yeah, there’s a lot missing in the Them. In each movie, I know more about Her obviously, you get sort of her surrounding world a lot more and she plays a different character in each movie. In Him she plays his version of her and in Her she plays actually who she is and in the Them since it’s a condensed version of both movies, that dynamic is sort of taken out, but the intention of the two, you can see the specificity of it being all about what each of them are going through in an individual way.
In Them, this is getting confusing…
Haha, yeah I know.
...we don’t learn much about Katy, but you’re still able to let us know who she is through small gestures and looks. We get a sense of Katy being someone very insecure who was hurt in the past.
Yeah, she feels like the insecure little sister, who really needs her big sister for advice.
Right, which is what made me wonder if you created your backstory or if Ned showed up with a huge novel-like script with Katy’s past.
(Laughs) Ned wrote all that in and in Her you’ll see more about what Katy wanted to do with her life and getting cut short...there are some other scenes which I won’t spoil. A lot of it was in the script but I added to it and developed what it would feel like to be a mother and then back living at home with your parents, which can’t be easy. I mean, both of these girls, as adults have come home and they start to act and feel like children and they’re trying to regain a sense of identity. I feel there is a huge sense of identity crises in the film, these people going “who are you?”
Yes and Eleanor and Katy are living the biggest fear of all New Yorkers of a certain age, which is to fail and have to move back home.
Totally, this whole “I can not afford the rent in New York I am going home”.
I felt this was interesting because Ned doesn’t make a big deal about things like these, but the film thrives with these sociological flourishes that are extremely "New York". How important would you say the city is for you as an actress? Do you get that whole energy thing from living here?
Absolutely! New York is like nowhere else. I come from Kentucky, so New York is so different from what I’m used to and I instinctually feel the need for space in a way. Also, when I’m here I get such a buzz from going on, because there are people everywhere! There is always sound, which is what viscerally affects me the most, you’re always hearing cars, sirens, people talking...it all becomes like leaving a fan on at night, this drone of social sound everywhere and I think that can’t help but affect the story. New York is always featured like a character, Woody Allen and all these other artists are always creating love songs about the city…
I don’t want to offend anyone from Chicago, but I feel this New York energy is so obvious in The Good Wife and is what makes it special, since it’s shot here.
I think so too (laughs). We shoot in Brooklyn, we go out into the boroughs and suburbs. The thing that’s crazy about New York is that you get to all these suburbs and it’s not that far away, but each are is completely different, like giving a 180 degree turn.
But as a whole it makes sense which is what makes it so great.
Yeah, it’s very cool.
I know you probably would have to murder me before going into details, but can you tell me about…
The Good Wife? (Laughs) No, I can not. We would never have kept Josh Charles’ death a secret if we were able to talk about it.
How did you pull that off? It’s so crazy!
It took a lot of willpower. I wanted to tell my family members cause my parents love the show and I couldn’t tell them, because I also wanted them to experience it when it happened. It’s a big secret to keep! And the fact that every single person on our crew and our set kept it in with social media these days...bravo, secret keepers! Now you know, if you have a big skeleton in your closet somewhere you can tell anybody on The Good Wife.
More than plot details, I’m curious about how you’re all able to keep up the energy of the show. I mean, to have your best season yet, after five seasons is quite the feat!
Yes, it’s so good. The writing is so good and it’s also a very bonded set. I have to say, it’s spearheaded by Julianna Margulies, she is so accessible and kind and always on the ball. She shows up, works really hard, she sets the bar, and since last season most of my scenes were around her, you just want to rise to the occasion. And the rapport is really phenomenal, I mean people really like each other and everyone is so talented so there is real respect. The same in Eleanor Rigby, Jessica and Ned and I really love each other, so when all these other brilliant people came into the project it was great.
I feel awful about this, but I just found out you’re the actress from Teeth!
Yeah!
I love that movie and it never clicked on me that it was you!
You never realized that Robyn was…
No! And the thing is you don’t really have prosthetics on or a lot of makeup on, but you still make your characters feel like they’re being played by completely different people.
Thank you! I take that as a huge compliment. It’s funny a lot of people don’t recognize me from Teeth, I think it’s also because there’s this element of it going into a subconscious part of your brain. It’s such a strange movie and it hides in your subconscious with other weird stuff...I’ve been in full blown conversations with people who talk about Teeth not knowing that it was me, and I can only take it as a compliment, since it means I somehow transformed internally that I’m not as easily recognizable. I also did a higher pitch voice, cause I was playing a seventeen year old in that movie and my real voice is deeper.
Do you have any special technique to change so much when you act?
I think it’s just that when I leave a character I really leave it. I don’t wear that character’s clothes again, so that it can live inside of the movie and you’re not trying to recreate it. I think a lot of people get known for just one thing they do, as either the bubbly one, or the dark one...so you really wanna try and do something specific to the script, and not try to recreate something you’ve done before. I like to approach my characters with fresh eyes.
Let me geek out again, cause you’re kickass in Teeth. All those really guys deserved what was coming to them!
Yes they do (laughs)
But yeah, I’m still shocked. Many times I’ve found myself going “what ever happened to that girl from Teeth?”
(Laughs) Here I am!
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them opens in theaters September 12. Him and Her open October 10.
The Good Wife returns to CBS on September 21.
