Teresa Palmer has played the girlfriend of a lovesick zombie, an alien, and other assorted interesting characters, and with the Australian film Wish You Were Here she delivers another multi-layered, intense performance. Palmer plays Steph, younger sister of Alice (played by co-writer Felicity Price) and sister-in-law of Dave (played by Joel Edgerton).
eONE Films’ Wish You Were Here hits theaters on June 7, 2013 and in support of the movie’s theatrical release, I had the opportunity to talk to Palmer about her role in the dramatic film, shooting in Cambodia, and working with the cast and writer/director Darcy-Smith.
First off, I have to geek out a little and tell you Warm Bodies is one of my favorite movies this year.
Teresa Palmer: “Yeah! I’m so happy to hear that.”
Warm Bodies was so smart and funny, and now you’ve got Wish You Were Here – an intense thriller with a much smaller budget – coming to U.S. theaters.
Teresa Palmer: “It was a relatively small budget. It just goes to show what an incredible filmmaker Kieran Darcy-Smith is because he’s managed to make this beautiful film. It’s dark and gritty and suspenseful. It looks like it was made on a lot of money, but it wasn’t. It was just all great production design, and we got to shoot in beautiful Cambodia. It just looks like a very wonderful film and it is a good film. I’m happy that I was a part of it.”
How challenging was it working in Cambodia?
Teresa Palmer: “It definitely came with its challenges. There are a lot of lost-in-translation moments. I remember one in particular was about the hair and make-up. We had these beautiful, local Cambodian women doing my make-up. We really wanted to be very, very, very natural and the hair to be very natural. They’re so used to doing up their women, so my hair ended up in these huge, big, bouncing curls. I had a huge amount of eyeliner and blush and bright red lips. We had to strip it all back and the next few days I did my own hair and make-up.
It was great. We loved shooting there and the local communities; they embraced us and they loved being a part of the film. Everyone was just so wonderful. We did a big blessing ceremony before we started the movie. The Cambodian crew, they blessed our film set, which was a really beautiful experience. We loved it. Guerilla-style shooting at its best.”
Had you ever had a film set you were on blessed before this experience?
Teresa Palmer: “I have, actually. When I was in Japan, I did a film years ago, my very first American movie, actually, called The Grudge 2. It was a horror film and the Japanese crew, they ended up blessing the film set and the producers and the directors. They wished us a great film production shoot, which was really fantastic.”
Given the plot, did working on Wish You Were Here up your level of anxiety about traveling to different places? Did it affect you at all?
Teresa Palmer: “Not really. We certainly didn’t want the film to deter travelers traveling overseas – but I do understand the fear surrounding it. I think if you can have your wits about you and you’re safe, you won’t get yourself in dangerous situations. Hopefully, you will stay away from dangerous situations. I feel like I’m a very safe traveler. I’m overly cautious, so I wasn’t fearful at all. But you just have to be really careful. You never know what’s going to happen when you’re in a foreign country. You have to be extremely careful and diligent about the things that you choose to do.”
I think it’s the lack of control when you travel that gets to me.
Teresa Palmer: “Yes. Sometimes I think the language barrier can be a really daunting thing. I always just play it incredibly safe when I’m in a place where I don’t know the local language. I think it’s important to do that. You want to have fun and be carefree at the same time, but there are other ways of doing that. I like to stick to the hotel and hang out on the beach. [Laughing] It’s kind of boring, but it’s my ideal vacation.”
Do you enjoy working with writer/directors?
Teresa Palmer: “Yes. It’s amazing because a lot of the time you’re asking questions of the director that they don’t quite know because it’s more a question you should be asking the writer. So when it’s the writer/director, I could ask him absolutely anything about this character and I knew that he’d be able to answer my question.
It was great and the script was really on par. It was already very strong and we didn’t actually steer too far away from the script while we shot the movie because it was just so wonderful. I could tell that Kieran Darcy-Smith, the director, really trusted my instincts, which is wonderful and I trusted his. It was just a beautiful collaboration between all of us.”
And you had to have a lot of trust because he’s a first-time director, right?
Teresa Palmer: “He is, but l know the Blue-Tongue Films Collective very well. All those boys are really amazing and they’ve made other films like The Square and Animal Kingdom. They’re all very, very hands-on and involved in each other’s films, so I knew it wasn’t just Kieran; it was the whole Blue-Tongue Films’ boys behind this movie. Also, I had seen his short film that he had done and I just knew he had the chops. He’s an amazing guy and he made the experience really wonderful for me.”
How much do you actually look into a director’s background before you say yes to a project?
Teresa Palmer: “I like to look at their material. It’s great to get a sense of what their aesthetic is. Mostly for me it’s about human connection. Do I have a similar energy? Can I work with this person? Are we on the same page? Is he down for collaboration? How trusting does he or she seem? I love meeting with them and just seeing how you vibe together. I think it’s really important to get on very well with your director.”
Have you ever turned down a role you thought would have been really interesting based on how the vibe comes across?
