Putting My Winter Book Reading to Good Use in Woodstock

I am so excited to be returning to Woodstock, New York, this weekend, not for the Woodstock Film Festival, but rather for the Woodstock Writers Festival, a "Celebration of the Memoir." The festival will include workshops, fetes, readings, panels, moveable feasts and more with many of today's best-selling authors including Ruth Reichl, Susan Orlean, Julie Powell, Susan Richards, and Laura Shaine Cunningham, just to name a few.


Woodstock Writers Festival Executive Director (and The Film Panel Notetaker's favorite film panel moderator of all time) Martha Frankel invited me as one of the lucky scholars to attend the inaugural festival. I was so delighted by the offer, I couldn't pass it up. I also couldn't go without first reading some of the memoirs by the authors who will be in attendance.


* Since mid-November, I've read the following books, all of which I highly recommend, my favorite being Hats and Eyeglasses...seriously :)

• Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell

• Hats and Eyeglasses by Martha Frankel

• The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean

• Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander

• Pride of Family by Carole Ione

While a writers festival celebrating the memoir might seems like a bit a departure for me, I have been toying with the idea of writing a memoir, if not in novelization form, then perhaps as a short. Whatever I end up doing, I am sure I will get much inspiration from the Woodstock Writers Festival, and look very forward to attending and meeting all of these great writers.


* All of the above mentioned books can be purchased on Amazon.com by clicking on the widgets below:

Frankel My Dear, She Really Gives a Damn!

The Actor’s Dialogue
Woodstock Film Festival
Sunday, October 4, 2008

Of Lucy Liu, John Ventimiglia and Vera Farmiga, which actor:
a) Received goat semen via Fedex to inseminate into his or her own goat with a straw…and also speaks Ukrainian?
b) Plays the ukulele with his or her child…and also speaks Sicilian?
c) Is unsure if his or her parents understand what he or she really does as a career…and also speaks Chinese?

Well, you’re just going to have to read on to find out… But how on earth did such revealing information ever make the light of day? The answer…Martha Frankel, the dastardly (in a good way) and charming (in a bad way) moderator of The Actor’s Dialogue…she is no James Lipton, and he is no Martha Frankel :)

But in all seriousness, and I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, Martha is just one of the best panel moderators I’ve ever had the great fortune to see lead a discussion with actors. She truly knows how to bring out the best and in some cases the most embarrassing moments in their lives and careers, but all with humor and humility. See examples from 2008 and 2007 to see what I mean, and just keep reading as I highlight some of the best moments of this year’s dialogue.

Moderator:

Martha Frankel - Contributor to "Details," "The New Yorker," "Redbook," "Cosmopolitan" and "The New York Times." She is also the author of the 2008 memoir "Hats & Eyeglasses: A Family Love Affair with Gambling."

Panelists:
Vera Farmiga – Award-winning actress in such films as “Down to the Bone,” “The Departed,” and “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.” Upcoming films include on Jason Reitman's “Up in the Air” starring George Clooney (playing at the Woodstock Film Festival) and Niki Caro’s “The Vintner's Luck.”

Lucy Liu – Film and television actress in such works as Ally McBeal, “Charlie’s Angels,” and “Kill Bill.” As both producer and narrator, Liu introduces her latest project at the Woodstock Film Festival, "Redlight," exposing and chronicling the tragedies and injustices of the international child-trafficking industry.

John Ventimiglia – Stage and screen actor. Played Artie Bucco in the hit HBO award-winning series "The Sopranos."

Below are highlights from the discussion.

Frankel: What did you have to learn from a film that you had never known before?

Ventimiglia: I had to learn how to bet on horses.

Frankel: I could have taught you that.

Liu: Any of the martial arts I had done or even the swordplay. It’s not something I grew up with at all. I had to learn all of it from the beginning in a very short period of time. It was very intensive training.

Farmiga: I think courage in general for most every part that I play. A highlight for me was wearing.. a corset while lip syncing and dancing to [a Sinead O’Connor song].

