How did the superstar actresses get on with screen legend Shirley MacLaine? They discuss bridging the gap of age and experience under the watchful eye of the Oscar-nominated director.
How did the superstar actresses get on with screen legend Shirley MacLaine? They discuss bridging the gap of age and experience under the watchful eye of the Oscar-nominated director.
After LA Confidential and 8 Mile, two films saturated with machismo, the story of squabbling sisters is the last thing you would expect from director Curtis Hanson. In fact that's precisely the reaction he was hoping for with oestrogen-fuelled comedy drama In Her Shoes. "I admire the careers of those filmmakers who mixed it up," he explains.
"Howard Hawks could do a comedy like His Girl Friday and then turn around and do The Big Sleep - ostensibly a detective mystery - and then turn around and do a Western like Red River. They're clearly Hawksian movies, but they're very different worlds. There were numerous filmmakers like that - John Huston, Billy Wilder - and I feel that allows one to grow as a filmmaker. We're all encouraged, if we're lucky enough to do something that's halfway successful, to try and do it again or do another version of that."
Cameron Diaz is similarly keen to mix it up. A former model, she went to extremes in shedding her kittenish guise for Being John Malkovich. In Her Shoes presented a different challenge. Maggie is a character who trades on sex appeal and offered Diaz a chance to reflect on the good looks and flirty persona that have made her one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood.
"Maggie's issues were more intense and convoluted and dire than mine," she points out. "But I think it's something that we all go through in life - that journey of finding yourself. I could definitely empathise with that experience." Meanwhile, the more spiteful aspects of the character held no fear for the star. "In the beginning I was going, 'Who is this girl?' Like, what is her problem? The wonderful thing about this script is that you get to see what her problem is. It's a discovery of someone who you think you really know from all the clichés and all the first impressions you get, but she does her damnedest to really give you that impression because that's who she thinks she is. She exploits herself to make sure that she gets what she needs. It's the only way she knows how to live."
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