McAdams plays Kay, a gorgeous young woman who catches the eye of Harry (Chris Cooper), a married man who finds himself so enamored with the pretty blonde he’s willing to put a dramatic end to his marriage. Kay also finds herself the object of Harry’s best friend’s affection, a determined man who wants Kay for his own.
McAdams offered her analysis of Kay’s motivations involving romance and relationships. “I think, in terms of the romance, Kay has already loved and lost the love of her life so she’s really in love for the second time around. I think, I haven’t had that experience personally, but it’s very different from her first love so that was kind of interesting to me. What kind of love is she looking for? Was it more like Harry or more like Richard [played by Pierce Brosnan]? We talked about what her desires are, her desires as an individual separate from love,” explained McAdams.
McAdams sports a very dramatic look in Married Life, with striking platinum blonde hair and a very pale complexion. Going that blonde was an interesting experience, says McAdams. “It’s intense. It was a really fun color. It was fun to be platinum. I think we forget, because so many photographs are in black and white, that women were very risqué and, at the time, it was very usual to be that blonde.”
As for the makeup, McAdams confessed, “I don’t go out in the sun that much, but that was definitely even light for me. But, I liked the idea that she was on the verge of slipping away, of letting herself just disappear, a little bit ghostly and then Pierce sort of brings the color back for her and her world gets revved up again.”
In order to get into character McAdams studied films from the 1940s, but didn’t base her character on any one actress in particular. “I didn’t,” said McAdams. “I just watched as much as I could and tried to get the flavor down and hope that it would go in by osmosis, and then I’d reinterpret it in my own way. The emotional life was what I was most excited about and I hoped that the physical life would stand up and would be there, but I didn’t base it on anyone.”
McAdams developed quite a following after her breakthrough role in Mean Girls, but says she’s moved on from playing characters in their late teens. “Nobody believes me as a 16-year-old anymore. I was 25 playing 16 and they’re like, ‘Forget it, honey. It’s over,’” laughed McAdams. “I think that Mean Girls stood out to me to be a very smart satire on teenage life, which I was excited to be a part of because it’s what is happening in that world and there’s some real growth. I would not be opposed to going back there. Not to 16, but back to that genre. I think it’s a really smart way of telling those stories.”
McAdams took a year-long break from work to regroup and catch up on life and is now back with a series of films. Next up for the popular actress is The Time Traveler’s Wife based on the novel by Audrey Niffenegger. Eric Bana plays a man who has the ability to travel through time, and McAdams co-stars as his wife. “She’s really a lady in [waiting] often,” explained McAdams about her character who is always left behind when Bana vanishes. “It was frustrating in that way. She knows what she wants, but she can’t have it. She has it, but it’s so fleeting. It’s always just slipping out of her fingers. To have that kind of confidence in love at such a young age, yet it’s always slipping through the cracks… For me, as an actor, it was a really frustrating dilemma.”
The story goes back and forth in time, but McAdams says filming it wasn’t much different than any other movie. “What’s interesting is almost all films are like that. They jump around out of order and you’re constantly wondering, ‘What’s happened? What year is it? Who am I now? What’s the moment before? What’s the moment ahead?’ So I’d had a lot of practice, actually, before going into it,” said McAdams.
McAdams will also be seen later this year in State of Play, a film which went through a few major changes in cast right before production began. Brad Pitt dropped out just before filming started and was replaced by Russell Crowe. “It was a good scenario either way for me, anyway,” offered McAdams. “It’s been great. I was sad that I don’t get to work with Brad Pitt, but I’m having a hell of a time working with Russell Crowe. He’s great. He’s awesome.”
Commenting on her character, McAdams said, “I play a political reporter of the younger generation. She’s a star blogger and then Russell plays the more old-school, get out on the street and find the story yourself and make sure it’s the truth, and he’s kind of mentoring me. But, that’s sort of the peripheral story around a murder. More murder involved in that one.”
