InsideOut Interview: Mary Stuart Masterson, 2007

From the Outside … In
Mary Stuart Masterson: The Grown-up Version
By Owen Lipstein


Best known for her roles in “Fried Green Tomatoes” and “Benny & Joon,” we were very excited to speak with Mary Stuart Masterson about her directorial debut, life on the other side of the camera, and the allure of the Hudson Valley. “The Cake Eaters,” Masterson’s new film, was shot in July of 2006 in Hudson and Catskill. The story revolves around three men dealing, in their own painful ways, with the loss of the matriarch of their family. Easy (Bruce Dern) confronts a long-standing affair he has been having with Marg (Elizabeth Ashley), Beagle (Aaron Stanford) gets involved with a teenager (Kristen Stewart) with a rare neurological disorder called Friedreich's Ataxia, and Guy (Jayce Bartok) attempts to reconnect with an old flame (Miriam Shor) and atone for his absence. The film will be screened at the 2007 Woodstock Film Festival in October.


InsideOut: What inspired the name “The Cake Eaters”?

Mary Stuart Masterson: [The writer of the film] spent time in a town in Pennsylvania where it’s a regional term for the people who “have” vs. the “have-nots” — the people on the hill. The way it suits the movie is that every character in the movie has the belief that their dream is just out of their reach, or that it’s for someone else. They come to realize that they actually do have, rather than have not. Sort of “The Wizard of Oz,” in your own back yard.

IO: Was there any particular reason why you chose to use Catskill as a location?

MSM: The producers were interested in exploring shooting within the zone of Manhattan. I went rogue, got in the car and drove north, just looking for the perfect place. Catskill was perfect for the forgotten town, the town that time didn’t really touch. I saw a house on a hill and took a picture of it. It happened to be a house we ended up using as Stephanie’s house. It was just completely random. And then I met the most wonderful location scout named Michelle Baker, who actually lives in the Woodstock area, and she found that house and talked to the owners, and we ended up being able to use it.

IO: Do you see this area as being a productive, fruitful place to shoot?

MSM: Absolutely. I would hope to do many films in this area. For one thing, it’s just beautiful. But for another, the people are so accommodating in the best way it’s not out of ignorance; it’s out of warmth and interest. It’s not like some hick area, as small towns are sometimes portrayed.

IO: One of the things that I found very attractive about this movie was how convincingly most of the characters are trying to make their lives work out. It’s really nuanced. Would you talk a bit about that?

MSM: [The film is about] the people who get passed over, and that’s very appealing to me because that’s the majority of the world. I think the actors are all tremendous, and did not always make the attractive choices. It’s easy for an actor to always try to make a character look good, but without making fun of any of these characters, I think [they] very lovingly treated their flaws. I think a lot of small-town stories turn some people into clowns, especially old people.

IO: And the idea of having a story revolving in part around a disabled person [who is] allowed to appear selfish …

MSM: I think Kristen [Stewart] is amazing.

IO: She is amazing. Is she disabled?

MSM: No, she’s not. She’s just really gifted. [Friedreich's Ataxia, a rare neurological disease] is kind of sketched into the story, and I didn’t really know much about it. It was kind of vague, but it’s kind of a big thing.

So I was doing research and ended up chatting online with a bunch of people through a Web site, and met this one woman in particular who volunteered, when I asked people if they would be interviewed. Because Kristen was in California and I was in New York, I interviewed these people on the Internet and eventually we met. This woman Mary, and her two daughters Sam and Alex, came to my apartment and were willing to be asked incredibly personal questions in the name of raising awareness. They turned out to be the most amazing people, and the interview was largely the basis for what Kristen used as research, because I sent it to her out in Los Angeles. Then she also met another person off of the same Web site who was willing to have her basically follow her around for a day, through her physical therapies and her life at home. So Kristen had about four months before we shot to do research and spend time with these people.

IO: What drew you to this story?

MSM: I think the simplicity of it. Not a lot happens, but I liked the characters. I thought they were sweet. There was a heart at the center of it that was really kind of sweet and baldly innocent, especially in this day and age, and especially with an independent film, which is unusual. Everything is so cynical and dark and intentionally grungy, and there was something about it that I thought was very simple and true. Then we worked on the script for a very long time to get it where it needed to be, but I thought it was an opportunity for good actors, and again it was slightly challenging. Another thing about it was it was already mostly financed.

IO: Are you allowed to say what a movie like that cost to do?

MSM: Well, not really. It was definitely low-budget. I can tell you that.

IO: This is your debut as a director.

MSM: Yeah, my feature.

IO: You’ve done huge amounts of work. Your credits are astonishing. How do you describe your body of work?

MSM: Exhausting.

IO: Do you enjoy being an actor? Do you like being on the stage?

