Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Teresa Palmer on Mel Gibson’s new film
Interview with Hacksaw Ridge costar
Hacksaw Ridge: Mel Gibson’s latest ode to flesh and mud — and faith
Mel Gibson’s latest film tells the story of Desmond Doss, a man compelled by duty to join the Army during World War II and compelled by belief to avoid committing acts of violence. Palmer, who first impressed me in 2013’s zombie romance Warm Bodies, turns in another beguiling performance here as the nurse who takes Doss’s blood and steals his heart.
Matthew Lickona: What would you say is your strongest quality as an actor?
Teresa Palmer: Life experience, I guess. I had a very colorful childhood, with lots of left-of-center experiences. My emotional well is pretty deep, and over the years that I’ve been acting, I’ve figured out how to tap into that.
ML: Did you bring that eclectic upbringing to bear on your role as Dorothy [the nurse who Desmond woos and eventually marries]?
Movie
Hacksaw Ridge **
Director Mel Gibson’s first film since 2006’s <em>Apocalypto</em> is visceral proof that the years haven’t done much to change him, at least as a filmmaker. He still loves outliers isolated by their beliefs, in this case a real-life Seventh-Day Adventist named Desmond Doss who wants to serve his country but won’t carry a gun. (The conviction turns out to be as much promise as principle, a fact Gibson would have done well to make clear sooner in the story.) He still knows how to deliver uplift after breaking the viewer down with sorrow and horror. (In this capacity, Hugo Weaving very nearly steals the film as a ruined veteran of the Great War.) And to paraphrase <em>A Christmas Story</em>, he still works in blood and guts the way other artists might work in oils or clay. When your protagonist is a World War II medic during the campaign to take Okinawa, you can make a poetry of corpses (and near-corpses) without swerving from the cause of realism. (The controlled chaos of battle, however, is another matter.) Star Andew Garfield’s slight frame holds up remarkably well under the weight of scorn, abuse, misunderstanding, judgment, and oh yes, bodies.
TP: Not really. I had a really interesting dynamic with my mother growing up, but it was her beautiful qualities I took for this character — very, very gentle and sweet. I also used my grandmother — she’s a very strong woman, who definitely wore the pants in her relationship with my grandfather. He was a firefighter, and she used to tell me about the feeling her friends had, knowing that their husbands might not return. That was just part of life for them, and that’s a huge part of this story, because Dorothy must have had the expectation that her husband was not going to return from the war, given his radical choice, the incredible risk he was taking in standing by his convictions. It proves to me what an unconditional love they had.
ML: Speaking of sweet, that mountaintop kiss between Desmond and Dorothy had an old-fashioned sweetness about it, very unlike the sort of modern-day screen kiss that signals the unleashing of passion. How did you manage that?
TP: Mel very much directed that screen kiss. He had the same observation in terms of what kisses look like today compared to what it would look like for two people of great faith in the 1940s who are falling in love. He talked to us about the kiss: obviously, not opening our mouths, more of a tight-lipped kiss. But, really, it was just a love for each other. It wasn’t about the physicality, the bodies coming together. Where the kiss came out of was, like, “You are my husband, you are my home,” as opposed to, “I want to take your clothes off.” And Mel was right in there directing. He’s such a romantic — he really understands love. He talked so eloquently about what it feels like to fall in love for the first time. It was very endearing.
ML: Last year, you appeared in Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups. He and Gibson are both directors with strong personal styles. Could you compare your experiences working with each of them?