Frankel: Do you think there’s a difference between independent and studio films besides the money?

Liu: Absolutely. For independent films, you sort of treat it like a television schedule where it’s fast and furious…do a couple of takes and move on…Studio films, you work on a quarter of a page for days. There’s no luxury in independent filmmaking…Everyone teams up. It just becomes a group effort. There’s a different connection.

Ventimiglia: There’s a difference with the objective of studio films…Being at the awards ceremony last night and hearing the speeches and what people were talking about…searching for truth and community.

Farmiga: I’ve done mostly independent film. The few times that I was part of a studio picture…I was lucky enough to work with directors whose process is very similar. They are fiercely independent…I’m never made more aware of my appearance than doing studio pictures. They put such emphasis on the look and there’s so many opinions…that frustrates me a lot. What I rely most on is collaboration with my director.

Frankel: (Asks Liu to talk about her documentary “Red Light” that she narrated and produced about child sexploitation and that also played at the Woodstock Film Festival).

Liu: We follow some of the girls over a period of four years who had been basically sold into slavery and understand how (and why) that happened…Sometimes if there still in the brothel…and they have a child, become pregnant, they’ll usually take a child and that child becomes a part of the brothel as well…I think a lot of people have brought this to attention lately like the Clinton Global Initiative. They made an announcement last Friday about how violence against girls has got to end. It’s a priority for them now…A lot of people don’t know about it. It’s kind of shocking. They think of slavery as a time that’s already passed…Even in the United States, there’s an incredible sex trafficking business.

Frankel: (To Farmiga) Why don’t you tell us about "Up in the Air"?

Farmiga: It’s about a man (played by George Clooney) who actually lives his life up in the air and has a philosophy of being untethered…someone who’s hired by companies to fire people. His life’s mission is to collect 500 million frequent flyer points. His job is in jeopardy, and his company is being downsized, because a newcomer played by Anna Kendrick comes along and wants to revamp the program by firing people over the Internet.

Frankel: (To Ventimiglia) What are you working on…(and)…what was it like leaving the Sopranos after all those years…are they making a movie?

Ventimiglia: I just wrapped a film called “Ponies” by Nick Sandell…(on leaving the Sopranos)…I don’t make a big deal about it. Life goes on…I’ve developed a lot of great relationships..[on if a movie’s being made]…I doubt it.

Frankel: What are you working on next?

Liu: I’m working on an independent film..directed by Mexican filmmaker Ricardo Benet. It’s about a woman who’s a documentary filmmaker whose working on a film…it’s a romantic comedy…about why people kill themselves in the subway system…We’re shooting that in New York.

Farmiga: At the moment, I haven’t read anything that turns my head. I just finished shooting Up in the Air in April. I had my first costume fitting for that two weeks after giving birth. There’s a couple of things that may happen…but I just want to make time for cuddles with my son…I am trying to get one in development…creating my own projects…My husband just wrote his first screenplay. We each grew up with big families…It’s sort of inspired by our kooky families. It’s a story about a family coming together to mourn their grandmother’s death. It’s actually a comedy…I’m going to direct it.

Frankel: One of things I’ve read on the Internet…is that you don’t audition. You make your own little movie and send it in. Is that true?

Farmiga: (In 1999 after living in New York City’s East Village and then moving up to the Catskills)…I had a romantic association with this area. I was a professionally trained folk dancer. There was a Ukrainian resort…I had an attachment to this part of the world…This was right after I made a film called “15 Minutes”…and when I probably should have moved out to L.A… and there was a lot of energy coming my way, but it kind of freaked me out and I moved far away from it all, but it was a great vantage point, and I just love living here….It was easy enough to hop on the Metro North…and take an audition in the city, but I felt it was a better job then going into a casting director’s office…Often times the moment you walk into a room, the director has already made decisions about you…It allowed me to have fun with it and be more relaxed.

Frankel: [Asks Liu to talk about her work with UNICEF].

