|
|
|
RACHEL NICHOLS on 'P2' (Part 1 of 2)
Contributed by Michael J. Lee, Executive Editor
for Radio Free Entertainment
November 1, 2007
In the thriller P2, young executive Angela Bridges (Rachel Nichols) finds herself pulling a late shift at the office on Christmas Eve, more comfortable with the sterile environs of work than the holiday gathering with the family that awaits her. But on this particular occasion, as her New York office building empties for the yuletide season, she is being stalked by Thomas (Wes Bentley), an obsessive parking attendant who finally decides to make his move. With no one to help her, Angela is drugged and chained to a table, where Thomas has eerily prepared a Christmas dinner for them. What unfolds is a game of cat and mouse, with Angela fighting back against a dangerous and unstable sociopath determined to possess her.
In this first segment of a two-part interview with star Rachel Nichols, she talks about working on P2, which required many physical and emotional demands of her.
|
The Interview
|
MEDIA: It seems like Angela has a bit of Sigourney Weaver from Aliens in her...
RACHEL: I love her! Yeah. There was a little Sigourney Weaver. There's a little Jodie Foster in there from Silence of the Lambs. You know, there's definitely some Jen Garner in there. All my favorite sort of butt-kicking, really cool heroines, I think...I feel like I had good role models as far as actresses that I respect, to turn to.
What were the biggest physical demands?
[laughs] How long do you have? Ummm...Definitely the running on concrete was painful. And let me tell you, I am scared of dogs. I don't do well with dogs. And Rottweilers have heads (I used this in an interview today) the size of toilet bowls, because they're really gigantic and they're heavy. And I mean, running and knowing that dog is behind you--and I'm a fast runner, I did track in high school--and fearing that he's going to decide to go for you instead of the woman with the red ball...Honestly, I had an escape route. I'm like, "If he grabs the dress, if he gets too close, there's a pipe. I'm going to grab the pipe, I'm going to swing up over it." I had this whole plan because I really thought that he might actually go for me. So that was certainly traumatic. And then, the handcuffs. I mean, I didn't really think about it when I read the script, but I'm wearing handcuffs for pretty much the whole movie, and a lot of the time, they're behind my back, which is dangerous, as I learned, when I fell. And so all that stuff you don't think about because it's just an element of the script...I'll never look at a script the same way again. Dogs or handcuffs, I'm out!
That's quite an escape route you had planned in case the dog went nuts on you. Could you have really done that?
Totally was going to! Totally knew I could do it. I was like, "I've got the arm strength to do it. I'm just going to propel myself up over it. That dog...He'll never know what hit him!"
Is it only big dogs you're afraid of, or would a Chihuahua do it too?
[laughs] Valid question! No, it's just big dogs. Michael Bay has these gigantic...I don't know if they're Mastiffs, I don't know if they're Newfoundlands, I don't know what they are. They're the size of bears! And when I went to go audition for The Amityville Horror, I went into his offices, which are these beautiful offices, and literally, these three huge dogs were there, and I almost turned around. "I'm not auditioning for this film." And I actually used the dogs in my audition to think of what would scare me the most. And so yeah, the dogs are traumatizing. But no, Chihuahuas and small dogs, I think I would be okay.
Any other physical difficulties?
Well, the running was hard because of just the amount of times that we had to do it over and over and over again. Believe it or not, the scene where he's behind me, wrestling with...Wes and I were both sore the next day, because literally, I had to thrash as much as possible and get him on my back. And we did that over and over and over and over because you gotta get it right. So that was really demanding as well. And then there were a couple other times where, out of fatigue, I bit the dust a couple of times. Really hurt myself. So those were probably physically demanding as well, but not intentionally. Purely by accident.
|
|
What was the hardest scene for you to do emotionally? Was it the dinner scene?
The dinner table scene was actually not as hard as the scene with my boss, when I'm in the car, because to imagine what that would do in real life. To imagine actually experiencing that in real life and making it real to me, so that Angela could experience it, that...You gotta dig up a lot of stuff and you gotta think of a lot of horrible things. And it's hard to get rid of some of that stuff, even at the end of day when you're having a beer, it's really hard to let that go. But the scene that really was, I think, most difficult for a separate reason, which is why I'll mention both of them, is the scene where I go into the office and I see the tape of me playing. Like, he's touching me. Filming that, Wes and I did it alone. It's a closed set. Wes will film it. And we just need the privacy because it was such a...And then for me to have to go in and actually watch that, it was nauseating. And I said, "I can only do this a certain number of times." Because they would have me standing there watching it, and I had to be watching it, and it was really hard for me to do.
When you say that you and Wes did it by yourselves, do you mean the director wasn't present for the whole scene?
Well no, just when he had the handheld part. When Thomas is making the video of Angela, he was holding the camera, so we did that together. Like he was actually doing it, and they let us just do that together, and they looked at the footage and said, "Okay, we have enough." Because I didn't really want a whole film crew in there that didn't need to be in there, because we weren't using a big camera, we were just using a handheld. And he felt awkward about it because he was just like, "I've got to do these depraved things to you, and...let's just do this alone." And we did it together. And at that time, we were really good friends. So it was the most comfortable that it could be, but still not ideal.
