Interview: Olivia Thirlby (The Wackness)

You probably know her as the bubbly sidekick to Ellen Page in last year’s blockbuster Juno.  But Olivia Thirlby is quickly making quite the name for herself.  Appearing with Josh Peck in Vanity Fair’s upcoming feature called “Hollywood’s next wave”, her performance in The Wackness has placed Thirlby among one of the hottest up-and-coming Hollywood youngsters around.

The 21-year-old actress plays Stephanie, a pretty girl that Luke (Peck) desperately longs after, but knows she’s totally out of his league.  But the summer of ’94 brings something special, along with its stellar hip hop soundtrack, as Luke and Stephanie find themselves entangled in a teenage love affair.

Last week I sat down with Thirlby to talk about her role in The Wackness. 

Olivia Thirlby

Sarah Mitchell: What interested you in doing The Wackness?
Olivia Thirlby: The script was really amazing. It was kind of like the movie was a little better. No, actually the script and the movie were really good in different ways. But the movie, it kind of comes to life. Takes on a life of its own in a way. But the script, it was just a mixture of so many different things.  I thought the characters were really unique. I hadn’t really read characters like that before, especially Dr. Squires’ character. At the same time I thought all the characters were these unique prototypes of stereotypes.  There were all these really universal themes in the script, which I thought were really relatable.

SM: What was it like working with Ben Kingsley, such a prestigious actor playing a lonely, old, stoner loser?
OT: He is amazing. The way he can embody a role and submerge himself in it and just become somebody who he is not. It’s amazing to watch and it’s inspiring to watch. And it’s a major learning experience especially for a young actor who doesn’t really know what they’re doing. To see somebody working on his level, its really amazing. And he’s nothing like that, so its cool seeing the two different sides of him between takes, when he looks like Dr. Squires but he’s speaking in his extremely proper British accent and talking about philosophy and making these really far-reaching and wise points about humanity. And then in the next scene he’s like, “Do you have any weed?”  And you’re like, “Oh my god, who are you?”

SM: Can you talk about your interpretation of your character, Stephanie?
OT:  She’s kind of every girl. I always felt like when I was a teenager, that wasn’t that long ago, that there was just all these different parts of me that were always conflicting; two opposite traits that I would possess both of. And I think that Stephanie is that way. She’s obviously a girl who’s really confident and sexy and sexual and she’s very laid back and relaxed and goofy. And I think that there’s also a side of her that’s deeply lonely and really in need of companionship and friendship all the time, which might be a flaw. I think she can be really self-absorbed and I think that while she’s really understanding, genuine and non-judgmental of Luke, his lack of experience. She really takes him under her wing in a really sweet way. I think that she doesn’t handle the situation as maturely as she could. That’s another big part of being a teenager girl, or a teenager in general, but especially girls because they’re kind of a lot smarter than their age almost allows them to be, so you feel like you really know what you’re doing. You feel like you’re really smart. And then all of a sudden you find yourself in different situations and you realize you don’t really know how to handle them. At least that happened to me.

SM: Was your childhood growing up anything like the character?
OT:  Yeah, kind of. I grew up here, so yeah. We have that in common, Stephanie and I. But the thing is that I basically didn’t change myself very much for Stephanie. I let myself be her. And I’m saying her words of course and doing her things, but that’s just me. That’s me exactly as I am. I played it as myself.  There was no deep character work. I certainly did not have to transform myself the way that Ben does.  That’s how the director Jonathan kind of wanted it. He very much cast me to be myself. And he cast Josh to be himself as well.

SM:  So you were seven years old in 1994.  Did your perspective of that time change when placed through the eyes of a teenager?
OT:  I guess yes and no. The thing about the characters is that they’re just existing in the time that they’re existing in and they don’t have any other perspective and it’s just what they know.  So as an actor you can only bring your own perspective to things. And I think in a lot of ways the city has changed. Its been cleaned up majorly and that whole kind of post-9/11 New York…and nowadays we look back at that as a golden age of sorts. And I think that for the most part the high school experience in New York City was not all that changed between ’94 and, I graduated in ’05. So, I guess 9/11 would be the kind of major distinction. Even in my early high school years, the neighborhood that I grew up in, the East Village, it was still kind of gritty, nobody really went down there. I mean it was like safe and everything, it wasn’t risky to be there, but people didn’t go hang out there. People who I went to school with very near by had no idea where I lived.  The alphabet area was totally foreign and that’s definitely changed.

