Next week, Julia Stiles arrives at the Los Angeles Film Festival for the premiere of It’s a Disaster,
Todd Berger’s witty end-of-the-world comedy about four couples who meet
for Sunday brunch only to realize that the apocalypse is near. Forced
to live out their last moments together, the quartet of quirky
couples—including the brilliant duo of Stiles and David Cross, who plays
her recent, online-acquired beau—transition through the various stages
of grief while navigating their awkward relationship dynamics, rationing
their alcohol, and making the odd interpersonal discovery along the
way.
On Thursday, Stiles phoned VF.com and told us about her film, putting both The Bell Jar and the Bourne series behind her, and her very first onscreen job, playing a young Cyndi Lauper.
Julie Miller: I loved the concept in It’s a Disaster
that your character is on one of her first dates with David Cross’s
character and is more concerned about how the date is going than the
impending apocalypse.
Julia Stiles: Yeah, absolutely. And she’s the one with the most delayed reaction. The way that she deals with disaster is by focusing on her date and making sure that her friends admit that she is right.
How are you when it comes to crisis management?
Sometimes I’m really good in a crisis, when it involves taking care
of another person. But when it involves big ideas about what is going on
in the world, I tend to focus on minutia as well. It’s a weird coping
mechanism. Without getting morbid, I’ve been in a situation where I hear
about something dangerous going on in the world. If it’s not right in
front of my face, I get really concerned about running errands or doing
whatever I have to. One of the things that Todd said when we started
shooting was that he wanted each character to represent a different
stage of grief. So one character is denial, anger, acceptance, and so
on.
You and David Cross make such a fantastically awkward couple. What was it like working with him?
I had been a fan of his for a while. I really liked his stand-up and
Mr. Show with Bob and David. It was really easy to improvise with him
because he just serves up the perfect tennis ball. He’s such a
thoughtful actor, too. He carefully calibrated his performance.
It’s funny to see how each person deals with the news of the end of the world. How do you think you would react?
The thing that’s funny to me about the way these people react and
their humor is that they are totally useless without technology and they
lose all motivation and will to fight for their existence when
technology is unavailable. So when the radio goes out or the television
goes out, they are really immobilized. It’s easy to sit back and think,
Well, why don’t they leave the house? But they don’t because of toxic
radiation.
Speaking of dark subject matter, is there any truth to the stories that you are going to be starring in The Bell Jar?
Oh, I had gotten the rights to the book and was trying to develop it
as a movie for a number of years. I kind of had to let it go, only
because—aside from the fact that I don’t really have experience as a
producer—it wasn’t really the right time. We had a lot of difficulty
getting financing for it, so ultimately I had to let it go. But I do
still really love the book and think it would make the movie, so who
knows. Maybe one day it will have a good incarnation.
You have David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook coming out later this year in which you play Jennifer Lawrence’s sister. Can you talk about that character a little?
Despite her best intentions, she is kind of a difficult sister, but
she is the one who introduces Jennifer to Bradley Cooper’s character.
She tries to be a matchmaker.
Have you had any success as a matchmaker in real life?
Well, it depends on what you consider a success. [Laughs.] I
don’t think my batting average is very good. I like to just put two
people in the same room and see what happens. I haven’t ended up pairing
anybody off, though, so that would be a no.
I was disappointed to hear that your character and Matt Damon’s
Jason Bourne would not be returning for the fourth film in the series, The Bourne Legacy.
Matt Damon has publicly acknowledged that he was unhappy with the
fourth script, but how did you feel about the way your characters ended
their arcs in the franchise? Were you satisfied with how their
storylines left off?
I certainly think they could have been explored more, but I don’t
really have any control or say in that. Once Tony Gilroy ended up being
the director and writer of the fourth film, it was clear to me. . .
Actually, I saw him at a movie screening, and he made a point of coming
up to me and explaining to me what had happened. My character doesn’t
really fit into the fourth of the series because she was so closely
linked to Matt Damon’s version of Jason Bourne that it would have been
forcing it a little too much to include her. I’m not exactly sure what
happens in this one, but when you change the identity—I think she was
just too closely tied to Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne.
After Bourne, would you consider doing action again?
I really like that action work because it was always deeply rooted in
something very intelligent and very political. And with Paul Greengrass
behind it, I felt like I was in really good hands. So if something like
that were to come up, I would be really excited about it. In terms of
action without the character development, that’s not something I am
really interested in. For me, I don’t really care what medium I am
working in, whether it’s film, television, independent film, as long as
the material is really good and the characters are compelling and the
creative heads are people I respect and like working with.
I had no idea that you were in a Cyndi Lauper video.
I know! That was one of my first jobs on camera. I started working in
Off Broadway theater, but the first time that I was in anything that
was filmed was the Cyndi Lauper video. I really just got the job because
she thought I looked like a younger version of her, which is what I was
playing: Cyndi Lauper at 16. It was so exciting because any little girl
my age worshipped Cyndi Lauper. Or at least I did.
What do you remember about working with her?
Aside from being in awe of her the whole time, I remember that I was
supposed to be playing her at 16 but I was a little bit younger at the
time and hadn’t really developed yet. I remember that she kept
apologizing for the fact that they had to keep stuffing my bra to make
me look older.
One last question—do you remember any of the numbers from Save the Last Dance, and what would it take for you to bust them out?
I kind of remember them! Some of the dance moves at least—not all of
the choreography of major dance sequences, but I remember steps here and
there that I like to bust out. I forget what it’s called, but there is a
heel-toe [step] that has a samba influence that is in one of the final
dance numbers. It’s been a really long time since I’ve gone to a dance
club. That phase is kind of over for me. The last amazing dance party I
went to was at my friend’s wedding. We’re all the same age so they
played all the music we grew up on. I busted out some moves there. It
was pretty much the dance party of the century.