Man of the Year
Linney Talks Serious Side of Man of the Year
Linney handles most of the serious parts of the film, including a mental breakdown after the company gives her a drug cocktail. “It was fun to do, because it was sort of like a little play that I got to work on all day long,” said Linney. “I very much sort of said to myself, ‘Don’t try and have any one result on this, just work on it all day long and see what happens.’ You go in with information, your preparation, what drugs are in the system, how do they affect you, and I sort of just went with the senses. What is she seeing, what is she hearing, what is she feeling, and how would she respond to that? Someone looking at her a certain way, the sound of a knife or a fork on a table, what it would feel like to stir something compulsively and not be able to stop. All of that, so that was basically what I did.”
Even with Williams’ scenes, unless it was necessary to the plot that he be funny on the campaign trail, director Barry Levinson did not push for comedic moments. “As I said to Robin, there is no need to have to be funny because it’s not a sitcom,” said Levinson. “It’s not like all these scenes need to be kind of funny. His character has a sense of humor and at certain times, it will open up and will happen that way. In other scenes, they’re dramatic because they are in fact dramatic. So the movie’s not playing in some other kind of way where we need to keep it always rolling and therefore we have to find jokes and things to do it. It’s not designed that way. It basically has a dramatic structure with someone who has a great sense of humor in it. So it will be humorous because of the character who is in it and the circumstances that take place periodically but not throughout the movie. It’s not designed that way.”
The duo has worked this way before. “As it did in Good Morning Vietnam,” Williams reminds us. “It was the same kind of mix which is why it’s great to work with Barry. He has the ability to mix them beautifully, and also the ability to say, ‘You don’t have to do anything here. There’s enough absurdity just to have on a Thomas Jefferson wig and be speaking to congress and go I hope this works and be in the limousine dressed like that.’ There’s not a lot of spin you have to work on. The idea of talking about the subjects and that ability is funny because we can try and just go as far as you can and mix and match which is wonderful too which gives you the crossover. He was the first guy who could actually do both of them with Good Morning Vietnam and the chance to do it again, especially now in these interesting times, to be able to have both, that to me was the gift and that’s why I wanted to do it.”
Man of the Year opens tomorrow, October 13th.
For the trailer, TV spots, interview with Robin Williams, synopsis and more movie info, go to the Man of the Year Movie Page.
Stay tuned for updates.
|
Add to Heffee!
