Kristen Wiig
Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com
Kristin Wiig is best known for her comedic performances as cast member of NBC's famed sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live. However, despite only starting to venture into the world of film with small parts in films like Unaccompanied Minors and Knocked Up, the 34 year-old comic actress has absolutely no qualms with playing second fiddle.
'I would rather have a small part in a really great movie than a big one that I'm not really too psyched about,' Kristin states, 'I want to try to be in projects that are exciting to me when I read the script and I'm happy about it.'
With that being said, her latest small role is in the new comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, which is co-written by 40 Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up filmmaker Judd Apatow and directed by Orange County director Jake Kasdan. She plays Edith, the wife of rising bluesy rock star Dewey Cox, who while he is becoming a megastar, she's having his babies. As the SNL star discussed the movie with us, first on the agenda was how she enjoyed working with both Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan.
'I've worked with Judd before on Knocked Up,' Wiig notes, 'We've known each other for a while and Jake is like the perfect mixer of being laid-back and still knowing what he wants and being able to direct you. I hope I get to work with both of them again.'
One of the most notable aspects of Apatow-connected films is their penchant for constant improvisation. We asked Kristin how much improvisation was involved for a more obviously story-driven comedy like Walk Hard
'Yeah, sometimes we'd talk about it before we shoot, like let's try this or give me a second after I say this because I'm going to make something up,' she recalls, 'And sometimes, we would rise each other and try to make each other laugh. Yeah, I think in that scene when I yell, 'I'm his 12 year-old girlfriend.' He's a great improviser. It was fun being able to do that because I respect the script, of course. We do it how it's written, then being able to play with it.'
Wiig also explained to us how accommodating director Jake Kasdan was with such an approach, as well as how to approach her character.
'He was great,' Kristin says, 'We would do it how it was written, then if he doesn't like it or if he wants it to go a certain way or he likes what you're doing, he'd go keep going with that or yell that or whatever. Yeah, he'd definitely guide you in the right direction because, especially with this movie, there's so much information that needs to get out in the scene and you can't ignore something that's already in there, so it's sort of heightening that and little things here and there.'
'He basically told me that we were definitely going to play on the supportive wife who loves him,' she adds, 'A great sort of mixed message, confusing relationship, and he told me I was most progressively worse as we moved on. He's like you're always going to be pregnant and look really bad during the movie, which was fine with me. I mean it was like baby food on my face and my hair was like literally, they just tied it in a knot, and just left it, but that's fun to play.'
Starring in the film is Oscar-nominated actor John C. Reilly, who has appeared in many films including Chicago, which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, The Aviator, and Talladega Nights. We asked Wiig what it was like to work with Reilly on Walk Hard.
'He's one of a kind, he's amazing,' Wiig says, 'I worked with him last year when he hosted SNL. But that's only for like six days. You don't really get to know someone as well as when you work on film with them. He's hilarious. He's such a good improviser.'
Also on hand was the question of whether or not Reilly remained in his Dewey Cox persona off-camera during filming.
'No, not to the annoying point when you say, 'Hi, John,' and he'd be like Dewey,' she replies, 'He was still like the same person. He was himself. It was nothing abnormal.'
We also asked Wiig how everyone approached the idea of a fictitious and more comedic biopic.
'I think there was a general attitude that Dewey Cox was a real person and we really wanted to treat it,' she explains, 'And I know that sounds odd because the movie is so insane, in a good way, that we did sort of wanted to respect 'the memory' of this person that we made up, in a way, and to sort of take any stereotypes of our characters and just completely run with them. You know a lot of the times, I'm just way overly dramatic when I'm leaving a room or screaming and yet, turning on a dime, it's just sort of loving that very confusing character that I have.'
Another aspect about the films Judd Apatow has some degree of involvement in is how despite their focus solely on male characters, how women respond equally as enthusiastically, if not more so, to them. We asked Kristin whether she ever felt out of place being in such a male-dominated environment.
Also added to the question was whether or not the comic actress feels the extra need to prove herself as a comedienne against her male counterparts.
'I don't ever feel that way because I don't ever want to feel like I'm trying to be funny,' Wiig answers, 'There's definitely a difference with men and women in comedy, even if you look at who wrote the list of the last twenty comedies in the past four years. A lot of them are based on a male character, that's just the way that it is. You know some movies that break the mold, but for the most part, women in comedy has kind of played that lesser role and I think that's changing. I think that's a great thing for somebody to discern. There are so many funny women out there that get a chance to show that.'
Kristin has been part of the cast of SNL since the fall of 2005. We asked her to compare the experiences of on a weekly live sketch show on television versus working on a film set.
'[SNL]'s like every week, we're producing, we're writing, we're acting in a movie every week,' she explains, 'Because on Monday, we don't have anything for the show yet, there's a sense of that, we have got to have an hour and a half of material for Saturday. You get frantic, but that's sort of cool about the job is that the energy there is just like'I mean, on Saturday nights, when it's a live show, you just can't beat the energy there.'
'That's what everyone says who ever goes to a taping there and just sees the sets changing really quick and definitely performing live,' Wiig continues, 'It definitely made me less nervous on a movie set because, to me, that's like the most nerve-racking thing in the world, doing live TV and trying to make people laugh.'
Also on hand was which of the two experiences the actress finds more preferable.
'I don't know, because there's a different reaction on SNL because we have a live audience right there and everything,' Kristin replies, 'It's a total difference on a movie set. We worked for months on a movie and you don't get to see it till almost a year later. And when you hear people laughing, it's like a totally different attitude.'
We also asked Wiig whether or not she's seen Walk Hard and if so, what parts of it she found the funniest.
'I loved it,' she replies, 'Especially for me, because most of the scenes I did were just John and I, so I didn't get to see a lot of the band scenes or the stuff with Jenna or the big set pieces and the craziness that you see in the script, but you don't know how they're going to do until you see it.'
'I loved all the Tim Meadows stuff in the bathroom with the drugs,' Kristin adds, 'That was so ridiculously wonderful and the Beatles scene, to me, was so crazy and delicious. There's so many and all the music in the movie to me was just like pretty good.'
The actress also shared with us what she hopes will happen with her career in the future and what roles she'd like to take on.
'I would like to have a go at a very juicy dramatic role. I hope that I can do that someday, nobody specific,' Wiig says, 'I can only think of a joke answer right now (laughing), like Gloria Estefan, I don't know, her life story, even though she's still alive. I don't have anyone in particular or anyone to work with. I'm just thinking of some of the movies that have been nominated. I'd love to work with Johnny Depp and I adore Tim Burton, who I am a huge fan of. I'm a huge Ryan Gosling fan, there's so many good people out there.'
However, she was more reluctant when asked about whether she'd consider doing romantic comedies.
'I don't know about the romantic comedy route,' Kristin answers, 'I don't want to ever say never but it completely depends on the script.'
Finally, with her ongoing gig at SNL still currently on lockdown due to the continuing writers' strike, Wiig shared with us what she has down the road in the world of film for the future.
'A movie I did this summer called Pretty Bird, which just got into competition on Sundance, I'm very excited about that,' she shares, 'Paul Schneider, he's amazing, he wrote it and directed it and I haven't seen it yet. I'm very excited about that. It's kind of dark comedy. It's not really a super-funny role. It was very exciting for me to do that. I make out with Billy Crudup. It wasn't too bad.'
'That was one of the movies when I read it, I was like, I will literally just walk by in the background to be in this movie because I loved the script so much,' Kristin continues, 'I was very happy I got to do it. Also, there's a couple of little parts in some comedies like Ghost Town and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.'