Liu: I’ve been an ambassador for UNICEF for the past five years. It has been really life changing…I don’t think I can go anywhere without having the memories or experiences I’ve had meeting children in situations outside of America and Europe. There’s poverty everywhere…There are cultural differences. My parents are from another country. They came over as immigrants. If you understand someone’s culture, you may not understand them, but you can respect it

Frankel: Are you a first generation American?

Liu: I am.

Farmiga: Yes.

Ventimiglia: Yes.

Liu: Do we all speak the language of our parents?

All: Yes.

Liu: Chinese.

Farmiga: Ukrainian.

Ventimiglia: Sicilian.

Frankel: When you read a script, tell me what script did you know immediately you had to do?

Liu: Lucky Number Sleven…At the time, the role was small, but I loved the script overall…There wasn’t a lot on the page for her…a perky blonde knocks on the door…They always leave the last name in so you know it wasn’t originally for somebody who’s Asian…Once I became attached to the script, he (the writer) started writing more for the character…It turned into a more, out-there, energetic, quirky girl.

Ventimiglia: A play that I did…the subject matter was horrible, but there was a real humanity…It was called “Stitching.” It’s been banned…When I was reading it, I felt emotion.

Farmiga: There always has to be some sort of something that turns my head. It’s character and storyline and not how much I’m getting paid or who’s attached or who the director is. I’ve had the best time working with first-time writer/directors.

Frankel: Has anyone here learned how to fire a gun?

Liu: A flame-thrower…Sometimes I take a role…because I don’t think I can do it, because it’s ridiculous…Maybe I should do it because I’m afraid of it…I don’t want to get comfortable doing the same thing over and over.

Farmiga: For me, there has to be an element of fear…challenging myself that way.

Ventimiglia: No matter what the role is, you have to have some sympathy…even someone who is easily judged as a horrible person, you have to find the humanity in them.

Liu: People come up to me and say, “You play such a great bitch.” I don’t feel that way….She’s honest and she’s direct.

Frankel: That’s what all bitches say…I’m kidding. I get called that a lot, too. But I’m not, I’m just being honest.

[Frankel opens the discussion to the audience for questions.]

Q: Why was “Stitching” banned?

Ventimiglia: Because it accepts abortion as part of someone’s life.

Q: What refuels you between roles?

Ventimiglia: I have kids. I cook for them…that refuels me constantly. I work on some of my own stuff. I’m writing a script right now. Mostly just living my life, trying to have a meaningful day or relationship with somebody.

Farmiga: Family. My child. My husband…I have to always be creative. Gardening is very important to me…Creating your own projects…I have goats…My Fedex guy just quit…You have these moments of frustration…We went online to GoatFinder.com [Yes people, it really exists]…we’re going to find the finest goat semen…I couldn’t find any proper suitors around here. We ordered it…We finally got the package, waited two weeks for it…got an email that said it was coming Fedex ground…It comes with this massive nitrogen tank with four straws, two for each goat…We went into the city, we left the nitrogen tanks at home…we put the straws in the freezer. The next morning, let’s see what comes next, and I think we might have compromised the integrity of it. The transfer is supposed to be a three-second transfer from the nitrogen tank into a deep freeze, not next to the Haagen Daz…and this is the stuff that just keeps me going.

Liu: I have an art studio in New York, and I’m in the process of putting together a book right no.

Q: In high school, what did you want to become?

Liu: When I was in 11th grade, I was totally lost…I was confused also because when I grew up, our family spoke Chinese, I started speaking English later…I was there, but I wasn’t there. And the fact that I got into Stuyvesant is a miracle, because it is an excellent school…I only started to understand more about life when I graduated high school and went to college…I left New York City. I left my family. For the first time, I was able to choose things on my own…when I had that freedom, I went crazy…Nothing made sense. It was sort of a goulash of education…You realize they (your parents) don’t have control over you anymore…That’s how I went into acting and that wasn’t even until after I graduated. It’s almost as if I had to give them what they wanted, which was my education, and then after that I could do whatever I want. Even then, they were not happy about it…Even we are working in our field, we’ve worked with great directors, we’ve done so much that we’re proud of, but at the same time, we still feel lost. We don’t know what’s next sometimes.