TP: Vastly different. With Mel’s film, I auditioned by doing a couple of scenes from the movie, putting it on tape, and sending it to him. With Malick, the audition is talking about yourself in front of the camera — tell a sad story, tell a happy story. Then you get a piece of his writing, look at it for 20 minutes, hand it back to casting, and do an improvised monologue based on what you remember of it. It’s a fantastic way of getting to know people’s spirits. I didn’t get the role I auditioned for, but I found out that Malick had to decided to write one scene for me to do. Then he just kept asking me to stay. I’d get a phone call, “Can you be in a scene tomorrow?” “Can you come to Vegas with us?” I was, like, “Sure!” And there was nothing to read, it was all improv. They kind of found the story in the edit. With Mel, it was much more specific. He knew this narrative back to front. But they’re both really gentle beings with big hearts. Terrence is a man of faith, and so is Mel. They both really lead with compassion, which may sound surprising.
ML: Dorothy visits Desmond while he’s in prison for disobeying an order, and she asks him to meet the Army halfway. It’s a high-drama moment. Could you break down your preparation for that scene?
TP: She’s been unwavering in her support, but in that moment, she gets bound by her fear. You see some real vulnerability. I read a lot about Dorothy, and I listened to her audio tapes, to the way she was. And she sometimes says things impulsively, without thinking. So in the scene, it just rolls out of her: “Don’t confuse your will with the Lord’s.” Mel really directed that scene. He wanted her to say it really fast, like it’s verbal diarrhea. And then she stops herself. You can see the regret, because she knows the impact that’s going to have on Desmond. I read the scene over and over to get beneath her emotional turmoil, and I tapped into my own experience — I’ve been in a similar headspace.
ML: You’ve been in a wide range of roles, including the lead in this year’s horror hit Lights Out. How do you go about choosing parts?
TP: Now that I’m older and also a mother, I’m a lot more selective in terms of projects. I’m drawn to real. I just want real — characters that are steeped in a reality, strong women with a specific point of view. For Lights Out, I connected with the lead character, because I also have a mother who suffers from mental illness. It was a therapeutic experience for me. And I recently did Berlin Syndrome, which is from Cate Shortland, who did Lore. I play a woman who gets into a situation, and the movie explores Stockholm Syndrome. My character is completely flawed and vulnerable, and it’s such a dark, dark film, but I loved it because it was real.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Teresa Palmer on Mel Gibson’s new film
Interview with Hacksaw Ridge costar
Teresa Palmer on Mel Gibson’s new film
Interview with Hacksaw Ridge costar
Hacksaw Ridge: Mel Gibson’s latest ode to flesh and mud — and faith
Mel Gibson’s latest film tells the story of Desmond Doss, a man compelled by duty to join the Army during World War II and compelled by belief to avoid committing acts of violence. Palmer, who first impressed me in 2013’s zombie romance Warm Bodies, turns in another beguiling performance here as the nurse who takes Doss’s blood and steals his heart.
Matthew Lickona: What would you say is your strongest quality as an actor?
Teresa Palmer: Life experience, I guess. I had a very colorful childhood, with lots of left-of-center experiences. My emotional well is pretty deep, and over the years that I’ve been acting, I’ve figured out how to tap into that.
ML: Did you bring that eclectic upbringing to bear on your role as Dorothy [the nurse who Desmond woos and eventually marries]?
Movie
Hacksaw Ridge **
Director Mel Gibson’s first film since 2006’s <em>Apocalypto</em> is visceral proof that the years haven’t done much to change him, at least as a filmmaker. He still loves outliers isolated by their beliefs, in this case a real-life Seventh-Day Adventist named Desmond Doss who wants to serve his country but won’t carry a gun. (The conviction turns out to be as much promise as principle, a fact Gibson would have done well to make clear sooner in the story.) He still knows how to deliver uplift after breaking the viewer down with sorrow and horror. (In this capacity, Hugo Weaving very nearly steals the film as a ruined veteran of the Great War.) And to paraphrase <em>A Christmas Story</em>, he still works in blood and guts the way other artists might work in oils or clay. When your protagonist is a World War II medic during the campaign to take Okinawa, you can make a poetry of corpses (and near-corpses) without swerving from the cause of realism. (The controlled chaos of battle, however, is another matter.) Star Andew Garfield’s slight frame holds up remarkably well under the weight of scorn, abuse, misunderstanding, judgment, and oh yes, bodies.
