Michelle Williams

In helping to etch an unflinching portrait of a young marriage doomed never to grow old, one amid the passage of time and a swirl of changing circumstances, she keeps two antithetical emotions in precarious balance – a tender empathy and a steely resolve. In Brokeback Mountain, Wendy and Lucy, Blue Valentine, Shutter Island and Meek’s Cutoff, there is the sense that her characters are left alone to face the greater forces of nature and life. It’s impossible to propose that this image somehow resembles her own reality. But maybe they mirror the stories of her native Montana. That mythical state whose storms and wild landscapes can threaten to overwhelm the lives of those dreaming under its infinite sky. In any event, there’s something about Michelle. Intelligence and the sel essness that comes with being a young mother? It’s an intrinsic quality that has both overshadowed and enhanced her beauty, and that continues to attract some of this generation’s greatest filmmakers. The following interview has been a long time coming...

Shawn Dogimont — You’re in Los Angeles?

Michelle Williams — I’m actually in San Diego. We just came down from L.A. My mom lives in San Diego, so we just came down to spend the day with her. And then go home. It’s nice though it’s 30 degrees. Where are you?

— I’m in Vancouver right now, and it’s raining as per usual.

— Is it really? Ugh.

— How were the Oscars?

— I don’t know. [laughs]

— I’m really curious. Like everyone, I see it on television and just wonder what’s it like to be in the throes of all that.

— [laughs] Oh boy, I don’t even know what to say.

— [laughs] Give me a highlight at least.

—I wish I had an anecdote for you. Ok, I got to go with my best friend, see how truly beautiful Scarlett Johansson is in person, talk to Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, and then honestly, we were in bed by 2 a.m.

— Were you nervous when it was your turn? This sort of thing for me, I’d pray to God I wouldn’t win just so I wouldn’t have to get up there in front of all those people.

— My friend Busy says I’m the same way. But I wasn’t nervous because I knew that there wasn’t a chance of winning so I didn’t have to think about walking up the stairs or saying anything out loud. That would be terrifying to me. My only responsibility was to stand up straight and smile so that was ok.

— I saw Meek’s Cutoff finally.

— Ah... what did you think?

— I really liked it. It’s one of the coolest endings I’ve seen in a long time. I love how minimalist it is, how present the landscape is, the focus on rituals, sounds, compositions, the abstract score. I love how inscrutable Rod Rondeaux’s character is and how communication is never actually achieved. It’s a beautiful film.

— Aw I’m so glad, yay! Good. Thank you, thank you. I don’t know if there has ever been another feminist Western.

— I don’t know either. I guess it is since women are usually marginalized or missing from the picture entirely in Westerns. I liked how the husbands and wives act towards one another. Their actions and attitudes don’t seem exaggerated, it appears very real as if this is the way it was.

— Yeah, Kelly [Reichardt] would always talk about what it would feel like to watch as all the decisions about your future, where you were going next, were made in front of you and you didn’t have a say in them. Emily, my character, is given an unlikely amount of authority and taken out of the position of somebody who has to be a watcher, and could all of sudden be in a position of decision making.

— What do you think her feelings towards the Cayuse Indian are?

— Her position is interesting because she starts out in keeping with the times and society of her day, i.e., when I have to say that word, the ‘n’ word, I don’t know if you missed that or not, when I was cooking... I was nervous for three days. It was like having to a nude scene, like I knew that day was coming when I’d have to spit that word out.

— Yes, I was actually shocked when I heard it.

— Believe me, when I read the script, I was like “I don’t know.” Kelly said “It doesn’t mean she is a bad person Michelle, it’s just a way of expressing the sign of the times.” She is her own person but she’s not completely that outside of the box. So she starts out with her own pre-conditioning and her own sort of biases, whether they are hers or inherited. And as the movie unfolds, as she has an experience with somebody who is other, who is foreign or outside of her comfort zone, she realizes what her intuition and her heart tells her is that he is the same. But this is, of course, all projection, because like you said, Rod’s character is inscrutable. That is what she makes of him. This is the only movie that I’ve ever made that my daughter has seen. And at the end of the movie she says, “Mommy, I understand what this is about, you want to take care of him and give him food because you’re not scared of him like everybody else.” So her experience and feelings, her heart, is guiding her away from what she knows, and guiding her into another set of feelings where she would rather put her faith in this man as opposed to Meek. She’s gotta make a wager and she’s gonna, for whatever reason, go with the Indian.

— And in the end you’re framed by the branches of a tree, maybe representing life, and he is walking off towards hills to this ambiguous score. A hopeful ending?

— It’s uncertain, it’s like the future, it’s like our literal future, yours and mine, we don’t know what’s over the hills. Is it blood or is it water? We don’t know. But we have to make a decision about what side we’re on.

