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Patricia
Arquette
It's her birthday. The gossip columnist knows this. She heard it that
morning on the Regis show. The gossip columnist wishes her a happy birthday.
"Thank you!" Arquette says. Arquette's hair is long. She is
wearing a gauzy yellow top and a terrifically ugly skirt, long, piecemeal,
with a leather square in the back, and green fringe at the bottom. I couldn't
really look at it because she sat down so quickly, and when she left at
the end of the interview, I barely got a glance. Arquette, however, knows
how to make unprepared journalists feel good. She talks, she gushes, and
she is effusive in her friendliness, her enthusiasm for the film. She
nods at my questions as if they are good and her answers are always full
of energy.
Why Human
Nature?
Come on? You saw it didn't you, get real here, you saw the movie didn't
you? First of all, I had to work with Michel, I saw one of his videos
and I was like "Oh my god I have to work with that person" and
my agent was like "I don't know" and then I got offered this
Rolling Stones Video directed by Michel Gondry so I went to London and
he was shooting all these stills of me and he morphed them, and that ended
up doing that in the "Matrix," they ripped him off from that,
so I told him that it was my dream to work with you and I'm very shy to
say stuff that I would like, and he said, me too.
The script?
Oh my God, as I was reading it, I just loved this character, and I
read the script and I didn't know where it was going. I'm different from
Lila, I don't have a hair condition, but I have things that I feel apologetic
of: where is the invisible line where I am supposed to get into where
I have to apologize for who I am? We are all trying to earn love in some
weird way, hide a part of us, try to change ourselves to be accepted.
I loved what Charlie Kaufman wrote about when you get into a relationship
and subconsciously you could trade yourself away. Playing Lila, in the
end, was like potraying a drowning person.
Nudity?
How do you approach this part of your job? Is it still difficult to do?
Yeah, and this nudity was really different, first of all I'm not that
naked in much of it but it seems like it because I'm not having sex, there's
no prelude to have sexuality, these people are walking around talking
and they are naked. I knew as an actress that there was a danger to taking
a part like this. But I knew this was the kind of film I wanted to make.
The physical
process was itchy and uncomfortable and I started freaking out. Whose
hair is this? Do a DNA hair analysis! How did this hair get on my thigh?
The crew told me, "You look beautiful in hair." I said, "Do
I look like Brad Pitt?" And they said, "Like a pretty Brad Pitt."
I noticed
that in another film, "Flirting With Disaster," Arquette revealed
a shock of underarm hair.
I got in a lot of trouble for that. They kept writing and saying get
rid of that arm hair and don't wear glasses and what are you doing. Miramax
wanted to cut that scene. Lot's of letters went back forth. I thought,
she's a college professor after all.
At the end,
I asked one more question. Would you like to work with your sister? Hooray.
Arquette liked that question. She had a small part in Rosanna Arquette's
new documentary and they were going to be together at Cannes and one day,
if the right project comes along, they would love to do it, it's just
never happened before.
Then the
interview is over, Arquette smiles, I don't get to look at her skirt for
a proper description, but I feel more satisfied, because I contributed
to our interview, my questions weren't mocked, and this is good for my
confidence.
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