[An audience member mentions that Ventimiglia plays Ukulele.]

Ventimiglia: My daughter came to me recently and wanted to learn how to play the ukulele.

Frankel: How does he (the audience member) know that?

Guy in audience: No, there’s a film in the festival called The Mighty Uke.

Farmiga: To me, that means the Mighty Ukrainian.

[Ventimiglia puts his iPhone next to the mic and plays a song on it that has the ukulele.]

Frankel: I love this panel. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Q: (To Liu) Are your parents proud of you now?

Liu: I’m not sure.

Frankel: You’re being honest?

Liu: I’m being totally honest… I don’t think they know exactly what it is I do. But I think they still think that I can take care of myself…It’s hard to explain, it’s a very different culture…They try to give me advice now on how to make my meals…It’s hard to know when to open up to that. For me, it’s safer to continue on with the way I’m going, and invite them to the premieres…sometimes it’s kind of racy stuff…I’d like to say yes, but I can’t.

Woodstock Film Festival - Actor's Dialogue with Mary Stuart Masterson & Melissa Leo - Oct. 5, 2009

2008 Woodstock Film Festival
Actors Dialogue: Mary Stuart Masterson & Melissa Leo
Sunday, October 5, 2009

(Mary Stuart Masterson, center, and Melissa Leo, far right, observe Martha Frankel, far left, making last-minute notes before the Actor's Dialogue as Meira Blaustein, off-camera, makes an introduction) Photo by Brian Geldin.

The always hilarious, often risqué and well-researched celebrity interviewer Martha Frankel (whose memoir Hats & Eyeglasses is now available) followed up last year’s Top 10 panel discussions with another great Actor’s Dialogue at the Woodstock Film Festival this time with Mary Stuart Masterson, a juror this year at the festival and whose feature directorial debut The Cake Eaters was among the festival’s official selections last year, and the sure-to-be remembered at Oscar time for her performance in Frozen River, Melissa Leo, who was at the festival this year with not one, but two short films, Teressa Tunney’s This Is a Story About Ted and Alice and Philip Dorling’s Predisposed (both of which I saw two days prior). Below are some highlights from the Actor's Dialogue.

Frankel: Talk about your films that are/were at the festival and what it’s like to be here.

Leo: I have a short I’ve never seen (Predisposed) and I short I saw in New York at Columbia University (This is a Story About Ted and Alice)…I’m looking forward to seeing it again, because…January had already happened…Frozen River was at Sundance and got the Grand Jury Prize and that’s when my life as you mentioned did in deed begin to change after almost 30 years of doing it…I had a really big part, I get a third single card or something really nice like that in Mary Stuart’s The Cake Eaters. We worked together, oh golly, five hours.

Masterson: We did some additional photography to do some changes to the structure to the narrative…Melissa was kind enough to be in some home movies of a character who’s a mother passed away…Of course, we offered her to be in the head credits…alphabetical, she’s third.

Frankel: (To Masterson) Do you know your Woodstock connection…about your dad?

Masterson: No. You didn’t sleep with my dad?

Frankel: Shut up, I wasn’t go to say who it was. I was just going to say that a friend of mine is getting married and another friend of hers smuggled Abbie Hoffman’s script to your dad and he bought it.

Masterson: He lived with us for a while (as Barry Freed)…I think I was 11 and 12…I think he was a little confused having been underground for so long about this identity. They worked together for a long time on the script.

Frankel: Who did your friends think Barry was?

Masterson: They didn’t meet him. They thought he was Barry, if they met him, just Barry.

Frankel: (To Leo) Did a fugitive ever live with you?

Leo: No comment.