MSM: I do. I love being on the stage more and more. It’s all part of one thing to me. It’s all connected, but as I grow and age, I get more excited about writing and directing not to say I don’t love acting, but there are fewer opportunities that are exciting. I don’t know if directing is a more grown-up version of acting. I think it’s also a culmination of bringing together all of the knowledge or experience that I had so far, and not being limited to my age, my type, or whatever. I can use the breadths of my experience and even my connections, like I end up with this incredible crew, which is a huge blessing. I think my experience also lets me have access to some pretty great people that make me look good.

IO: Talk about the experience of directing such a diverse cast.

MSM: I think that certainly there’s a vast difference in experience among the cast. I tried to set the tone of respect for everyone. There was no pecking order. Nobody got preferential treatment. I think every single person has a different way of working no matter how much experience they have. There’s no one right way of working, so it’s all about trying to learn what language each person is speaking, and making sure that they can speak to each other and not step on each other’s toes. Sometimes you have a scene where one person likes to improvise, the other person likes to have a script very precise and rehearsed, and what do you do about that? That’s tricky, making sure that the one person gets enough rehearsal, and the other person feels free enough to not feel stifled in the same scene. Actors generally know what they need and when they don’t, it’s your job to figure it out.

Generally speaking, most people, and everybody on the movie, was extremely game. You’d have to be to do this movie. There wasn’t even a honey wagon or a wardrobe trailer or trailers for any of the actors. They were sitting in church basements behind a makeshift cloth, like something out of “It Happened One Night.” It was really not glamorous.

IO: I’m very touched by, for instance, the bedroom scenes — how the awkwardness was so well-acted and well-lit, and you just really felt it.

MSM: Kristen is very, very special. When I was acting at her age, I was not remotely as comfortable in any way in my life as she is right now. She is truly one of the most self-possessed (in the best way) women I’ve ever met. She doesn’t buy into any of the smoke that’s being blown at her. She is ridiculously beautiful but she’s just got her head screwed on right, and she’s one of these people who is fiercely loyal.

IO: Tell me about the occupational hazards. You were a child actor and have been a well-known actress for all your life. What has it done for your life experience? I am sure lots of smoke has been blown in your direction.

MSM: It’s a strange thing, I have to say.

IO: Are you glad to be a celebrity?

MSM: I don’t trade on it. I don’t have any interest in promoting myself. I am very grateful that some of my work or things I’ve been in have been successful, because it’s definitely allowed me a lot of opportunities. I’m kind of strange because I like to work with all these great people, but I don’t necessarily enjoy the fame part. Obviously, there are so many benefits to it that you have to be so grateful for, but there are certain prices that come along with it as well. Just like everything else, there are trade offs, but I’ve had a lot of great opportunities.

IO: What is it like to have friendships with other celebrities?

MSM: Mary Louise Parker and I were very close and we haven’t talked in a couple of years, because the difficult thing about working as an actor is that you end up not ever being home, or your other friends aren’t home, and it’s really hard to stay in touch with all your friends. It’s not to say that we wouldn’t consider each other friends and hug each other if we ran into each other on the street, but in terms of our day-to-day social lives, I don’t know how people do it unless they live in Hollywood and go to a bunch of events, and I tend to stay away from both. So I’m not really part of that scene. But you can get into places, or get a good table at a restaurant. I could certainly take advantage of situations, but I tend not to.

IO: You generally live in the Hudson Valley, right?

MSM: Yes.

IO: What’s country life like for you?

MSM: Oh my God. Heaven. I just love it so much. I garden. We had our first full-on tomato sauce last night because the tomatoes were ripe and the basil [was ready]. We had Swiss chard out of the garden. Everybody that we’ve met up here has been so cool and gracious and easygoing and warm.

IO: You just mentioned Mary Louise Parker, and a lot of people know you from “Fried Green Tomatoes,” which you starred in with her. A lot of people feel that the movie had a different take than the novel did.

MSM: You mean in terms of the lesbian theme, or in terms of the shape of the movie?

IO: In terms of having to play a character that had such an intense connection to another one, and having to sort of tone it down or adapt it in a very different way.

MSM: I think it was never something the filmmakers were shy about or worried about. There were a couple of scenes that were cut out that seemed more obviously a little more intense, but there was no love scene or anything, and there wasn’t in the book either. In a book, you can get inside a character’s head. In a movie, it’s a visual medium, so without voice-over, there’s no real way to express beyond what the actors can convey through what they bring emotionally. I don’t think it was avoided. I do know that the book itself would not be a two-hour movie if it was all put on the screen. I think there was talk for a while of doing sequels, in fact, because so much of Troutsville the African-American part of the story that was across the river and was so rich and textured was actually written in a different voice. It was a whole other point of view.

The relationship between the two women is pretty much as it is in the book, except there was just a little more intensity in the fight scene that they cut. I wondered why they did, but that’s the only thing that was tempered down slightly, and for all I know, it’s because we sucked at the scene. I think it might be on the DVD extras. I should check that out some time and see if it ever saw the light of day.

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