Lizzy Caplan

Interview By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

Spending just a few minutes with actress Lizzy Caplan gives you the distinct impression that she's quite similar to the sarcastic, matter-of-fact Marlena, the character she plays in the new Blair Witch-meets-Godzilla flick Cloverfield. A little less of a hipster, maybe, but the humor is still very much there.

'I was actually really hoping that I got this role,' she explains, 'obviously because it was J.J. and all that, but also because I needed a concrete reason not to do this other film that would've required me to fly to Prague two times in two weeks and show my boobies.'

The J.J. she speaks of is of course producer J.J. Abrams, one of the minds behind Lost and Alias, as well as the director of Mission: Impossible-3. During publicity for that movie, he found himself in a toy store overseas lined with row upon row of Godzilla products ' and wondered why the U.S. didn't have a giant monster they could call their own. Thus, Cloverfield was born ' an account of a monster's attack on Manhattan as seen through the video camera of a group of frantic twentysomethings.

The master plan that Abrams came up with involved absolute secrecy on the project ' which meant that the actors didn't even know what the movie was about when they auditioned.

'We were given one scene that was just kids in their twenties, and they're going to this party, and they don't get along,' Caplan says. 'It seemed very much like this coming-of-age, twenties, urban movie. Then for the callbacks, we had to do that same scene coupled with a new scene where we were in France, and the girl was plunging an adrenaline shot into the heart of the guy. Then they asked us what we thought this movie was about, and we kind of guessed, and then they laughed maniacally at us because we had no idea. And then we later found out that scene was from Alias and was not going to be in the movie at all, and they were just trying to throw us off.'

One of the film's subplots ' in between all the screaming and the monster attacks, of course ' is the relationship between Caplan's Marlena and the guy holding the camera, Hud, played by T.J. Miller.

'T.J. is in love with me, in real life as well, so it was probably easy for him,' she says. (Miller, who's in the room: 'That's not true at all.') 'So it's easier, for him, to force an attraction, a real connection. But that's why I call myself an actress,' she deadpans.

In all seriousness, they both seemed to enjoy having something to do in the film besides scream in terror ' and the handheld-video, super-realistic format helped them get into it.

'We really tried to make a relationship between these two characters that carries throughout the film,' Caplan says. 'There are so few scenes of them conversing, that when we did have an opportunity to make something funny or sweet, Matt [Reeves, the director] really did give us time to work it out, like hours rehearsing, on the day of shooting. Because we didn't really have a lot of time before we started shooting the movie. We'd go over everything we wanted to say or rewrite, and he was totally open and cool about that.'

Of course, all the monster stuff was cool too ' in describing one particular scene after a bloody monster attack, Caplan goes to great lengths describing some of the things she had to go through: 'They stuck this thing in my nose and then pumped sponges until stuff was dripping down my throat.'

Up next for the actress ' who's perhaps up until now best known for a role in Mean Girls and last year's one-season sitcom The Class - are two new movies. 'one's called Crossing Over, I don't know when that one's coming out, and one's kind of a romantic comedy called My Best Friend's Girl.'

And, in case you develop a crush on Caplan just like poor Hud does in the movie, she promises to eventually take a role with a nude scene, even after turning that first one down to be in Cloverfield. 'I didn't want to do it for a little one-scene thing. Eventually, I'll do it.'