Frankel: You both worked with my favorite actor, so talk to me about Sean Penn. (Masterson in At Close Range and Leo in 21 Grams)

Masterson: It was a great experience. Sean was great. We were very close. I met Sean, I met Christopher (Walker) and James Foley (the director) separately…for a meal. When do I audition?...So I didn’t ever audition and I just ended up in Franklin, Tennessee, working in this very intense way and at one point…Sean had come from the school where…you manipulate the other actor from off camera for what you might want to get out of them for the scene, not necessarily just playing the scene with them, but try to manipulate a response. I was like, ‘you don’t even know what I’m going to do, don’t manipulate me yet, later maybe.’ I gave him some attitude and we got along great.

Leo: I did audition for (At Close Range)...the biggest lesson I learned in an audition…he said, ‘do you have any questions?’…Chris Walken was there. Sean Penn was there…in the room…at least I’ll get some information…I did not understand at this time…’why do you want to make this film?’ Mary Stuart got the role…When I worked with Sean (on 21 Grams) I didn’t work with Sean (not in any scenes together)…but I did get to talk to him in the hours after he returned back to the United States from Iraq.

Frankel: Tell us about The Cake Eaters.

Masterson: We premiered it at Tribeca, then came here…we’re still out their on the circuit…We’re supposed to be in theaters in February and I don’t know that we are going to be as of a couple of days ago. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m usually the last to know…It’s the same story so many independent filmmakers are facing right now, which is that it’s really hard to sell a movie. The traditional distribution models have just totally broken or changed or are about to change, so the state between the old and the new is panic and paralysis…I know that (The Cake Eaters) will be out there at some point in some way, in some order of events either day-and-date and theatrical on a limited basis, then DVD, video-on-demand and all that.

Frankel: I love IMDB because they’re wrong so often. It says ‘Mary Stuart has never done a nude scene, nor has she ever posed nude or topless in her career.’

Masterson: Well I have, they just didn’t put it in the movie…I did a scene with Sean in At Close Range. It was terrifying for both of us…where we meet in the corn field and he sees a trail of clothes and we went behind the corn and I’m naked and running. Don’t run naked, people! Unless you’re Bo Derrick, don’t do it. I don’t know, I was 19 or 18.

Frankel: Melissa said upstairs…and I’m not making this up…she said ‘I haven’t gotten roles because my breasts aren’t big enough.’ Am I making that up?

Leo: It’s the truth…I asked Tommy Lee Jones if he wanted me naked (The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada) of if he wanted me Hollywood naked, and I didn’t really know how to ask Mr. Jones and he really is just the smarted fucking cowboy you’ll ever meet…so I said, ‘I’m not sure what you want here. I’m not just going to take it from the costume and make up department that you want me stark-raving naked on the couch, but if you like it, of course I’ll do it,’ and said, ‘Yep!’…I said, ‘Mr. Jones, I’ve been milked,’ and he said, ‘that’s the most beautiful thing ever.’ That is the man!...Way back, Sexual Perversity in Chicago…one of the first times I was ever flown out to Los Angeles to be tested on something and in the room with, oh what was that boy’s name? Rob Lowe…and they asked at the end of the audition…with the director left behind, and he said, ‘I have to see.’ I don’t think he could say a word for what they were, but his eyes were telling me what he meant.

Frankel: What are you working on now?

Leo: I came up from New Orleans where I was doing this film…Welcome to the Rileys…It’s a lovely title…because it’s very appropriate to the film. It’s a film about The Riles, James Gandolfini and myself, who lost a daughter eight years before. It is the welcome back to themselves that must happen after the loss of a child and a very difficult path to walk. Kristen Stewart, who I didn’t even know…I saw her in Into the Wild and she’s wonderful in that…I didn’t know and I spent a week with her in New Orleans, that she was that remarkable young woman in Mary Stuart’s film The Cake Eaters.

Masterson: She has a neuro-muscular degenerative disease in the film. A lot of people see the film and say, ‘how did you find this disabled actress?’…I’ve been producing a lot the past couple of years and spending a lot of time on the road with The Cake Eaters. I’ve gone to about 30 festivals…I produced a film called Tickling Leo that my husband wrote and directed with my fledgling production company, which is called Barn Door Pictures…Then I wrote a pilot that Fox optioned…It’s called Community Property…about a couple in Brooklyn who are in the middle of a divorce and they still occasionally sleep together, but they live on separate floors in the house, because neither will sell out of their property.

