Are you still hands-on as a producer?
[With] everything. I mean, the casting process, trying to keep your budget at a certain way, hiring the directors, being involved in the rewrites, which is always my scariest process, the rewriting. The production designer, the cinematographer, the editing, the fact that it’s gotta be marketed appropriate to the film. The publicity that you get everybody to do to go push the movie. All of it. That’s all fascinating and fun and a lot of people who are film people, film nerds who love every little detail, love it. We have fun putting a picture in the background of a friend. It’s like a little detail to us. No one would ever notice it but we love each and every little detail. How do we make this scene the best that it can be or what wardrobe should that person be wearing to show their arc? Maybe that outfit’s too early. We think about every little detail.
Did you collaborate on the rewrites for “Fever Pitch?”
We didn’t really have to modify it as dramatically as people would think that we had to. We just told the story that we were going to tell. The fact was, we were talking about the Boston Red Sox history throughout the movie, and as we were shooting it, their history was changing. So what a phenomenal thing to incorporate into our film and a miracle that was a kind that instead of the ‘boy just getting the girl, but his team loses yet again,’ he gets the girl and his team wins. It’s like everybody wins. It’s such an extraordinary celebration.
What is it about Jimmy Fallon that made him right for “Fever Pitch?’
Well, I think that Nick Hornby novels and Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, they write such rich, interesting characters and the men that they write about are at a certain age. They have a certain playful quality about them and I think that Jimmy totally embodies that. He’s just a lovely, lovely human being. I was excited to see him in something that was romantic and more dramatic than anything he’s had the chance to do yet. I really believed in him and he just did an incredible job.
A lot of actresses cite you as a role model…
Really? Wow.
What prompted you to take control of your career and become a producer?
That is so nice. I don’t like to sit around and hope for the best. I really want to just take the reins and try and create fun jobs for us and our company, and to tell great stories. I just love filmmaking so I love being a part of every little aspect. And as an actor, you aren’t necessarily involved in putting the picture in the back of the room and the casting. And you kind of just are hoping it’s all working out. Sometimes it’s nice to just go and be an actor and relax into that, but I love being involved in every aspect and I find it very empowering. I just want to continue to grow in that and it’s just great.
[Nancy Juvonen] and I, we find our stories in the strange places that we do and then we spend two years of our lives making them. We have to love them in order to spend that much time doing it. So I just love my job. I love it.
Are you still involved in the upcoming Curtis Hanson film?
Well, that is a film I’m just going to be an actor on and as an actor, one of my goals is to work with filmmakers that I really admire. He is just the epitome of an incredible director. I’m just so excited about it. I’m just so eager to work as hard as I can for him. And I’m actually leaving right now to go do the cast read through in Las Vegas for it, so I’m really excited about it.
What kind of environment is Vegas to work in? Are you a Vegas type of person?
No. I’ve never been there for more than 48 hours and when I did, I like ran screaming out of there as if my butt was on fire. I’m going to be there for the next two months. I’m going to have to get real zen. That’s too much of an energy place for me, but it’ll be interesting.
Did you like working in Boston?
I loved Boston. It just was amazing to see how everyone is so emotionally affected by this team. And [there are] lovely people, very smart, ambitious people in Boston. It’s a beautiful city. It respects its history. I like it.
What about St. Louis?
I hate that there has to be someone winning and someone losing. I will say that what I was happy about was that no matter what team you root for and where your loyalties lie and where you’re from, I feel like everybody sort of took a moment and went, “All right, 86 years in the making, you earned it.” And I felt like everybody kind of put their own loyalties aside for a second, which was a lovely moment.
