Jonathan Demme is nothing but enthusiastic. The director of Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia sits next to Anne Hathaway at a roundtable interview to promote Rachel Getting Married, responding to each routine question as if it’s the most fascinating thing in the whole wide world. When he says a word like “major,” he tends to close his eyes, scrunch up his face, and strongly exaggerate the first syllable. When someone refers to the “train-wreck dinner toast” delivered by Hathaway, he squints and groans, as if remembering a particularly painful injury. Other questions are answered with liberal amounts of nodding, laughing, and hand waving.
I like this guy.
“A studio ne-e-e-ver would have approved a script like that, with all these ma-a-a-a-dening characters,” says Demme of the film, an independent production shot using digital video. “And, that’s the thing—I’ve got to make movies. That’s [how important] my work has been in my life, y’know, and I lo-o-ve it. So if it’s wo-o-onderful in a m-i-i-llion ways to make a big-budget movie and work with fantastic stars and all the technology and be so well paid and stuff…”
He has digressed. “But if you are excited by trying to do something different, then the lower the budget, the more wiggle-room there is to try stuff out.” He goes on to describe the stereotype of the independent studio, lowering his brow and spitting out the words, “Penny-pinching, tight-fisted…”
“That’s the best Woody Allen I’ve ever heard,” adds Hathaway.
In Rachel Getting Married, Hathaway plays Kim, a recovering drug addict returning home from rehab to attend her sister’s wedding. Relations among the family are strained, to say the least. The film has garnered Demme’s strongest reviews since Silence of the Lambs, and Hathaway’s performance has inspired that most pretentious of industry phrases, “Oscar buzz.”
Hathaway remarks that the character changed her life. How so?
“We all have warts,” she says. “Not physically, obviously, you bloggers…”
The laughter subsides. “But we all have faults and things that are difficult to handle, and so often we feel compelled to pretend that we don’t. And I think that we could give each other more credit, and be more accepting of each other. That’s the thing I just love about Kim. Kim has so much more going on, and if you know how hard Kim is working to stay sober, you put up with her acid one-liners and her misbehavior because she’s dealing with an epic struggle.”
When Hathaway is asked about how her recent roles have strayed from her Disney-friendly image, she denies even thinking about it. Demme interrupts. “Can I ask a question?” He adopts a wacky voice: “Are you saying it wasn’t cool to do something completely different?!”
Hathaway, the Bud Abbott of the duo, replies, “Well of course it was cool to do something completely different…it was cool because you’re a fucking great director!”
“It’s scary to do something r-e-e-al different, though,” says Demme.
“No it wasn’t! I was never scared! I don’t know what that says about me, but I was never, ever, ever scared. Everything always felt right, and I always felt so protected…that if I got scared with this one, then I was just a coward. There was nothing to be scared of. Everything was as good as it could be.”
Demme’s face screws into a scowl as he adopts a James Lipton-esque voice. “Isn’t it true that you could have gotten scared?”
“Is this a taste of what went on during filming?” asks a reporter.
“We didn’t talk to each other!” they say in almost perfect unison. Demme adds, “This is us getting to know each other!”
Rachel Getting Married opens on October 3.
