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Sarah Paulson Has The Spirit
April 6, 2009

Over the past decade, Sarah Paulson has appeared in a variety of different projects—from TV’s Deadwood, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and the new ABC comedy Cupid, to such movies as The Notorious Bettie Page, Down with Love and The Other Sister. When I met this past winter, I wanted to ask her about her wide-ranging span of role, but I tried to limit my questions to her latest in Frank Miller’s The Spirit, which is due out tomorrow in DVD and Blu-ray from Lionsgate.

 

Video Business: So, what is the ideal Sarah Paulson role?

Sarah Paulson: My goal is to be working! Really, that’s all I want! I wish I was pickier and it’s not that I go and do anything that comes my way, but I often have to fight for things I want, like I did with The Spirit. It’s not like with [co-stars] Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendes who are established and get offered things like this. I had to really work to get this job. Everything you see me in I’ve worked really hard to get, except for Cupid, which I was offered because of Studio 60.

VB: You’ve done a lot of work in film, TV and New York theater over the past decade. Tell me about how an actor schedules a career that involves all three.

SP: I think it’s really hard to schedule it and I don’t even try to plan it, I just do what comes my way. I’m glad I have my fingers in all the pots and that people are at least interested in me auditioning. You can’t do everything…
VB: The Spirit involves a lot of green screen work, which must have been a change for you.
SP: Actually, that’s why I was able to do it in an easier way. I’m so used to doing plays where the entire rehearsal space is mapped out in tape, so I’m always using my imagination anyway. So my theater experience already bent my brain in that sort of direction. What’s odd is that you walk on the set and everything is green, and everyone’s skin has a green cast to it. And the walls and ceilings are humungous and all green, green, green. On that level, it’s weird. You walk on set and you think, ‘They’re ready to shoot? But there’s nothing here but green…!’ Also, this wasn’t the kind of movie where we had to look up at something that wasn’t there and trying to attack us. It was more atmosphere.

VB: Is it as collaborative a feeling as you’re used to in theater or on small-set TV shows?

SP: There are some things that felt very technical, but for the most part it was fine. I was so grateful that I was working most with Gabriel [Macht, who portrays The Spirit] and not with all the other famous, fancy people. As much as I wanted to, this was a big job for me to get and for me, I was glad that I could focus on being with another actor that I admire like Gabriel Macht. Not that I don’t admire all the other actors, but I think I would have been so nervous that I don’t know that I would have been able to do it. It’s nerve-wracking when you work with people that you admire. I was glad to be working with an actor whom I’m admire but who I haven’t pinned all these actorly hope on.
VB: You had a handful of scenes where you’re moving quickly, but not all that much in the way of action.
SP: I’ve never done action—I don’t really have the muscles for it. I don’t have that Jennifer Garner thing where I’m thin and where I would work out for six weeks and look like a, well, trust me, it wouldn’t happen.

VB: Okay. But would you be interested in giving a full-on action role a shot?

SP: Oh sure. I’d be interested in doing anything that anyone is interested in having me do. I’m a whore. And that’s okay.

 

Here’s the trailer for the film!!

Posted by Laurence Lerman on April 6, 2009 | Comments (2)