Teresa Palmer: “No, I definitely haven’t. To be honest, I’m not really at the point where I’m turning down a bunch of things. Offers are slowly filtering in and that’s great. I think I have to thank Warm Bodies for that. I really have met wonderful people since I’ve been out here. I’ve had a couple of experiences, but then I just don’t pursue that role. You take a meeting and then if you don’t really like the vibe of the director, then you don’t have to push for it. You don’t have to push for an audition or an offer. For the most part I tend to see the good in everyone. Every human being has flaws and differences. I try and meet people with an open mind.”
That makes sense and it also makes sense given the film roles you’ve taken because you do approach them with an open mind. You’ve taken on such a wide variety.
Teresa Palmer: “I was actually thinking about that the other day. I’ve done comedy and action. I’ve played someone who’s fallen in love with a zombie, and someone who is an alien. I’ve played a ghost. Then I’ve done these gritty films – Wish You Were Here and 2:37, and then I went and worked on a Terrence Malick movie.
I’ve had a very colorful career. I love the different opportunities and experiences. To me, that’s what makes it exciting. I just keep pushing the boundaries and play different roles. I don’t like getting stuck in one genre or one type of character. I can only grow as an actress if I keep pushing the boundaries in that way.”
And you’re still doing Australian films and mixing them in with American studio projects. Is that easy to go back and forth between the two?
Teresa Palmer: “I love doing that. Is it easy? It’s hard because you have a completely different American team and then you have an Australian team. Obviously, the American team wants you to be around and available to be doing American movies. Then the Australian team is fighting for you to come back to Australia and get an Aussie film in. It’s hard to commit to an Australian film when you know that it takes you out of the running of being in a big American movie. It’s a constant balance, really. It’s a juggling act and I really look forward to going back to Australia and working again. I love the sense of collaboration that you get on smaller Australian films like Wish You Were Here.”
The chemistry between the entire cast in this so compelling, especially so in your scenes with Joel Edgerton. Was it easy for you to bond with your co-stars?
Teresa Palmer: “Yeah, it is actually. Like I said, I feel as though I’m very good at adapting to different personalities. I’m an open person. I think I’m very approachable and warm, so I try to find something in common with everyone I work with. One of my favorite things is talking with new people and just people watching, and exploring different personalities and learning from people with different essences. I just love that. I have never had an issue with a co-star so far which has been really fantastic. I think I’m very blessed.”
What did you find most compelling about your character, Steph?
Teresa Palmer: “I love that she’s a human being, a real character who has many shades of colors to her. I think she can be very irresponsible and she’s fun and she’s carefree, but she actually really means well. She’s a good person and she has vulnerabilities, and she’s just a little lost. I think a lot of people around that age, in your early/mid-twenties…you’re in a strange environment at that age. You’re coming out of being a teenager and moving into being an adult. That dredges up a lot of emotions and feelings and nostalgia. You feel really young, but you know you need to be starting to make adult decisions.
I loved exploring that because I really didn’t have that experience for myself. I started working at 18 in films and so I just grew up very quickly and just went from job-to-job and started earning money. I missed that whole period of this carefree, no-responsibilities time in my life.”
I found her very compelling. In fact, I really wanted to see more of her on screen. Was there anything in the script that you didn’t get to shoot?
Teresa Palmer: “No. Usually you end up cutting out a lot of scenes. It’s just sort of what happens. There were a few things, tiny little snippets of things that didn’t make the final cut, but for the most part she was there in all her scenes. It was good. It was nice to be really deeply entangled in the web, and not just be a player on the outside. I was very much in the story. I have played characters in the past where I served the purpose of the guy’s story or I’m a supporting player to serve the purpose of the protagonist’s story. In this one it felt like a real ensemble piece and that was something that I was excited to do.”
What’s up next?
Teresa Palmer: “I’m actually doing a film and we start shooting July 22nd. It’s a film called The Ever After. It’s about the breakdown of this marriage and a woman suffering postpartum depression. I star in it. I wrote it with my partner Mark Webber, who stars in it with me and he also directs it. Melissa Leo stars in it with us. She’s an incredible actress. I’m humbled that she read our words and wanted to be a part of our story. It’s an exciting thing.
It very much blurs the lines between reality and fiction. I’ll essentially be playing a version of myself, a woman who was in I am Number Four. She was this girl who’s an actress in Warm Bodies and Wish You Were Here. I’ll be using real footage from those premieres and those press days. Then my character has a child and gives everything up. It’s the exploration of that. It’s been a really eye-opening experience for me.”
That sounds like an incredibly personal project. How difficult is it for you to put something like that down and then share it with the world?
Teresa Palmer: “Look, it’s very vulnerable. It feels brave and scary, and I know this will be the best possible role for me in terms of showing what I can do as an actor. It really does inject so much of my real life into this film. My mom is going to be herself. She’s going to play herself. The film is improv’d. All of our friends play themselves. Mark and I are in a relationship and we’re playing a married couple. We’re going to be shooting in the house that we live in together. It really touches close to home and it’s an experiment. It’s going to be really challenging, but I have loved every minute of it so far.
We’re largely inspired by Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands and how they made movies. Mark and I wish this to be the first of many, many, many more movies that we do together in this way.”