Was it tough being emotionally distressed throughout the entire shoot? How did you deal with that?
The thing that really got me through was Wes because we were in this together, and we're the only two actors in the film, for the most part. I'm certainly not belittling all the other people that were great. But for the most part, it's just the two of us. And to do something like that, that is this extraordinarily high suspense, tension, painful, emotional thing, I needed a friend, you know what I mean? Because I needed someone that I could trust when I was at work, that I could say, "God, I'm frustrated" or "This is really hard" or "I need you to help me with this" or "Let's talk through this." I needed someone I could trust at work--I needed someone that, when work was done, we could go back to the hotel and grab a beer, even if it was eight in the morning, and release all of the demons from that day. Because they would build up while we were shooting, and you couldn't go home and go to bed. So Wes and I spent a lot of time together, and if I hadn't had an actor that I got along with so well, I think it would have been a terrible, painful process.
What are some of your favorite horror movies or psychological thrillers?
Silence of the Lambs is one of my favorite movies of all time. Absolutely. But if I'm going to go and really freak myself out, it's The Exorcist. It still scares the bejesus out of me! It just holds up. I love old movies that really hold up because I find that the thrill that I got from them when I first watched them intensifies, almost, the more times I see it. So yeah, I'd have to give those two my big thumbs up.
What do you think would have happened if Angela just had dinner with Thomas?
In all honesty, who knows? It would have gone one of two ways. It would have either gone he suddenly trusts me and unhooks me, and I bludgeon him and leave, which would have been a very short movie. Or I have dinner with him and he doesn't believe me, and then, while chained up, he lets the dog eat me alive, which also would have been a very short movie. That's interesting, though. Did you ask We that?
No.
Oh, you should have! I wanted to know his answer! Jeez!
So the moral of the story might be to not stay at work late, because nothing good can come from overtime.
"Don't work late on Christmas! Overtime is not worth it!" Yes, the moral of the story is "Don't work late. Go home early." Or "Have a chaperone." Definitely. And also, as far as what people come away with...I love thrillers because, and I've said this in interviews today, the thrillers that work best for me are the ones that I'm sitting in the theater watching, feeling safe in the theater, but looking and going, "That could be me. That could happen to me." And if people go in and see P2 and think, "God, wow" (men and women alike) "that could happen to me. What would I have done differently?" That's what I want them to think. And then I want them to come out of it going, "Nobody saved her, she saved herself, and I could do the same!"
Are you nervous about parking lots?
You know, I grew up without parking lots. We didn't even have traffic in Maine. We don't have parking garages. We don't have anything underground. And in New York, there are parking garages, but I never had a car. And then I moved here, and everything is valet or a parking garage. And I kind of always...You know, when I went to New York from Maine, they had given you like "The Rules for Walking Through Central Park." Because that's what everybody thought, you were going to get raped and pillaged in Central Park. So "Walk with your head high. Look like you know where you're going." I used to pretend that I was on the phone. I would have full-on conversations. I speak French, sort of, so I'd have full-on conversations in French, and just go straight ahead. And I feel like I now apply those to my techniques, shall we say, in a parking garage. I do feel like I'm very aware of noises, and I learned to not unlock...Like this is something that I thought of while I was shooting the movie, was never unlock your car from a distance. Never hold up your little clicker across the parking lot and go click and unlock your car. First of all, it's telling everybody where your car is, and second of all, they can get in. So they had always said wait till you're right there. And I remember in Maine a couple of years ago, at Colby College, there was this trend in crime where people would get into their cars to drive away and they would turn to look back to back out, and there'd be a Post-it stuck to their windshield. So they'd get out of the car and go look, and somebody would either steal the car, or somebody would beat them up, or rape them, or whatever it was. And so there was this big bulletin that went out. It's kind of like the, "If you wake up in a bathtub with ice and you're missing a...Don't move, and call..." It was kind of one of those things. "If you feel like someone's taken your kidney..." This is "If there's a Post-it in the back of your thing, don't get out of your car! Drive away!"
Has your family seen this film yet? What do they think?
It's very painful for me to watch it myself because watching yourself in peril for 90 minutes is awful! And my parents, I've said, "Please, you don't have to watch this." My dad was like, "I'm not watching it. There's no chance in hell. I love you dearly, I think you're great, I'll wait for Charlie Wilson's War and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." My mom loves thrillers and horror movies, and she'll probably go with my aunts, with her sisters, and check it out. But I've said, "You don't have to." And then of course, my brother doesn't want to see it because he's like, "That dress is too sexy and I can't see it with my friends because they're going to make comments about your boobs!"
Is he an older brother?
No, he's younger. Clearly, I'm scarring him for life.
Continue to Part 2 of this interview
|
|
|