Patricia Clarkson & Steve Guttenberg Join Actor's Dialogue at 2007 Woodstock Film Festival

2007 Woodstock Film Festival
Actor’s Dialogue
October 14, 2007
10:00am

(L to R: Martha Frankel, Patricia Clarkson & Steve Guttenberg)

The Actor’s Dialogue panel discussion at the Woodstock Film Festival was my favorite I attended there. Martha Frankel was an excellent moderator. She was very prepared with her questions and kept the discussion moving along smoothly. She was able to bring out revealing and candid answers from both Patricia Clarkson’s and Steve Guttenberg’s lives and careers. They both had an extremely great sense of humor about things, and Steve was also very metaphorical. It would be great to see more panel discussions in the future run like this one.

Summary:
Join some of today's most prolific actors as they chat about their lives and work.

Moderator:

(MF) Martha Frankel has been writing about film for over two decades. She has contributed to DETAILS, The New Yorker, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, and The New York Times. She is the author of Hats & Eyeglasses: A Family Love Affair with Gambling, published by Penguin/Tarcher.

Panelists:

(PC) Patricia Clarkson studied drama at Yale. She stayed on the East Coast working in theater production before her feature film debut in The Untouchables (1987) as the wife of Elliot Ness. Continuing to work in film, she gained attention for her role as the drug-addicted Greta in the independent film High Art. Her career in film continued to shine, giving memorable performances in Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven, Larry Fessenden's locally-shot Wendigo, Lars von Trier's Dogville, All the Real Girls, The Station Agent, Pieces of April, The Dying Gaul, Good Night and Good Luck, Married Life and Lars and the Real Girl, to name a few.

(SG) Steve Guttenberg…star of the Police Academy movies, Cocoon (1 & 2), Three Men & A Baby (& A Little Lady), and more.

Notes:

Martha began by mentioning some of the films Patricia and Steve starred in over the years. Patricia came to her attention in the independent film High Art. She’s made a series of great films ever since. Martha saw Steve on Broadway before seeing him in the movies. She joked that his movies have grossed more than the GNP of America. She also interviewed Steve in Los Angeles several years ago.

(MF) What’s the coolest thing you ever had to learn for the movies?

(PC) Playing a drug addict in High Art, I had to learn to snort. (Patricia explained that it was some form of powder, not actually cocaine). I went home at night with headaches. It was very foreign to me. I have never done any drugs before. I’ve done so many indie films. I’ve had to pee in the woods many times because there were no bathrooms.

(SG) I learned to play the saxophone in the Neil Jordan film High Spirits. Neil hooked me up with his friend who was a heroin addict that taught me how to play.

(MF) What was the most fun you ever had on a film set?

(SG) (Jokingly) Movies aren’t that fun to make.

(PC) On every movie, you party and form friendships, although they never last. On The Station Agent, we stayed at a Howard Johnsons in New Jersey and had the greatest time. We had a poolside view and stayed up all night drinking beer. It was joyous.

(SG) Making movies is so great. If it wasn’t this, I’d be a salesman at a mall. I always thought I’d be a stage actor. People feed you on movie sets.

(PC) (Regarding getting fed on movie sets) Studios! It’s a great job. If we complain, we should be shot. We’re very lucky. Even when you’re doing emotional, dark journeys, it’s still a joy.

(MF) Two of Patricia’s movies opened the Woodstock Film Festival in the past – Pieces of April and Far From Heaven. To me, Pieces of April is the ultimate holiday movie. Patricia plays a woman with cancer who’s so mean. Usually these characters are angelic.

(PC) Pieces of April was such guerilla filmmaking. Made for around $200,000. Shot on a camcorder, in essence. Oliver Platt would sit in the car with me and the director would yell cut, and we had no where to go.

