I have finally got round to watching and capping the Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtable interview! It’s an excellent interview, and really interesting listening to all 6 actresses, who are each very different, talking about being an actress. Remember that you can watch the videos here. There were lots of interesting little tidbits that came out about Nicole, so I thought I’d write a little recap of what was talked about in relation to Nicole. And if nothing else, I can use it when I come to re-write our Biography I thought it was particularly great to hear Nicole talk about how much she loves working with actors, and Hilary Swank and Annette Bening said similar things about how they still just really love what they do. Also interesting was Nicole’s comment about directing!

490+ screencaps are now in the Gallery…

• The Hollywood Reporter’s ‘Actress Roundtable’ 2010 – Screencaptures x492

- Natalie Portman talked about how when they were making Cold Mountain together, Nicole had told her to always choose movies based on the director. You’re never going to know how the movie will turn out, but you’re always guaranteed an interesting experience, Nicole advised her. Natalie said she’s always remembered that!

- When she tore the cartilidge in her knee during the filming of Moulin Rouge she says she had that dancer mentality where she kept on going – it was 3am in the morning and she knew she should probably stop, but just wanted to get the scene done! She also broke a rib in rehearsals. After the knee injury Baz changed some of the shooting schedule and how they shot it to accomodate Nicole’s injury. Nicole adds that when you’re filming and in the character it’s like a drug and as if you’re high, so there’s “no way” she was going to stop.

- One of the ‘hosts’ mentioned that some time ago he did a profile on the late Anthony Minghella, and Anthony had said that he just loved Nicole.

- Says that she becomes “devoted” when working with a director, and that it’s almost like a love affair … and then joked that when she walks away from a film she thinks “what was I doing?” with regards to the ‘love affair’! On a more serious note she continued, now that her life is so good she had to question more whether she wants to go there and not be as present for her husband and daughter, because when she does go there it’s like she’s in a different world. She doesn’t have conflict with directors unless it’s to stimulate or create something.

- She doesn’t have the pull that she used to, saying that a lot of her work before was running from her life which at times wasn’t good, and the fantasy life was better than real life. Says she’s more careful about her time now, because time is all we have, and that she feels this more being a new mother in her 40s than she did when she first had kids at 25. Anette Bening agreed with Nicole, adding that there is also something about the process of being an actress that isn’t fulfilled by the other stuff.

- Said she started to develop Rabbit Hole before she was pregnant, and was happy to do the film because it was about a younger child and her kids were older. When she had Sunday she changed her mind and didn’t want to do it, but the project kept “orbiting around” and they kept working on the script and raised the money, and then somehow she “was there doing it”!

- When asked how involved she was a producer on Rabbit Hole she said that she raised the money – begging people for it, she joked! – and wanted to be involved and actually do it, knowing how much each location would cost etc. She said it took about a year to raise the money, and the director they originally had – who was a bigger name than John Cameron Mitchell – pulled out to do a bigger film. Annette Bening, digging for dirt again, asked Nicole who the original director was, but Nicole wouldn’t say!

- Talking about roles they’d turned down, Helena Bonham Carter mentioned Breaking The Waves, and Nicole commented that was one of her favourite films, and the two shared knowing glances when talking about director Lars Von Trier. Nicole also commented that it would’ve been a totally different film with Helena in it. When the host/interviewer asked Nicole if she’d seen a particular documentary on Lars, Nicole said she didn’t need to see it because she’d been there! She added that she really liked Lars and still emails him. When the topic of whether he is difficult to work with comes up, Nicole says that people who are brilliant are difficult, and that he can be mean and vindictive but he admits that and it’s your choice if you want to work with him or not!

- Says there are times she’s chosen not to do things because she didn’t have a good feeling. Even if they turn out to be extraordinary, she feels that she wasn’t meant to be in it if it didn’t feel right for her.

- Finds what can be put out there on the web “terrifying”, and thinks we shouldn’t know everything that’s going on in people’s heads.

- Nicole commented that she thought Helena Bonham Carter was “amazing” in Sweeney Todd.

- When the topic of mentors and who had influenced them most in their work was raised, Nicole named Baz Luhrman and Jane Campion as two that had had a great effect on her. She talked about how she was cast in Jane Campion’s student film when she was in film school, but turned it down because she had to wear a shower cap and kiss a girl and at the age of 14 she didn’t like the sound of that! Nicole remembers how Jane sent her a little postcard telling her ‘protect your talent’

- Says she’s done things spontaneously in her career and then asked herself why she did it.

- At her core though, she says, she just loves working with actors – “With all the other stuff that sort of flies around and can turn me off, turn me on, and all that stuff, but the actual communicating and passing of whatever it is that happens … I love that. And I’ll probably love that til I’m an old, old woman on my deathbed. I just love that part of it.”

- Briefly mentions that she is doing something for HBO next (Hemingway & Gellhorn), and when the topic is on other places that show good storytelling that may not necessarily be seen in many films, says that she thinks they are doing some amazing things.

- Says she’s “glued” to Boardwalk Empire on HBO right now.

- Knowing what stardom entails, if you were right back at the beginning, would you still choose the same path? Nicole says she’d choose to be a director! But, she adds, to be a director you’d needed to have had a camera in your hand since you were tiny, and have had that upbringing or experience with cameras when you were growing up, and she didn’t have that. But she’s here, and she’s very thrilled to be an actor, she explains! The anonymity of the director appeals to her.

- When asked if she would like to direct, she says probably not, but reveals that there is one script she is working on (producing) and if they can’t get the director they want then she “may” direct it”, but she has to start “living it”, although she doesn’t have the time right now. She says they may put it on the backshelf and wait, because it’s not in her right now. Could it be she’s talking about The Danish Girl, maybe?