— This is your second lm with Kelly Reichardt. Did you nd any parallels between the two characters? It’s heartbreaking to watch Wendy in Wendy and Lucy. I wanted to say that Emily is tougher, has more courage, but both are equally determined. I wonder if the difference lies in

the fact that in Wendy and Lucy there is more loneliness and despair because people are mean and sort of treat each other like strays. Whereas in Meek’s Cutoff, everyone is in the same boat, and it’s the landscape that is indifferent. I don’t know where my question is... When you took on this character, because it was set in Oregon and because Kelly was the director, did you have your previous role in mind at all or was this a complete departure?

— I did but Kelly never really wanted to talk about it. But it was of course a concern of mine as I didn’t want to repeat work that we had done before. Every time I brought it up she would say “Oh Michelle she is completely different, she is nothing like Wendy I don’t want to talk about it.” [laughs] Kelly had oxen and windstorms to deal with so I was left alone on that one. It was one of those things that maybe if you don’t give it too much thought then you don’t give it too much power. Ireally identi ed with Wendy as watcher, Wendy as bystander.There is a kind of will to survive that I think is Wendy’s strength, which is a basic human quality. Emily’s strengths are numerous. It’s a tricky position. It’s tricky because at times she is in similar positions, i.e., being the watcher, having to stand back and absorb a lot of information and not do too much about it, at least in the beginning. And that made me feel like I was back in Wendy’s shoes. I was curious how to differentiate that.

— They are both very American journeys. They’re both in the same part of the world...

— And they’re both the heros of their own story, even though they are more the anti-heroes. They are entirely fallible. Fallible the way you are and the way I am. They’re doing their best but making mistakes left and right.

— In the roles I’ve seen you in, so much seems internal. Is that a quality you see in the scripts or how you naturally convey things and act? You know the old adage “write what you know.” Does it apply to acting? Are you choosing roles that you can relate to and bring your own experience and hence personality to?

— Yes and no. I mean I don’t think necessarily of Emily as a very internal person. I think that she is repressed because of the social situation that she’s in, but I think she is an expressive person in as much as she is allowed to be. She definitely breaks outside of social norms and speaks her mind. The last two movies that I did certainly aren’t that way either, the Sarah Polley and the Marilyn movie. As far as personal experiences,I think it’s both. It’s definitely not all me because that would bore me and everyone else to death. I certainly give of myself, but I think it’s also an imaginative process.

— How long do you stay mentally invested in a lm or a character? Is there a point where you need to release yourself from it? Does it happen automatically and quickly when you take on another project?

— I think eventually, like with any obsession or any crush, any kind of intense burn, it fades. After I end a project I always feel a little crazy for a couple of weeks and realize that it was just a come down or hangover from the character that had its grip in me. It just takes a moment or two to detatch yourself from it. Like after Blue Valentine I couldn’t take off my wedding ring for a couple weeks, it just didn’t feel right, but of course I’m not wearing that today. It eventually lets go of you, so that something else can take its hold and work its magic.

— Do you think you’ll always enjoy the vulnerability and emotional exposure that acting allows and demands of you?

— I’m always trying to figure out what kind of life I want to live. What do I want to do? Where is the best place to be? How do I want to spend my time? What situations optimize my parenting? Which really is the most important thing in my world. That’s the question that I’m asking. “How do I live my life and do my work in a way that makes me the best parent that I can be?” I think it’s the ultimate creative act. If this doesn’t turn out well then there is no success or awards in the world that can make up for it. So I’m always wondering what that balance is, and where it is. Like today we were in Los Angeles and we were starting to get followed by the paparazzi and it unhinges me in a matter of seconds. Even though nothing physical is happening to your body, nobody is touching you, there are no bullets coming from the lenses. While nothing isphysically harming you, emotionally I nd it so traumatic. It completely shakes me, and terrorizes me. I nd myself all ofsudden crying and screaming, so I realized this is not the best place for me to be the best parent I can be. [laughs] When you’ve lived through an experience and something happens that reminds you of it, it’s happening on two time parallels. The traumatic event and the current situation. It gets a little blown out of proportion in your mind. So it hasn’t really normalized for me even though it may not be as bad as it was, my head is still telling me that something very bad is happening. I’m not equipped to deal with it, to have a sane and rational approach to it. I can be having my very best day and have my very best head on and it just levels me.

— That sounds awful. I can’t even imagine what it would be like.

— On the level that it bothers me, there is the actual upset of the event while it’s happening, and the idea that people have put a price on my daughter’s head, that men in suits in offices on high floors, look at my daughter and see dollar signs. And the damage that it does, is that she loses the right to her own image and I think that it infringes on her safety and her ability to feel free and unencumbered and safe in the world as she grows, as she makes her own decisions about the places she wants to travel, the schools she wants to go to and places she wants to live. It impedes her freedom, and that isn’t ok with me.