(MF) Wendigo won Best Picture at Woodstock a few years ago. It was a very scary horror movie that takes place on my road.

(PC) I don’t even know if there was any money involved with this film. It was very low budget, but beautifully shot by the director of photography.

(MF) Talk about your roles on television. Patricia played Aunt Sarah on Six Feet Under. Steve had a role on Veronica Mars. There seems to be money on TV, but not like movie money.

(SG) I never did TV before this. They said they had an interesting part for me as a child molester. I thought, what experiences can I draw on for this? I went into the experience and loved it. They shot it fast. I was always in character. There was no time to go down and become me again. As a kid, I had one experience where someone sort of tried to molest me. It changed the tenor of the part or the way I played the character.

(PC) They used to call us the Three Tenors (Me, Frances Conroy and Kathy Bates in Six Feet Under). I only did six or seven episodes in about four years. They always shot around me. They were so accommodating. It was so incredibly well-written. The character was complicated and funny. We are at the mercy of the writing as actors. The tone and timber of Aunt Sarah’s voice was always right. My dearest friends in the world are writers. It is the most difficult job of all.

(SG) I believe in writers as the king of the set. It’s magical when you can connect to the vibration coming out of each writer. It’s an artistic touch that’s intangible. You’re writing together in an interesting way.

(MF) Aren’t you writing something for yourself right now?

(SG) Yes, a romantic comedy about the TV dating world.

(MF) Everyone said Patricia was going to be huge after The Untouchables. What’s it like to be in a big movie? What does success do to an actor?

(PC) The Untouchables was the very first movie I ever did right out of drama school. I went to casting wearing no make up. The director Brian DePalma liked that I was a little irreverent about this part. Brian read with me in the audition. It was a very small part. I probably only made about $3,000. Brian wanted to make my part a little bigger, and included me in the courtroom scene, so I made a little extra money. Things were good then. Then things went not so good for me for a while, then went good again. That’s how the business is. In my early 30s, I did a lot of theater. I was always shifting. It something you have to get used to.

(MF) I did an interview with Steve many years ago in L.A. Everywhere Steve and I went, people were plotching over Steve on the street.

(SG) Success and failure are both illusions. You’re in a machine. Actors paint a picture. Then all of a sudden, no one wants those pictures. Success is the people who love you and liking who you are. Whether it’s The New York Times saying you’re great or an executive at Paramount, the danger is believing the bull. Very early on, I went to L.A. to make some money. I was starting to get cast, and saw how people were treating me because I was the lead in a movie. It felt like people loved me. They were not the same as you’re really family. Whether they buy your paintings or not, as long as they love your painting, it doesn’t matter.

(MF) I talked to River Phoenix three days before he died. He said “they loved me.” I said, “no, they love what you do.” Nowadays, teen actors are offered drugs and entry into clubs. Success at a young age can be a recipe for disaster.

(SG) I was saved. I had great parents. I learned how to do deal with Machiavellian people. You have to have a really strong core to deal with it. I’ve always liked to educate young actors.

(MF) Just because I write for magazines, I have a great following in jail. One guy told me I seemed to have found the job that fits me. What’s the greatest fan mail you ever got? (Martha reminds Steve of one of his female fans who sent him a naked picture of herself and Steve flew this woman out to L.A. and at one moment in their rendezvous, he had to hide her in the closet.)

(SG) On coach! (Steve jokes about how he flew her there.)

(MF) Since then, what’s happened?

(SG) I think she’s a skeleton.

(MF) What’s the greatest fan mail you ever got?

(PC) I got a frightening letter once regarding Pieces of April. It was so upsetting. I didn’t respond, because they were cowardly. In the film, Katie Holmes dates an African-American man. It was a scathing letter asking me how I could be in a film where you’re white daughter is dating a black man. I was doing “A Streetcar Named Desire” at the time at the Kennedy Center. I got the letter there. Maybe they came to see me in the play. By far, it was the most disturbing letter I’ve ever gotten. On the brighter side, people have sent me pictures of their kids and their animals. Sometimes, I get letters from 25-year-old guys saying, “Hey, Miss Clarkson, Can I be your assistant?”

