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Death Race Interview: Joan Allen is Ready to Be Sinister
Death Race co-star isn't going to be your mom anymore. By
Josh Gordon
August 18, 2008
Joan Allen, co-star of DEATH RACE(2008).
© Mania.com
She’s played a presidential candidate amidst a sex scandal in The Contender, went against type as the heavy in the Bourne series and now she’s a sadistic prison warden in director Paul W.S. Anderson’s Death Race, a re-do of Roger Corman’s 70’s camp classic Death Race 2000, It appears there is no stopping this super-milf (I have a huge crush on her, ok?).
Mania sat down with this very nice, very funny, very tall actress to talk about her role in Death Race, a fourth Bourne movie and how what she really wants to do is comedy.
Question: What’s a nice lady like you doing in a movie like this?
Joan Allen: It’s so fun. As an actor you really hope that you can get a big variety (of films) and it’s hard because it’s a money driven business, it’s more secure to hire actors that you know they can deliver this or they can deliver that; it’s harder to take chances, understandably. I was at my beach cottage last summer and I got sent this script and I was sitting on the beach thinking “this is good! I want to know what happens…this is a good story!” When I called my lawyer, who reads all my scripts as well, and I said “I think I should do this!” and he said “I think you should!” and he and my agent are always saying “no, don’t do this” they help to keep me focused and it just goes to show that you never know. I think a good story is just a good story and it kept me interested; I think it will keep an audience interested. I love that it’s a completely different genre for me and I love that I’m playing arguably the most evil woman on the planet. I had a hoot every day at work.
Q: Do you not get sent scripts for work outside of what you normally do? Is this a rare kind of thing? Or do you get sent kinda trashy movies that just aren’t any good?
JA: I tend to get sent a lot of “the long suffering mother” or –
Q: The dutiful wife
JA: Yes, The dutiful wife with the husband that’s left. I get a lot of those and I’ve done a fair amount of those in really great movies, really good parts but those don’t really interest me any more so my agent kind of knows “If I can say it’s the mother or the wife then chances are she…” then he doesn’t even need to send me the script; I don’t really even need to read it. So when you get sent something like a big action movie and it’s actually good and the character is fun, it’s, it’s – you’re pretty thrilled actually, you’re pretty happy to get it.
Q: What are some of your favorite movies from this genre?
JA: From this genre? Ooh, gosh, um, Road Warrior. That made a big impact on me and when I read the script (for Death Race) I (thought), If this movie succeeds and is like Road Warrior than I’ll be even happier than I already am to be a part of it.
Q: Do you enjoy science fiction films?
JA: I don’t seek them out. I LOVE Alien, I’ll never forget seeing Alien the first time and loving that movie. I saw it like three or four times when it first came out. Certain ones I like.
Q: Would you say that there’s a bit of a message to go along with the action in Death Race?
JA: There is this whole reality TV thing because we’re so in the midst of that now and it’s like how far will this go? And what will people pay to see? There’s so much now available to see people opening up their private lives and it is a sort of a commentary on “how far will we go?” in order to make a buck to satisfy peoples desires and fantasies.
Q: Is it hard to find the motivation in a character that’s just plain evil?
JA: Not really, you just think that their reality is just so different, the place where they’re coming from. As the movie explains, prisons have turned into these corporations that have become privately owned and they’re geared to make money and she’s a very high powered CPO in a lot of ways, and she’s interested in the bottom line only but it’s very fun to play someone so completely (evil)
Q: She has a bit of a sadistic streak too.
JA: She does! She does. She’s extremely manipulative and working with Paul (W.S. Anderson, the director) and trying to nuance different scenes, it’s just really fun.
Q: They’re writing a fourth Bourne movie, have they told you whether Pamela (Landy, Allen’s character in the Bourne series) is going to be in it?
JA: They haven’t told me but I know that they’re writing it, yeah. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
Q: She seems to get more and more integral as the series goes on.
JA: I heard that the Ludlum estate really likes the Pam Landy character so if that has any pull with the screenwriter then that makes me happy. So, I’m waiting like everybody else to see, in several months, I’ll bet they have a script in six to eight months, maybe a first draft. That’s what I’ve been told.
Q: You hear a lot of actresses in Hollywood talk about how it becomes difficult to find consistent work as they get older but your career seems to be getting richer as you get older. What are your thoughts on what it is like for women to work in Hollywood as they get “smarter and wiser” and on your situation as an actress (in that climate).
JA: You know, it’s really a mystery to me, I can’t really explain it. I mean, I have to say it’s not like I get twenty scripts a week that I say no to. I may go three or four weeks and not get a script and then get one and say “no, it’s the mother – it’s the wife, I don’t want to do that”. But I’ve had enough come in the course of a year where I can do pretty cool, interesting things at least once or twice a year. I don’t quite know why. My career has always been sort of like “keep hangin’ in there, keep moving up a little bit at a time” and that’s maybe just part of my nature, maybe just how the chips fall, you don’t really know why.
Q: It seemed like John Woo’s Face Off was a really big, big, moment for you.
JA: It was, and again, like Death Race, I remember, because, obviously John Woo is all about action; John is a wonderful, lovely man. All the domestic scenes meant a tremendous amount to him. He said “if you don’t care about this family then this film doesn’t work”. I’d come on to set and say “do you need me to move?” and he’d say “no, no! Camera moves for you, you don’t move for the camera!” So that part was very important to him. And people actually comment on that in terms of Face Off that it really mattered and I think there’s a similar thing in Death Race with Jason’s situation with his wife and child where you have that element that emotionally brings the audience in. Paul said “you can forgive a lot; you can have a lot of violence if you have this core sort of emotional story to hook back into”.
Q: What are you working on now?
JA: I just finished recently doing a movie that’s sort of the antitheses of Death Race. A very gentle film about a dog called Hatchiko with Richard Gere that Lasse Hallstrom directed. It’s very sort of zen. This dog that waits 10 years for his dead master to come home.
Q: Is there a role that you’d like to play that you haven’t played yet?
JA: I don’t really think in terms of a specific role but I would like to do more comedy stuff. I think it would be really fun to do. You know, Upside of Anger I see as comedy. I think it would be fun to do more of that. I love Steve Carrell and Jack Black. I think it would be so fun to do something with them. Ben Stiller’s new movie looks insanely funny. Have you seen the trailer for that?
Q: Yes.
JA: Robert Downey Jr. just looks…wasn’t that amazing? Isn’t that insane?
Be sure to check out Josh sitting down with co-star Ian McShane tomorrow as we continue to cover the upcoming Death Race premiere.
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