Director Robert Altman’s Style and the Fluidity of the Camera: “It’s something that we’ve talked about, the fluidity of the camera, not knowing where it is," explained Lily Tomlin. "You’re never performing for the camera, or that the camera is looking right at you. You’re not stopping and starting…[Bob’s] so unflappable. He’s so even. He’s not uproarious about something. He’s not crestfallen about something. He accepts whatever is presented to him, yet he’s cast it so well and he’s involved with Garrison and it allows you to just be [you].”
Meryl Streep added, “It’s confidence. There has to be something good about getting old. One of the things is that you don’t stress about some stuff that used to make you so worried. It’s ‘B.A’ - beyond anxiety.”
”I called him about [me] not singing well,” confessed Tomlin. “I practiced for two months singing almost every day. I had to sing the harmony and it’s not so easy for me. I called him partway in and I said, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sing that well when I get there.’ And he said, ‘If you don’t sing well, then you won’t sing well. It’s just that easy.’ However I would have sung, that’s how Rhonda would have sung.”
Tomlin continued. “When we did Nashville, when my character’s children were cast - who were supposed to be deaf - the first two kids they brought to us, those were the kids. ‘We’re not going to see a bunch of kids.’ Intuitively, he just goes with it.”
Streep Confesses to Maternal Feelings for Lindsay Lohan: Lohan’s character in A Prairie Home Companion may be considered darker than her previous work but Streep doesn’t view it that way. “I don't think she's any darker than any of the other teens that I’m close to. In fact, it’s very easy to feel motherly towards her, and in fact, she is younger than three of my kids. I feel it's so hard for these young actors. I mean, she turned 19 on our movie. It's a different world that they're coming up in, and there is so much money to be made off of their personal lives. People are bound and determined to make that money and I felt protective of her. I felt bad that this is the world that we've given this generation of kids.”
