Exclusive Interview: Sarah Polley (Splice)
Sarah Polley is an exceptionally good actress, but she seems to appear on screen less and less these days. Truth be told, that's not an illusion. Polley, now 31 and with such credits to her name as Exotica, Road To Avonlea, The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Go, Dawn Of The Dead, and John Adams (TV), seems more interested in writing and directing. And that's understandable considering the rapturous reception accorded Away From her, the award-winning drama she penned and then stepped behind the camera to realize. That's not to say that Polley has forsaken acting forever. In fact, she jumped on the phone recently for an exclusive interview with ScreenStar to discuss her latest acting project, Splice, a June 4 release that casts her and Adrien Brody as brilliant young scientists who secretly create a human-animal hybrid, only to look on in terror as their "baby" grows up way too fast, becoming increasingly strong, smart, inquisitive and lethal.
Where does acting fit in for you now? Is it less important? Does it help you afford to take the time away to direct indie films?
When I did Splice it was part of a year where I had decided -- after making Away from Her and doing everything I could in terms of (securing and promoting) its release -- to see how I felt about acting again. And I did a few films in a row, just to see and explore what my relationship was at this point to acting. At this point it's really fun. I have a ball doing it. Directing a movie and having that overwhelming responsibility is a way to learn how completely fun and playful acting really is. So, yeah, I think that primarily my focus will probably be writing and directing. That's my focus right now. But I think every now and then it will be really great to go back to acting and be in that subjective space.
What was it about Splice that made you sign on for it?
I just found the script so engaging and shocking and compelling, and I thought the character was, by a long shot, the most interesting character I'd ever read that was written for a woman. I liked the idea of being in a film that pushed that many boundaries and playing a female character who is that unstoppable. That was all pretty attractive.
Splice is rated R. It delivers the shocks and gore shots when it needs to. If someone feels compelled to curse, they don't say "Darn." What do those elements, in your opinion, add to the experience of watching this film?
I think that in a movie like this it's pretty important. This is a movie about pushing boundaries and taking risks and being shocking in ways that I don't think we're really used to in films. I think that's the kind of movie this is and it goes into that territory. It's not a movie for children. It's definitely a movie that's supposed to make you think and make you really uncomfortable, and (the gore and language) are a part of that.
What impressed you about Vincenzo Natali as a director and writer?
I think he's one of the most brilliant visual directors out there. The other films he's made he did on a shoestring, and he's done the most extraordinary things with them. And the fact that he wrote such an incredible script, that was so daring, but also the characters were so dynamic and rich and fully fleshed out; I was really impressed. The film is pretty amazing. It's been interesting to watch the film with audiences. At Sundance, you could see that visceral shock people seemed to feel every 10 minutes, which was the same experience I had reading the script.
One thing that nitpickers are going to pick nits over is the fact that you have these two scientists doing top-secret work for a major corporation desperately in need of a money-generating breakthrough. The scientists are told they have to drop their personal experiment and move on to something else, which the higher-ups have to know won't go over well with them. And yet no one watches them. No one videotapes their actions. No one even monitors their computer...
I think that's where the movie gets into movie territory, right? Ultimately the whole premise of this movie is that these two scientists can go off and, totally unmonitored and undetected, create a hybrid on their own. That's where the fiction comes in. I don't think that's realistic. But in that sense I also don't think the film is an alarmist film about what will happen to us if scientists get out of control. Scientists are, in the real world, under so much scrutiny and so monitored that I'm not afraid, personally, that this is going to happen. I believe that the technology could potentially be there to make it happen, but I just don't think anyone will ever let that happen. That said, I'd much prefer that all this kind of research be happening in a public system, with tons of regulation, than in a private system, where there's a profit motive, where I think things are more in danger of going out of control.
(Semi-spoiler alert ahead) There's obviously room for a sequel based on the way Splice concludes. How open would you be to returning for a follow-up?
To be honest with you, nobody has said the word sequel outside of the press. It's never even occurred to me before this moment, so I have no idea how I feel about it.
If everything we're hearing is true, you're about to write, produce and direct a film called Take This Waltz, a drama about a married woman (Michelle Williams) who develops feelings for another man (Luke Kirby). What's happening with that as we speak?
It's going really, really well. It's a story that I'd been thinking about for a few years, and I finally wrote it at the beginning of last year. We've got a cast together (Williams and Kirby, plus Seth Rogen and Sarah Silverman) that I'm really thrilled about, and we're going to start shooting it very soon (next month, actually).
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