June 5, 2007 - She may be Vanessa Redgrave's daughter, but actress Natasha Richardson's 30 plus feature films prove her own abilities on the big screen. Both a stage and movie actress, her beauty catches the eye, but it's Richardson talent to make a role her own that's garnered her numerous acting awards. In Evening, Richardson stars with her own mother, playing the role of a dying elder. Richardson also talks about that difficulty and her life with husband Liam Neeson.
What was it like working with your mother in Evening?
”It felt like a very special, unique opportunity to play mother and daughter on screen, as well as both of us playing these characters - being able to bring all our relationship, all our love, history, pain and difficulties in order to serve this film.”
How did it feel being a middle-aged person and coming to grips with a parent getting much older in real life, and then having to deal with that same situation in the movie?
”Seeing her lying on that bed, in that room, I mean, she was heartbreaking to look at anyway. There were times it was very, very hard to hold it together, because it does make you think of all those things, projecting to the future and thinking back to the past. It made me think of the moment my father was dying. I'm sure she was thinking about how it was when her mom passed away, a couple of years before.”
One of the themes of Evening is living without the love of your life, and that you can be happy without that great romance of your life. What are your thoughts?
”I suppose it's also saying just go on the journey, and even though some things don't work out how you hope and think they will, something else great comes out of it. The important thing is that you go on the journey, not just go, 'Okay, that's it, I'm staying in my little box.' It is about
missed opportunities and regret, but it's also about really embracing life.”
What was it like working with Toni Collette?
”It was really great, that sister dynamic, how they wrote it, because it's so true to life of how much you love each other, and then how much you fight and go for the jugular. And it really dug into those feelings.”
In the beginning, did you have trouble establishing yourself as an actress?
”When I was starting out? Undoubtedly. The names Richardson or Redgrave didn't help? But the last thing you want is to ride any coattails, because you don't want people to be accusing you of nepotism. You want to be able to learn and practice, and not to be thrown into a spotlight before you're ready for it. It's tough to be compared to a great actress and a great beauty. It makes you feel very inadequate, really.”
Has your mother always been supportive of you becoming an actress?
”Oh, yes. Originally, I think she would have hoped for something else because she certainly didn't encourage me to become an actress. But when she saw that I was very serious about it, then she and my dad would just give helpful, practical advice, in terms of like if you want to be an actress, if you're serious about it, then you should train, and why you should train sooner rather than later. They would say things like, 'Go to drama school and practice,' all those kind of things.”
Was there anything about show business or making movies that really surprised you?
“That's a tough one because having been around the business all my life with actors, and my father being a director, I don't think maybe I had as many surprises as most people. When you're very young, you're always so ambitious, and the knocks you get are always a surprise.”
You seem to do such a great job balancing motherhood with work. How do you
do it?
”Oh, I hope I do a great job. I don't know. I keep trying to do a great job, but I think there's always a conflict. It's always a task.”
Is your husband a great help with the kids and the household?
”I think he's a great help. Well, it's a bit of both - he's a great help to me, and I hope I help for him, because we understand and support each other. We try and take time so that we don't like to leave our children without one parent being there for them.”
Does that mean the two of you try not to make your own movies at the same time?
”Yeah, that, especially now that they're in school. It would be inconceivable that I go off and do a movie in China, while Liam goes off and does a movie in Bulgaria. We just wouldn't be able to do that; we wouldn't do it to them.”
In Evening, one of the daughters hated it when their mom goes off to sing. Did you feel that way when you were a kid and your mom had to go make a Vanessa Redgrave movie?
”I didn't feel that way when she went to out to act. I did feel it, where I relate to the film, for a different reason. There was a period of her life when she was very politically-active, and
that took her away from us. It's a difficult subject to talk about because I know it's something that she regrets very much now, that all that came before her children. But her children have entirely forgiven her, because she is a great mother.”
Do you have a favorite Vanessa Redgrave performance?
”A long list! Camelot, Julia, Mary Queen of Scots, this movie. What's always different about my mother is that there's always something unexpected about her work, because she's sort of fearless. She loves to take so many risks in her work, and sometimes it doesn't work as well because she takes that risk. But when she hits it, then it sort of is just incandescent. And I think she has it in this movie. Her performance is really extraordinary.”
Do you and Liam ever pay attention to the tabloids and the paparazzi, especially being such a high-profile, long-married Hollywood couple?
”With regards to Liam and me, it's rarely an issue with us these days because we're such a boring old married couple that we don't get a lot of paparazzi attention. (Laughing) Once in a while, if we're on vacation, somebody will take a picture of us and end of story. So, I think
you can't turn it off in a sense.”
