But he knows exactly what it is that he wants and just sort of tells you to give it to him that way, and you can try it your way, but you know that he knows what he’s doing and what he is going to want in the end.  And so even if it doesn’t make perfect sense to you yet, you know that this is a guy that you should trust. 

- Did you talk to Jason about the themes he is exploring in this film?

Oh yes, I think it’s about isolation in the modern world. And it’s about these people who think that they have their life philosophy all figured out and it’s what it does to them when they realise that they haven’t.

I just loved the script. Jason writes so beautifully and he’s so funny and yet it’s really quite poignant too, because you meet these people at a time when things are starting to unravel for them.

- You started acting at a very young age…

Yes, I danced when I was a little kid. And sang all of the time, too, and I was just one of those kids that wanted to perform and wanted to be on stage.

And when you’re six you just want to jump around and then when I was about 10 I still really wanted to do it, to sing and dance and I was lucky enough to have parents who treated me with an incredible amount of respect for a 10 year old girl.

They really listened to me – even when that 10 year old was telling them that she really wanted to be on Broadway. They supported me and let me take a real run at it and I’ll be forever grateful to them.

- But you don’t come from a family of actors do you?

 No, my Mom was an accountant and my Dad was a teacher.

- Did you see a lot of Broadway shows yourself as a kid? 

You know, honestly, it wasn’t as though I went to New York and saw a Broadway show and thought that’s what I wanted to do. It was more of an idea  - just the idea of being on stage in front of real theatre fans. 

- Did you get nervous appearing on stage as a child?

No, it was just huge fun – I think it probably gets harder as you get older (laughs).  When I was seventeen, I did A Little Night Music, at New York City Opera, and opening night, I became incredibly aware of how many people fit in that room, and I really sort of psyched myself out. 

But then you do it and it’s fine and you forget that anybody is even watching you.  But yeah, I had a little panic attack moment, when I thought about how many people would be looking at me - and seventeen is an age where you are not sure if you want people to be looking at you or not. 

- And you made your first film at what, 16? What was that like?

I turned 17 when we were filming Camp. You know, it was one of those things, it never really felt like we could possibly be making a real film, because it was just a bunch of kids who’d never been in a film before (laughs).

We shot the film at the camp, we were all sort of living there, and occasionally we would go in and shoot a scene. Actually, I think a lot of us thought that it would never see the light of day. We were just a bunch of little hoodlums singing and dancing. It was so much fun.

- Making a film must have felt so different from being on stage…

Yeah, it did. But you know it was a unique and special first film and none of us had been in a film before, so that was rare. And we all came from a theatre background so we all had the same kind of experience.

It was like ‘what just happened? Did we just film something!’ (laughs). Because there was no audience reaction, of course. On stage, something happens and there’s the energy of the audience and you can feel it – it’s very real.

- So film is a different discipline that you had to learn..

Yes. And each of us sort of realized when they turn the camera on and they say action, nothing actually happens (laughs).  And you have to make it happen.  But it was this incredible thing where you felt like, that couldn’t have possibly been it, that couldn’t have possibly been a performance…

 Because I know what a performance feels like, and that was just me talking and them pointing a camera at me.  So that was a very strange hurdle to get over. But you know, it’s a different way of doing the same thing. You have to learn that too and I really enjoy the difference.

- But I’ll bet you still miss that reaction you get from being on stage..

Yeah.  I mean it’s such a cliché, but there really isn’t anything like it, and it’s one of the weirder parts of the transition - not having the immediate validation.  I think we were a bunch of very needy little actors (laughs) on Camp.  Our poor director probably had to tell us how great we were, even more than most directors have to tell their actors.

- Well you were young…

We were young, and we just didn’t really understand how do you know it was good, no one applauded, so how do you know?

- But how does it feel now a few years on, when you do a film like this?  Which again, is a very sort of, calls for a very subtle performance…

Yeah, I think it’s a tricky thing, there’s this expression about actors, that they get paid to wait, and I feel like, you get paid to multitask, you know. You can be really good at your job, but then you have to remember to turn your face so you’re in your light and drop your shoulder, because George is in the background or something.

And you’re going to cut him off and the whole shot is not going to work if you can’t do all of these things. And just slowly but surely, experience is the only thing that’s going to help that. Hopefully I’m getting better at it. 

- You’ve got the best of both worlds so will you continue to do stage and film?

Well, I haven’t done stage in a while. I think the last thing I did on stage was probably A Little Night Music, and I want to do it again. It just gets scarier, the more time you spend away from it. But also I love film, I love the medium and I’m having fun doing it, so I’ll figure it out.

- What do you like to do when you’re not working, what kind of things interest you?

 I watch a lot of films and I bake…

- What do you bake?

Just desserts and stuff  I make a flourless Hazelnut chocolate torte – it’s great! (laughs). I usually take that if I’m going round to friends for dinner.  My life is always sort of a mess and it’s spilling out everywhere (laughs), so I like to go to other people’s houses.

- Do you enjoy living in Los Angeles?

Yeah, it takes about a year to kind of get used to it, and it’s a kind of lonely city at first.. And when I first arrived I didn’t know anybody.

But one morning you wake up and it’s home. There are certainly people who seem like they are straight out of Beverly Hills 90210 (laughs). But I don’t know those people. And I’ve got some great friends there now and it’s good.

Up In The Air is out now.

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