— Assuming that you continue down this road, have you stories of your own that you would like to see developed?

— I’ve never had much ambition first and foremost, and certainly not had much ambition in that area. I find the work that I get to do challenging and exhausting and exhilarating. It never leaves me dry. I mean bored or wanting. Every job that I take leaves me with more questions and I feel totally egged on from one to the next to improve, set new goals for myself. I get everything that I need from the work that I already do. And I also don’t think that I’m a person, in all honesty, with a surplus of energy. For me, that would take what I don’t have to give. Maybe when I was younger. But back then I didn’t realize it would ever run out. So I squandered it. Now I’m just tired all the time. Are you tired all the time? Is that what being an adult is?

— I’m exhausted.

— The thought of developing something pushes me to a place that I can’t go. When I’m not working my other energies are more domestic. To write a nice long letter or finally master the perfect pot roast. When I was younger with my friends, before I had opportunities, my friends and I were always scheming and dreaming and writing things together, because we wanted to work and we weren’t being given the opportunities. But that’s not one of the problems I have anymore thank goodness.

— Thank you for introducing me to Galway Kinnel. Since I heard you talk about him I’ve been reading all his poems and I really like them.

— You like him? I wrote him a letter and he wrote me back and I think I keep hoping somehow, that the more I mention him maybe he will write to me again and maybe he’ll want to have a cup of tea with me. It’s nice when something can have a tangible effect on your life that isn’t concrete at all. There is no value on a poem; it doesn’t run your bath, make your dinner, or anything.

— It’s like you say, there is no practical value, it’s just the purest form of expression.

— Maybe that’s why I’m so drawn to it. There’s no such think as a sell out poet. It seems to be something that’s eked outfor its own reward. His work has had a quanti able, noticeableeffect on my life.

— I was reading “Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the

Moonlight”.
[I think you think I will never die, I think I exude to you the permanence of stars...
I, like you, only sooner
than you, will go down
the path of vanished alphabets,
the roadlessness
to the other side of the darkness...]

I don’t have a child but I get along very, very well with my friend’s six year old boy. I take photos of them all the time; the kid’s like my muse. I think there must be something that happens as a parent. It’s the closest we can get to immortality I suppose, but also nally being able to shed our egos. Suddenly you’re not the center of the universe as there’s someone else to worry and think about. I’m looking forward to that.

— It gives you a reason to get out of bed every morning. You know, the existential crisis is over; I know what I’m here for. It is funny watching yourself sort of mirror back. It’s almost like you get to make peace with yourself, because I see my daughter struggling with things that I remember myself having struggled with when I was her age. You get to observe it and somehow make peace with the thing that existed for you and help them through it because you’ve been there.

— What are you reading these days?

— Well right now I’m reading Liv Ullmann’s book Changing which is miraculous. She was a single mom and an actress and I just got to the part where she went to the Academy Awards, and I thought this is crazy, this is written for me! So I’m liking that, liking not feeling very lonely that’s for sure.

— Is she still doing movies?

— I guess so. I don’t really know; I need to do a big fat google search. I saw the play she directed, A Streetcar Named Desire with Cate Blanchett when it came to BAM. My curiosity has put all my ears up. I’m also not really working right now, but when I am working my head is buzzing because I’m in the midst of active problem solving and looking for inspiration in every corner. But right now I’ve just been doing publicity and it’s a very different mindset for me. I’m a little less sparky at the moment. My head isn’t that interesting of a place to live right now. Although I do find that it is so important to fill yourself up with the right stuff.

— Which play were you telling me about last week? Something about it or the actors leading back to a theatre school in France...

— Yes. When I was working in London this fall, I had a couple of scenes with Toby Jones. The man can employ subtle but jaw dropping contradictions between his actions and his words, the likes of which I’ve never seen. Like a hound on the scent, I found out that he had studied at [L’école Jacques] Lecoq in Paris, as had Simon McBurney. I went to see two productions put on by Complicite, Simon’s theatre troupe and felt like I had the sleep rubbed out of my eyes. It seemed like a new horizon for me. I often dream of quitting acting. Walking away and becoming a laundress or a sous chef or maybe writing other people’s love letters for a living. Clearly, I don’t like to be in charge. And thinking of quitting is just keeping going in disguise. When you have options, anything is bearable. It’s when a situation is inescapable that it becomes hell. It seems to me that as soon as you get good at something, it is a sure sign that it is about to walk out of your life because it ceases to hold your mind and creative energy hostage. What these guys are up to is as foreign as another language to me. I’m mystified and utterly curious. What a lovely feeling of renewal. I’ve been acting for twenty years and watching them work I’m eight years old all over again and watching my first play for the first time. Holding on to the edge of my seat because it might take off. Who knew?