(MF) Do you still surf? Have you seen the documentary Surfwise that’s playing at Woodstock about the Paskowitz family? Do you know them?

(SG) Yes, they are a great family.

(MF) What projects are you working on now and in the future?

(PC) Lars and the Real Girl (out now). Married Life (coming out in March or April 2008). Elegy with Sir Ben Kingsley. It’s a very sexy part. My father could never see me in this film. Blind Date directed by Stanley Tucci. Phoebe in Wonderland with Elle Fanning. A Woody Allen movie that doesn’t have a title yet. I was already doing three movies and couldn’t say no. I loved working with Woody. Now, I’m doing nothing. I’m taking a break.

(SG) I just gone done doing a movie with Jessica Simpson (the audience rips out in laugher). It’s a comedy. Sort of a Private Benjamin. She plays a movie star who can’t get out of the army. I play her agent. She was very low-key and well-mannered. Terrific to work with. It really surprised me. Also working on a film called The Well, a serious drama about a family who loses their child. I don’t get offered a lot of psychological, serious stuff. The few dramas I do get, I really enjoy it. I just don’t get a lot of these roles, because I’m mostly in comedies. I don’t learn as much from comedies as I do from dramas.

Audience Q&A

Q: In an interview with Lauren Becall, she talked about acting with Marilyn Monroe. Becall says that Monroe had an annoying habit of looking at Becall’s forehead instead of into her eyes. Are there any things like that which make it harder for you to act?

(PC) (Jokingly) Nowadays, it’s all about the Botox. You’re really looking at their forehead. It’ rare, but disconcerting when working with an ungenerous actor. Those experiences have been few and far between. I’m capable of sharing space and emotional thought.

(SG) It’s sort of like a tennis game. When someone hits the ball way over your head, you’ve got to deal with it. Jump up really high to hit the ball back.

(PC) I’m not the most method of actors. I approach most of my roles emotionally, but you can only act so much as an actor. The energy that exists off stage, play on as well. I have to know the other actors and feel them emotionally. Have a comfort with them.

Q: HBO’s new series Tell Me You Love Me and Ang Lee’s new film Lust, Caution have a lot of sexuality in them. What’s your experience like with sexuality and nude on film?

(PC) I wasn’t required when I was younger to do wild, intense scenes. But now at the age of 47, I’m being asked to. Why now? I am lucky. It’s difficult when shooting these scenes. They’re not graphic, but there is nudity. I felt at ease and comfortable working with Ben Kingsley. It was a closed set. Just the director, me, Ben, the DP, the sound, etc. (laughingly). It is difficult for young actors to be thrust into these highly sexual situations. It’s all about how you value yourself as an actor. Be a good actor and have confidence.

Q: What did you learn from working with the older actors in Cocoon?

(SG) I asked Hume Cronin and Jessica Tandy for advice. They told me to save my money. (The crowd laughs). A lot of time, older people have so much value. Our culture /L.A./Showbiz is so youth-oriented. Once you’re past 30, you don’t have any value. I fell in love with the Cocoon actors. I would not let go of them. I was lucky. They unloaded on me every night.

Q: In High Art, what did you draw on for your character?

(PC) I was in a trench with my career before that. It was a great script, but I thought no one would ever cast me as this character, a German lesbian drug addict, but there was something about the character. It was a glorious shoot. When I met the director, I felt like I knew her my whole life. It was a great environment to work in. The greatest thing was wearing these pleather pants. They were so hot. It was like being in an oven.

Q: How do you tap into your process when you have an ungenerous director or you can’t tap into the writing?

(PC) It’s difficult, but few and far between. I’ve worked with hostile directors at times.

(SG) The director’s biggest job is creating the environment in which to work. It comes back to your self-confidence and integrity as an artist. The more experience you have and good teacher you have, it’s all going to come back to you.