Jess Weixler

Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

It's always fun to profile an actor on the rise and no up-and-coming actor has proven to be more exciting than Jess Weixler. While she started out doing guest appearances on a variety of TV series, she made her feature film debut in the 2006 comedy The Big Bad Swim.

Now, Weixler has scored her first lead role in the incredibly unusual black comedy/horror film Teeth, which has gotten rave reviews since it first premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. She plays a sexually repressed teenager named Dawn, whose very anatomy she discovers has an unusual ability, when threatened with male violence.

A movie as seemingly unusual as this can be quite a risk, especially for an actor still on the rise. And as we soon discovered from Jess, when she discussed the film with us, she too had her own reservations about taking the role when she first read the script.

'I was totally freaked out when I first saw the script,' she recalls, 'And it wasn't until my second read, when I got offered it, that I decided to do it after sort of thinking that it wouldn't be a good idea to do it. But I met [director/writer] Mitchell [Lichtenstein] and he was so sweet and unassuming and charming and smart and I realized it wasn't a bad, B-horror movie, it was more of a dark comedy.

'Then I started reading it, more of a tone of it being a dark comedy and not really a horror,' Weixler adds, 'And that's what really turned me around on it and I started to love the idea of playing a part that really had never been played before.'

The idea of a female character with essentially a monstrous vagina seems rather hard to swallow for most people, but the film hints of a deep and substantial allegorical subtext as the 26 year-old actress explained for us what she feels the story and the character of Dawn ultimately represents in the film.

'[It's about] a young girl coming into her own sexuality and a girl being confused by sex,' she explains, 'And then, having to like discover her body and then, eventually be proud of it and like her body. Because I think by the end, she thinks she's sexy and in the beginning, she's totally shut down.'

She also shared with us her own interpretation of what she thinks the film is.

'I've gone down the path of thinking of it like a superhero movie, sort of mixed with a monster movie, although I don't think that Dawn is a monster,' Jess believes, 'But it's not a horror, it's more of a dark comedy and like any satire, it's got a blend of elements where you got to play it real enough that people can care about her as a person, but you have to realize that it's totally in the world of fantasy, so a lot of it is going to be over the top, so it's like mixed genre.'

'I liked that they flipped the script on this one,' she continues, 'Where it says more about men that men wanted to make women like monsters and now are saying that women can use this as an image of protecting themselves, if they are in an abusive situation.'

However, even stranger, she claims, was her audition for the role.

'I auditioned for the best friend and then, they had me, when I was there, read for Dawn and so I read it pretty cold,' Jess recounts, 'And then, a few weeks later, they just offered it to me. So I'm not sure how they really came to it, but I'm glad that they did and talked me into it (laughing).'

Also asked of Weixler was how she managed to research such a character.

'I researched them online and also, being from Kentucky, I knew people who believed in abstinence, but there are ring groups online,' she notes, 'The silver ring thing you can research. People can become part of a club and they have these rallies to continue and encourage each other to stay on track.'

One thing was a constant with Jess was her faith in confidence in actor Mitchell Lichtenstein as director.

'I think what was nice about that he's an actor was that he really lets you do what you feel is right,' she says, 'And then, if he sees anything off, he'll tweak it or help tweak it to help fit the story as a whole, but he sits back and he watches and sees what you have going on and how you would develop it and he helps you do that.'

And because he wrote it, he had a strong idea of what it was, but at the same time, it's a character that's never been done before, so we got to sort of pull it out of the air,' Weixler adds, 'I adore Mitchell. He's the kind of guy that gets the giggles. He has such a good sense of humor that I trusted that in taking the part to this guy. He had a really sweet sense of humor, as warped as it may seem.'

The actress also shared her praise for her co-star John Hensley of the FX series Nip / Tuck, who plays Dawn's stepbrother Brad.

'He's a great guy as an actor and I found out while we were shooting, that we actually grew up two miles from each other in Kentucky,' Jess notes, 'Totally random, he lived two miles down the road on the farm near me. So we had in common that we totally came from the same place and totally came from the same world, which is like Dawn and Brad, they came from the same world, but they reacted differently to it.'

'As small children, she discovered she had this thing,' she continues, 'And she blocked it out and decided to choose a path where she could learn as little as possible about her sexuality and he became completely fascinated with it. It's all subconscious, but you could see how their forces were spun off of one another.'

While she has gotten rave nods for her performance, Jess says that doesn't stop her from having the occasional second guesses about her performance in a couple of places.

'In something like this where the tone is all over the place, there were parts when I was like, ooh, I went too far with the tone in this area, or, oh, I needed to play this part more realer, I could have sent it up more,' Weixler claims, 'But on the whole, I think enough of it works that I can just step back and say that's the movie. I mean, not everybody's going to like it and that's tricky to watch, but I'm glad that I did it and happy enough.'

We also asked her how she feels working on such an unusual film like Teeth has impacted her acting.

'I think I'm constantly changing and growing as an actress, but I think what this film showed me is that I didn't know I could carry a movie,' she believes, 'I never had the opportunity to do that and just to trust that I could work all hours of everyday and still have more to give when I woke up the next morning and I think in large part that was due to that I had some preparation time on this.'

'I had a month to prepare,' Jess adds, 'I don't know how people dive into projects when they are like you got the part after so and so turned it down and it would be a disaster because everything was shot out of sequence. So I had the time to prepare an entire journey, but I realized that I could work that hard. It helped me grow like that and any experience just gets you more comfortable. And to a large degree, you have to be comfortable in order to express anything.'

However, she makes no qualms about any kind of comment she may get down the road about her first lead role being that of a girl with an unusually monstrous vagina.

'I thought about that, that I'm always going to be the toothy vagina girl,' she says, 'And I realized that those are risks that you're going to have to take. As an actor, I think you play both parts. You do stuff that takes a bit of courage and that's a stretch and it's hard to do and you just hope that people give you a chance to do what everyone else would have you do.'

'And you know, there are people like Susan Sarandon who started in Rocky Horror Picture Show and you just do what you can,' Weixler continues, 'And I'm not going to be too scared of however people perceive me, just keep putting myself out there. I've gotten a few other things since then that are extremely different.'

Jess goes on to share an upcoming film in particular that she's excited about being released.

'The one I'm particularly excited about is one called Peter And Vandy,' she says, 'And it's a love story between me and Jason Ritter and I'm really proud of shooting it. I don't know how they are going to edit it together, but I'm excited to see what happens with that one.

In referencing Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon rather similarly unusual breakout role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, we were compelled to wrap things up by asking the actress whether she believes there is any possibility of Teeth emerging as the next big cult classic in the near future.

'I'm not sure,' Jess replies, 'I know people have said that, but it's not a musical or anything shout-out kind of a movie, where you'd shout out your favorite part. But I can see it being a bit of a midnight movie. It's an indie also, so it's not as polished as studio movies are. I have no idea if it's going to be culty or not, but people have said that and I think that's a good thing. If it would become that, I think I would be pleased.'