By: Katherine Brodsky (aka @mysteriouskat)
There's something infinitely cool about Catherine Keener. She's relaxed, open, free of judgement - willing to play. Those are of course great traits for an actor, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the two time Oscar nominated Keener has made a career out of playing some rather unusual characters, most memorably, of course, Maxine in Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich.
She's had a busy career since, alternating between independent films and tentpole movies.
This time, she's making an appearance in a Canadian film, Charles Binamé's big screen adaptation of the award-winning play, ELEPHANT SONG, alongside Xavier Dolan and Bruce Greenwood.
When a colleague goes missing, a psychiatrist (Greenwood) gets tangled into a complex mind game with Michael, a disturbed patient (Dolan) at a mental hospital who may have the key to the disappearance. Keener plays a savvy nurse who understands Michael a bit better than the good old doctors might.
I chatted with Catherine at the Toronto International Film Festival where we quickly bonded over our similar names (give or take a letter):
KATHERINE: How did you get sucked into this project, were you familiar with the play?
CATHERINE: I didn't know there was a play or anything. The director, Charles, got in touch with Leslie, my old friend [and agent]. I read the script and I really, really liked it. Then when I met him, talked to him, and got to know him, I really wanted to do it because I like him a lot. I think he's really, talented, but he's also a tremendous human being.
KATHERINE: That always helps. A lethal combo. So what is it about this particular character that interested you as opposed to the millions of other characters that come knocking down your door?
[Catherine laughs]
CATHERINE: I really liked that she was someone in the '60s who would decide to be a nurse in an institution where people were diseased with mental illnesses. I think it says something. I don't know what, but it certainly was something that I wanted to think about. To think about somebody who would choose that as a vocation, well, it's a pretty... Who would do that? I mean, people who do that, mental health professionals are... It's incredible, that they actually choose to do that, to help people with something - a whole frame of set of illnesses - that's very under researched, not well funded, and not talked about, with so many taboos surrounding it. That this whole story was centered on that in different facets, I thought that was really kind of amazing.
KATHERINE: Yeah, there's a whole stigma to it, isn't there?
CATHERINE: Yeah! Still.
KATHERINE: People don't like to talk about. And you shot it in an actual hospital that still partially functional, no?
CATHERINE: Yeah.
KATHERINE: So, did that feel creepy?
CATHERINE: It didn't feel creepy, but it definitely felt like, "A lot of stuff has gone down here." You have to pay attention, reckon with this stuff. If you're here doing this, you kind of sober things up a little bit in terms of actually wanting to do right by it.
KATHERINE: And you are surrounded with people pretending to be mental patients...
CATHERINE: Yeah, but actually there people who were mental patients.
KATHERINE: Oh, real mental patients?
CATHERINE: Yeah.
KATHERINE: That, were used for he movie?
CATHERINE: I don't know if Charles used them as extras. Honestly, I don't think so, but…it was a working hospital. It was incredible.
KATHERINE: So did you ever figure out why your character goes into this sort of job?
CATHERINE: I don't know. I think that there's something inside of her that's experienced tremendous loss, but there's something about nurses that is amazing to me. The quality of individuals that they are because they would choose and opt to spend hours and hours in these shifts overnight, I mean, just the circumstances under which they work, just tending to people's needs, who are sick and generally alone. They are there alone. They're the touchdown to compassion, care, anything and in lieu of something else. They're an advocate for the patient. It's a really wild thing to be; to choose to do that.
KATHERINE: It's kind of terrifying.
CATHERINE: It is, but it's also so fucking noble. And doctors as well, of course, but they go and they have shorter times spent with a patient. But these shifts that nurses are on, they're there in the middle of the night and it's lonely, especially in a hospital that treats people with mental illnesses. They're really in abject despair and here's their link to something kind of safe is this nurse. It's pretty amazing.
KATHERINE: And to my knowledge, you are American, am I right?
CATHERINE: It is true.
KATHERINE: You're not a Canadian, trying to pretend to be an American. You are actually an American.
[Catherine laughs]
KATHERINE: In a Canadian movie which with a really great largely Canadian cast.
CATHERINE: That's right. I had no idea this was even a deal, but it is.
KATHERINE: So you didn't know it was a Canadian movie?
CATHERINE: I didn't know anything about it. I just thought. "Oh, wow!" and then I talked to Charles before I met him and he's the ringer, the director, he’s great. He seals the deal for me.
KATHERINE: Is that what you look for whenever you do a project, you'd first look at the person and then you look at the project?
CATHERINE: Mostly, I would say, yeah, because it wouldn't matter what the project is if somebody in charge is not going to be somebody you want to do everything for.
KATHERINE: And is that about how you're going to work together or just out of sure brilliance?
CATHERINE: Well it's kind of a crapshoot a lot of the time, if or how you're going to work. I mean you can't always get along with everybody even if you try and you don't have to be friends with them, what you really want to do is try and get this thing, bring it to life in the way that he or she wants. I just love that. I love being part of that kind of thing. I like being one of the facets in that whole mechanism. It's interesting to me and it's like a team sport, I like it.
KATHERINE: So when you're taking on a role, are you're kind of looking at how the big picture is going to look?
CATHERINE: I can't see it, it's funny actually. I don't, ever. I can't predict. It's always surprising to me to see like, "Oh man! That's what they did and that's what they were thinking." I don't see the big picture. I'm just trying to do what I'm supposed to do and know as much as I can know and just show up ready, to kind of just advance the play. But I rarely think of it, it's just one big thing that keeps moving. It's just an organism and everybody is a part of it…
KATHERINE: You must be surprised by the finished movie a lot.
CATHERINE: I'm always surprised whenever I see a movie that I'm in.
KATHERINE: What surprised you about Elephant Song?
CATHERINE: I didn't know how beautifully shot it was. I suspected that it would be... Charles, the director, is a very elegant, compassionate man so I'm not surprised about that, but I just didn't know and I didn't anticipate it looking any way. I love how sparse the music was. I loved how clean... I don't know, its aesthetic really. I didn't know about it. So I'm always surprised because you cross something after we've done it, then it's another whole movie that they do when the editor comes in.
KATHERINE: It's really interesting because with Xavier Dolan you're used to hearing his name as a filmmaker, but in this film he's just taking on a role...
CATHERINE: Yeah, I know. I didn't know that he was a director; I knew nothing. Up until meeting him I still didn't know. I met him in Montreal, I just went there to rehearse we met for coffee. He was like a big deal in the neighborhood, and I thought: "Huh?" But my friend who is actually French said, "He's amazing!" And blah, blah, blah.
KATHERINE: What was it like working with him in terms of the performance that he gives?
CATHERINE: He's fantastic.
KATHERINE: It seems like it's a very intense and frightening...?
CATHERINE: Yeah, no, he didn't scare me.
KATHERINE: No?
[Laughter]
CATHERINE: But I was supposed to not be scared…
KATHERINE: Does anything scare you?
CATHERINE: Does anything scare me? Shit! Yes!
KATHERINE: When it comes to acting, if someone is performing as if they were insane, in the moment, they might believe it, no?
CATHERINE: Yeah.
KATHERINE: So it can be pretty frightening sometimes to bear witness?
CATHERINE: Most! That's what you do, as an actor is bear witness constantly. You bear witness to a character, you bear witness to your partner's performance... I mean it really is kind of an amazing thing to do and you're just there to say, "I'm here, I'm watching this. I'm seeing this. You exist." And it's really a privilege
Follow Katherine on Twitter or visit her website.