— Going back to Wendy and Lucy and Meek’s Cutoff, have you developed an affinity with Oregon at all? The first time I met you was in the Ace in New York and so wondered if you spent time at the one in Portland because they were both filmed in that area.

— I have very fond memories of the Ace Hotel in Portland. Yeah, that is some place where I played with my “perfect world” game. And I thought that Portland might get pretty close. Man, there is nothing like a Portland summer. But then I also realized as soon as you make a place home, you invite entanglements, and Portland seemed like a place that I would want to keep free from that. As long as I don’t make it my home it stays perfection. I can miss it, I can yearn for it, I can fantasize about it and I can visit it and have the best time.

— You’re from Montana originally. Do you imagine ever going back to those mountain ranges and plains?

— I wonder if you can ever really escape the place where you were born. If you can ever really feel at home in a climate and landscape that is very different from what you originally knew. I feel like in a sense I have returned to it; it’s a picture in my mind that I can’t escape. The weather, the mountains, the plants, the ruggedness... It’s in surroundings like that where I feel the most like myself. I wonder, “Can a place that’s totally different from what you grew up in feel like home? Those early experiences... It’s funny when I was driving around L.A. this morning, these two lives were kind of happening at once. The one that I’m living now and can touch, taste, and feel, and the one when I was fifteen-sixteen and was like every other girl in that town, just wanting and not having. Trying and not attaining. Auditioning constantly and coming up short. And to drive around, to drive past the places I used to audition or the crappy restaurant I used to eat at... If anything feels satisfying, or if I take any pride, which I take very little because I’m so hard on myself, it’s that I have come a long way.

— I heard you say that you feel you’re more brave and confident in work than in life. Do you remember saying that to somebody?

— That sounds true and like something I would say.

— When I was thinking about what we could talk about, I tried to find out how you started acting. I mean leaving home as a teenager to follow that desire seems pretty brave.

— I don’t know. I don’t really classify that as brave, but out and out foolishness. I classify that as a whim. A fifteen year old invincibility syndrome thing. I mostly feel like a scared little girl all the time. [laughs] I was actually wondering the other day, oh man I’m thirty now, I can’t be a little girl, when am I going to stop feeling so shy and afraid and hiding. I have to let go. I can’t wear this suit anymore; this is not a look that I can carry into my thirties.

— Do you think it’s possible? The anxieties I had when I was eighteen are the same ones I carry with me now. I am thirty-three and haven’t gotten any better. So I don’t know, I think you’re always going to be a kid.

— I guess so, I can definitely imagine that feeling that when you’re sixty you still feel like you’re eighteen but on the outside everything is different. There is a particular kind of girlishness though that I feel does not wear well on a woman, along with smoking cigarettes and wearing jumpers. That’s what I’m thinking has to go, but no, I will probably live the rest of my life feeling scared of the same things and anxious about the same things. I do think that you get a certain kind of lot in life and there is a sort of problem set that is going to take your life to chip away at.

— I agree. You know I think I’ve just been told to wrap it up.

— We could have an ongoing conversation because my brain is quitting after a week of Oscarness anyway. I don’t know maybe it’s because I’m a girl, but I’m so different at different times. I feel very sensitive about getting the right thing across, because then it sticks and people think it’s you. So if you’re up for it maybe we can have little back and forth and keep refining it.

— I would love that. Ok, I’ll send you more questions.

— Yeah and then I can say smarter things. [laughs] You know what else it is? My daughter all day today has been wanting to play ‘baby’. She just wants to climb onto my lap and be a little baby again. I’m home in San Diego, I’m at my mother’s house. I said to Matilda I know exactly how you feel, when I’m around my mom I want to be a baby again, I want her to cook for me, I want her to clean up after me, I want her to lay out my clothes in the morning and tuck me in at night. I know exactly how you feel. So my infant brain is completely switched on at the moment and I’m not thinking critically or creatively at all, I just want someone to take care of me and tell me what my day is going to be like tomorrow.

— That does sound good. By the way, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I’m very excited. Honestly, it feels like a meridian, like the positive culmination of, I don’t know, maybe just time passing.

— I know it makes me happy too, it’s been a long, long time in the making and I’ve always wanted to do this. I wanted it to to be special and I wanted to do a good job. It’s just nice to do something that is publicity but also what you would want to do anyway so I’m super happy this came together.

— Bye Michelle.

— Bye Shawn. Go stay dry.

— Same email?

— Yeah. Some things never change and that email address is one of them.