SM: Stephanie is the more dominant of the two in her relationship with Josh. What was your experience like portraying that relationship on film?
OT: I think Stephanie definitely wears the pants in the relationship, Luke’s kind of a bitch. He’s kind of just like weepy and clingy, but I don’t think that she has a problem with that. I think in her own way, the whole kind of thing where she’s talking about “the wackness” and “the dopeness,” she says, “You’re looking at this in such a negative light already and we’ve just begun this relationship.  Why don’t we just enjoy each other’s company?” I think that’s what she’s trying to say to him and he obviously doesn’t really get it. The sex scenes were…we talked about them a lot before hand and Josh and I both had some really specific parameters, broadly and there were parts of our body that we didn’t want to show.  And we spent a lot of time working on it with the director and the DP and the whole crew. It was very closed. And it is very awkward that first moment when you stripped off the towel and you’re standing there, you’re completely naked except for a flesh toned thong and stickers, flesh-toned stickers. Josh and I, we felt like neutered Barbie dolls, who have bits but they’re just like plastic, flesh toned. It’s a little awkward between takes because you’re just kind of standing there awkward waiting for the people behind the camera to get their shit together. And when the cameras rolling, when you yell action and you start doing it, the awkwardness fell away and it ends up feeling just like another scene, just any old other scene.

****Spoiler Alert! ****

SM:  In Stephanie’s last scene, when Luke is walking away from her, she smiles.  That scene really struck me.
OT:  Thank you. That’s one of my favorite parts. That was unintentional. It was the only take that I smiled and it was the last take. It’s really, really fun when you’re kind of so absorbed in a character that you do things that surprise you. And then you end up seeing them and they’re just really right. And I really love that moment because it was almost in danger of getting really heavy and serious. And I think in that moment Stephanie kind of realizes it’s fine. Luke’s being a little bit dramatic I think.  nd she has a moment where it hits her really hard that she hurt somebody who she cared about and that’s always an upsetting realization to come to. And in the very next moment she realizes, “You know what?  It’s great.  He’s going to be fine, I’m going to be fine. Maybe we’ll be friends again one day.”  I really liked that too.

SM:  So are you a hip hop fan after doing this?
OT: I was already a hip hop fan. I really like all the songs in the soundtrack, which just came out and it’s so good. But it’s funny because one of my favorite songs of all times which, I had designated as such long before The Wackness, is on the soundtrack, which is “Can I Kick It” by Tribe. And I actually was given a gift that’s one of my favorite things that I own, was a doormat that says “rhythm rug.”  And it’s because I love that song so much and there’s a lyric that goes ,”Wipe your feet really good on the rhythm rug.”  And it was like my dream to have an actual rhythm rug, and I do.  And it was all before The Wackness came along, so it was quire serendipitous.

SM: You don’t’ have any scenes with Method Man. But did you still get to hang out with him?
OT:  I did, I couldn’t miss that. So I went to set on the day that he was filming even though I wasn’t working. And I just kind of hung out and watched it all go down and tried to stand next to him, but he’s like twice my size, literally. There’s a picture that was taken of him and I and he’s like incredibly cool, obviously, and he has his arm around me and he’s literally gargantuan. I look like the tiniest person next to him. And he’s throwing up some kind of cool sign and I didn’t know what to do so I just had one finger up.  So lame. I’ve never looked so white and tiny in my life.

SM:  Can you tell us about any other projects you have coming up?
OT: There’s New York, I Love You and The Dream of the Romans, which I just finished. It’s a romantic comedy with Jeff Daniels and Lauren Graham, two really awesome people. And I have a really small part in it, but it was very fun to work on and I look forward to seeing it. There’s also Safety Glass, which is another film that Josh is in. And our characters in that movie have almost nothing to do with each other, which is funny. We filmed it after The Wackness. When we got there everyone was kind of meeting and getting to know each other and we were like, “We know each other pretty well.” And everyone didn’t really get it. And a few of our friends and crew from the movie came to the LA premiere a couple nights ago and they were finally like, “Ooooh.  We understand what you meant when you said you understand each other pretty well.”

Sony Pictures Classics opens The Wackness in New York and Los Angeles on July 3rd.