How did you first get involved with Watchmen? Were you familiar with the comic before joining the cast?
No, I wasn’t familiar with the comic book before I got involved. I really actually thought I blew the audition. I didn’t like my performance at all and called my agent and just said, “It just didn’t feel a hundred percent,” and then I got the call that I got it, which was amazing! It kind of crept up on me slowly, just the magnitude of what this was going to be. Now of course I am very familiar with the novel and all of its fans. Going to Comic-Con was like an adrenaline rush. You feel like you’re on drugs! The energy that these fans exude and give to you, it’s so great! It must feel like what it feels like at the end of doing a theatre show and everyone stands up and there’s a standing ovation. We love them for that.
What went into prepping for the role of Laurie Juspeczyk/ Silk Spectre II?
Well, there was definitely a lot of prep work. It was actually two months of prep work, which was mostly physical training and fight training. We started shooting the movie in the beginning of October, but I started training in the beginning of August with a personal trainer five days a week. I was in so much pain, I couldn’t even move my body the first week. We shipped off to Vancouver where we met our flight coordinators and started doing the fight coordination and then just got going on the film.
What can you tell us about the character?
It’s sort of like we’ve chosen crime fighting as a career. So, it wasn’t too difficult to relate to the character because she really is a real human being with her own problems and a complicated relationship with her mother and a complicated relationship with her boyfriend because he isn’t very human. She sort of takes a journey throughout the film or the novel where she tries to figure out what it is that she wants to do with her life and who she is. She’s a second generation crime fighter, forced into it by her mother which is also something that most kids can relate to. She’s trying to find herself and, at the same time, going out and kicking ass — which is not something I would do on a regular basis, but that’s a pretty cool career!
Did you get a chance to do a lot of the stunt work?
Basically, all the fight scenes I did, and then the stuntwoman did all of it as well, and so they cut and paste
whatever pieces they want to use of hers and whatever pieces they want to use of mine to make sure it looks real. But we worked really hard, and we learned all of our fight coordinations. The only thing that we weren’t allowed to do on our own was the wire work. There is a scene where my character drops through the roof of a burning building and they didn’t really want me doing that, so I was fine with that. But, for the most part, we learned all of our stunts.
What was it like working with 300 director Zack Snyder?
Amazing. That man is a superhero. He never lost his energy. He was just as pumped and excited everyday
when we got to work. His energy was up the whole day. We could shoot for 18 hours straight, and he’s on the whole time, and he was positive and never had a bad thing to say. He’s super educated on the book. He’s a big fan himself. He had been prepping this for a year and drew every single scene so when he was trying to explain the scene he’d show us the visual of what he had imagined it, and it was just incredible. He was incredible. He’s
such a cool guy, such a nice guy, and amazing to work with. He had such true vision of what he wanted.
Did you have any initial reservations about your revealing costume?
It wasn’t even the revealing part of it that I was thinking about, it was more as soon as I put on that latex I was just like… holy shit, it’s not very comfortable! So it was definitely more of a comfort thing over the fact that it’s very tight and revealing. I thought it was super sexy and amazing. It’s a great costume. My husband got worried about it right away. As soon as my husband came to set and I walked out in that costume and saw his eyes bulge out, I said, “Don’t even think about it. It is not coming home with us!’
When working on a film like Watchmen, which already has a strong fan following, do you feel more pressure to portray the role as accurately as possible?
Absolutely. That was my biggest concern. You don’t want to disappoint the fans. I know I’d feel the same if I had a favorite novel or book and go to see the film and it sucks. So of course one of our biggest concerns is that the fan base is going to enjoy it because it really is for them, and then we hope that all the general public can enjoy it. It was nerve-racking to go to Comic-Con the first time to show some clips. Luckily, their reaction was beyond what we expected. They were so excited, so that was a really huge. Hopefully, the whole film will feel the same for them.
You initially started out in modeling. What did you think of that industry and what prompted you to want to pursue acting?
I had sort of been modeling my whole life. My mother did that when we first moved to Toronto to make some money. I started doing catalog jobs, every now and then and as a kid and TV commercials, so it was kind of a part of my life always, on the side of school. Then, at 16, I guess I got discovered at a mall and ended up in this crazy competition and became sort of a model. Throughout every summer I would travel to a new place and do the modeling thing, which was a great way to travel. It’s not my favorite industry. It wasn’t really for me. I don’t really like to watch my weight. There was so much focus on the exterior, and I just wasn’t interested. It wasn’t stimulating enough for me. Acting and modeling had always been in my life but it wasn’t anything that I thought I was going to become. It was just a great side job until my agent said, “Why don’t we set you out for some guest star roles in TV series?’ I thought, “Sure, why not?” It’s better money and I could pay for school, and it just kind of caught on and I was getting lots of roles and decided to give it a shot because I was really enjoying it.
Coming from Canada, was your first reaction to the L.A. lifestyle?
L.A. was tough. I mean Canada is a lot more lenient. It’s a lot smaller, first of all. You know, the competition isn’t as big in Canada as it is here. It was really sort of rude awakening. I kind of hopped off and decided that I wasn’t going to do acting, and that’s when I found a bunch of guys and we started a band together. I did that for a year and a half, and then that didn’t make us any money and didn’t go anywhere, and I decided to give acting one last shot before I was going to head back to Toronto, and that’s when I got my first real job out here which was The Comeback with Lisa Kudrow.
Tell us about your singing. Do you still have dreams of pursuing music?
It was by fluke I met the guitarist of the band. I think everyone has a fantasy of being a rock star at some point in their lives. I mean think that kind of propelled me. I just kind of said, “You know? If I can get up on a stage and sing then I can damn well walk into the audition room and get a part. So I needed to grow a bit of tough skin before I went back into the audition room, and that’s exactly what the whole band project did for me. We still talk about one day getting together and doing a new album and all that kind of fun stuff but we’re all so busy so it’s hard to find the time to do it.
What can you tell us about some of your upcoming projects?
Couples Retreat, which I’m filming right now, has a really great ensemble cast. It’s a comedy with Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman, Kristen Bell and Kristin Davis. It’s a great group of people. We’ve had such a blast,
and we were really lucky because the first three weeks of shooting we shot in Bora Bora, which was absolutely incredible. We got to shoot a movie in paradise, basically. We had a great time.
When you’re not working, how do you like to spend your free time? What is your ideal Saturday night?
I’m a big foodie, I love going out to restaurants, that’s one of my favorite things to do, but to be honest with you, Saturday nights I would probably stay in with my husband, maybe have a couple friends over, open a nice bottle of wine and have a long-winded dinner that lasts til about 2 a.m. That’s my ultimate Saturday night. If you would have asked me the same question about ten years ago I would have said, ‘Well I’d probably be standing on a bar doing shots” But time has changed and you have to appreciate your down time when you’re working a lot.
By Jillian Gordon
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