TP: Not really. I had a really interesting dynamic with my mother growing up, but it was her beautiful qualities I took for this character — very, very gentle and sweet. I also used my grandmother — she’s a very strong woman, who definitely wore the pants in her relationship with my grandfather. He was a firefighter, and she used to tell me about the feeling her friends had, knowing that their husbands might not return. That was just part of life for them, and that’s a huge part of this story, because Dorothy must have had the expectation that her husband was not going to return from the war, given his radical choice, the incredible risk he was taking in standing by his convictions. It proves to me what an unconditional love they had.
ML: Speaking of sweet, that mountaintop kiss between Desmond and Dorothy had an old-fashioned sweetness about it, very unlike the sort of modern-day screen kiss that signals the unleashing of passion. How did you manage that?
TP: Mel very much directed that screen kiss. He had the same observation in terms of what kisses look like today compared to what it would look like for two people of great faith in the 1940s who are falling in love. He talked to us about the kiss: obviously, not opening our mouths, more of a tight-lipped kiss. But, really, it was just a love for each other. It wasn’t about the physicality, the bodies coming together. Where the kiss came out of was, like, “You are my husband, you are my home,” as opposed to, “I want to take your clothes off.” And Mel was right in there directing. He’s such a romantic — he really understands love. He talked so eloquently about what it feels like to fall in love for the first time. It was very endearing.
ML: Last year, you appeared in Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups. He and Gibson are both directors with strong personal styles. Could you compare your experiences working with each of them?
TP: Vastly different. With Mel’s film, I auditioned by doing a couple of scenes from the movie, putting it on tape, and sending it to him. With Malick, the audition is talking about yourself in front of the camera — tell a sad story, tell a happy story. Then you get a piece of his writing, look at it for 20 minutes, hand it back to casting, and do an improvised monologue based on what you remember of it. It’s a fantastic way of getting to know people’s spirits. I didn’t get the role I auditioned for, but I found out that Malick had to decided to write one scene for me to do. Then he just kept asking me to stay. I’d get a phone call, “Can you be in a scene tomorrow?” “Can you come to Vegas with us?” I was, like, “Sure!” And there was nothing to read, it was all improv. They kind of found the story in the edit. With Mel, it was much more specific. He knew this narrative back to front. But they’re both really gentle beings with big hearts. Terrence is a man of faith, and so is Mel. They both really lead with compassion, which may sound surprising.
ML: Dorothy visits Desmond while he’s in prison for disobeying an order, and she asks him to meet the Army halfway. It’s a high-drama moment. Could you break down your preparation for that scene?
TP: She’s been unwavering in her support, but in that moment, she gets bound by her fear. You see some real vulnerability. I read a lot about Dorothy, and I listened to her audio tapes, to the way she was. And she sometimes says things impulsively, without thinking. So in the scene, it just rolls out of her: “Don’t confuse your will with the Lord’s.” Mel really directed that scene. He wanted her to say it really fast, like it’s verbal diarrhea. And then she stops herself. You can see the regret, because she knows the impact that’s going to have on Desmond. I read the scene over and over to get beneath her emotional turmoil, and I tapped into my own experience — I’ve been in a similar headspace.
ML: You’ve been in a wide range of roles, including the lead in this year’s horror hit Lights Out. How do you go about choosing parts?
TP: Now that I’m older and also a mother, I’m a lot more selective in terms of projects. I’m drawn to real. I just want real — characters that are steeped in a reality, strong women with a specific point of view. For Lights Out, I connected with the lead character, because I also have a mother who suffers from mental illness. It was a therapeutic experience for me. And I recently did Berlin Syndrome, which is from Cate Shortland, who did Lore. I play a woman who gets into a situation, and the movie explores Stockholm Syndrome. My character is completely flawed and vulnerable, and it’s such a dark, dark film, but I loved it because it was real.
Comments