August 2009 | blackfilm.com | JULIE AND JULIA

August 2009

JULIE AND JULIA |
Press Conference Interview with Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci

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JULIE AND JULIA
Press Conference Interview with Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci
By Wilson Morales

August 3, 2009

For every female actress working today and hoping for that coveted role that will land them instant fame or an endless supply of work, they only wish they could be in Meryl Streep, arguably the greatest living actress today. With an astonishing 15 Oscar nominations, no actor, with the exception of maybe Jack Nicholson, can match her level of success. She’s played a quarter of the most female legends today and continues to amazed audiences with a zest in her performances that’s inspirational.

In her next film, Streep takes on the role of Julia Child, the famous American chef who introduced French cuisine and cooking techniques to the American mainstream through her many cookbooks and television programs.

In ‘Julie and Julia,’ which is directed by Nora Ephron, the film depicts events in the life of famed chef Julia Child, contrasting her life with Julie Powell (played by Amy Adams), a woman who aspires to cook all 524 recipes from Child's autobiography.

At a recent press conference interview, both Streep and Stanley Tucci, who plays Paul Childs, Julia’s husband, discuss the making the film and working together.

Was there a challenge of doing an impersonation that might veer into parody because she's such a character? Nora [Ephron] mentioned that you did Julia for her one night after Shakespeare in the Park and went on to add that you're now considered a box office star –

Stanley Tucci: Finally. Poor thing.

Has that changed anything about the choices that you make now?

Meryl Streep: Well, I bet everybody in this room could do their version of Julia Child. To everybody, that voice was so familiar and then how do we know whether we're doing here or Dan Aykroyd's version of her. Everyone can see pull that 'bon appetit' out there. When Nora gave me the script which was I can't even remember when, sometime a year ago, I just thought that it was so, so beautifully written. I thought that it was an opportunity to not impersonate Julia Child, but to do a couple of things. One, for me embodying her or Julie Powell's idea of her which is what I'm doing – I'm doing an idealized version, but I was also doing an idealized version of my mother who had a similar jour de vivre, an undeniable sense of how to enjoy her life. Every room she walked into she made brighter. I mean, she was really something. I have a good deal of my father in me which is another kind of sensibility, but I really, all my life, wanted to be more like my mother. So this is my little homage to that spirit. That's more what I was doing than actually Julia Child. The second part of your question, about choices, I seem to have more choices in the last five years in the previous five years, maybe. I really don't know why that is, but part of me thinks it has to do with the fact that there are more women executives making decisions because everything starts with what gets made and where the money comes from. So I'm sure that they've had more to do with that really than I have.

You don't have a dream project to do with your box office clout that you could get into production?

MS: No. Do you have an idea?

What would you both liked to have asked the characters that you play in the film that you, obviously, didn't get the chance to?

ST: Well, I'd like to ask them how they lived so long eating what they ate. I'm convinced that they both had two livers. I'd just be curious. I can't say that I know what I would've asked them, but what I would've liked to have done is watch the interaction between the two of them in that little kitchen, either in Paris or in Boston, because to me that was the most interesting thing. When you see that kitchen that we recreated in the film, it was so casual and really very intimate. I would've just liked to have watch that, watch them put together a meal. That would've been a great thing.

MS: I think I would agree. I would've loved to have heard Paul's voice. Julia's is so vivid and she left behind such an articulate trail of her journey in the book that she wrote with Alex [Prud'Homme] and in 'My Life In France' and in her cook books. Her voice really comes through. I would've loved to have heard him because he was a great storyteller and his interests ranged across a wide variety of topics and I'm sure that he was sort of a really interesting person to hear.

The romance between Julia and Paul is so dynamic and great in this film. It's so touching to see what you're doing.

ST: Well, it's pretend.

What did you two do then to create that kind of chemistry, this organic looking relationship and what research did you both do before stepping into their skins?

MS: Well, Stanley and I are often on opposite sides in a very famous charades game every Christmas. We've been at each other's throats like married people for a really long time, many years [laughs]. We knew each other in that way and I just sort of am in love with him from afar anyway with the totality of the man, from big night to his acting and directing work and in every way. So does everyone who knows him. He's just real treat to work with. It wasn't a tough job to imagine being in love with him.

ST: Well, we have to go now. We are in a hotel. Thanks for coming. For me it was easy, too. Probably most people in the world I, too, have been in love with Meryl Streep for many, many years. We'd done 'The Devil Wears Prada' together which was really fun and we knew each other a bit socially before that and so for me it was awesome. It was incredibly easy. You also make it easy because you're so comfortable. I'm always a little nervous when I start shooting and I was very nervous to play around with that.

MS: Were you nervous when we started?

ST: I was so nervous. I was. You made me feel so comfortable. It was nice.

MS: You know what Nora did, she did what she called a costume test, but it was really sort of introducing us to our world. She took us up to the rooms which they built in the Paris apartment that she built in Queens, or wherever they were, and let us walk around in our clothes. In isolation in your Winnebago, or whatever it is, you kind of have a hard time convincing yourself that you are who you say you are. When you walk into this world and the light comes in a certain way and the landscape of Paris – a photograph but still – and here's the man of your dreams, it all came together before we had to actually [do it]. That was a big day.

ST: Yes, I remember. Those elements, those actual physical elements really helped a great deal.

If you had the opportunity what chefs would you like to have over and what would you like them to cook for you?

MS: Dan Barber.

And what would he make for you?

MS: Anything that was fresh up there.

And Stanley?

ST: My grandmother, but she wasn't there. She was an extraordinary cook. There that night, there were so many of them, but Mario Batali I think in a lot of ways…yeah, Mario.

Did you do your own Julia imitation?

ST: No. I never did. I would've been fired.

Julia child went through so many challenges in the beginning of her career. What were some of the challenges that you both went through as you started out as actors?

MS: Well, my challenge was committing to acting, thinking that it was a serious enough thing to do with my life. What are you going to do with your one wild life? I just didn't think it was…I don't know. I thought it was sort of silly and vain, acting even though it was the most fun that I had ever done. It remains that; ergo it can't be good for me. It was just deciding. I remember thinking the first time that someone said, 'Well, what do you –' and I said, 'I'm a…I'm an actor.' Then I had committed I realized, but it took a long time.

ST: I took it too seriously at first and it took me a long time to understand that you have to be serious about what you do but you mustn't take yourself seriously. That way you'll be happier and ultimately you'll be more successful. You'll be better at what you do. I think the challenges for me at the beginning...well, it was much easier after I lost my hair, to tell you the truth. I started to work constantly once I started to lose it. So I'm thinking about losing the hair on my whole body. That's disgusting.

MS: It's going to be repeatedeverywhere now and come back to haunt you.

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