Interview with Joan Allen

Did you see her as cold or closed to her daughters?
I think she’s one of those suburban moms, upper middle class, husband probably worked in the auto industry and she probably took golf lessons and tennis and went to the spa and did all that stuff and PTA things. And I don't think she’s had any therapy. So I think people who don’t have therapy have so little self-awareness that she just reacts. She just reacts. I see that in older people.

I’ve seen my mother be very reactive and I think that generation, or [the generation before therapy], really look [outside]. They don’t look [inside themselves]. Like, “What am I doing to make this happen?” They go it’s always out there. “You’re doing this and if you paid more attention to me and if you did this and you did that, I wouldn’t be in the mess that I’m in. If you didn’t dump me…” That’s what I was really interested in here because I feel sometimes Joan suffers from too much introspection, which kind of freezes me. Like, “Is this the right thing? What should I do?” I’m always breaking down how I’m reacting to things. But Terry Anne does not do that. She just like puts it out there. “I’m mad, you’re going to know it.” It’s like that one scene when Emily’s really sick and she’s on the bed and Emily says, “I just didn’t think you really cared.” And she said, “Well, like everybody else in life, you need to pay closer attention.”

How was working with Kevin Costner?
I hadn’t worked with him [before]. It’s one of those things. Sometimes it works, sometimes [not]. I just thought the chemistry was really, really great. It was very relaxed and low key and we tried different things. I thought it was age appropriate relationship, which was very nice. I thought that was really good and I think he and Mike [Binder] had a very good dynamic.

And you got to dance with him.
Oh, it was fun. I wish there was more of it. We got to actually dance more. I wish they kept that on screen a little bit longer.

Did you create a backstory about your character’s marriage?
No. In fact, that was one of the reasons which I loved that the character finds Kevin [Costner] resistible for a long time because he’s such a heartthrob in the public eye that she really is just like, “You know, you should leave now.” Because the backstory that we set up was really that she loves her husband and they probably had barbecues and dinner parties, and there were probably drinks on the table every night. Kevin probably came over as a friend and hung out, but she really loved him. And so his just disappearing was really, for a younger woman, was really very…

She didn’t see it as her fault?
No. She doesn’t until - maybe she never does. I think a lot of people act that way.

Were there any cut scenes that dealt with the affair?
No, that wasn’t stated that way but there was a whole sequence, which I think is on the DVD, which Mike [Binder] lifted out of the film. And it was dream sequences of Terry asleep at night dreaming about her husband being with Inga or whatever her name is. And the pain of visualizing them in different sexual positions and all that stuff. He felt that they ultimately didn’t work in the film.

They were very fun to shoot because there was one where I basically bludgeoned him to death. It was really shot like a B-horror film. I catch him in bed with this woman. I go, “That’s it. That’s it. I’m getting the axe.” Then I drag the dead bodies out and they were all wrapped in gauze and covered in blood and all this stuff. But Mike didn’t feel when he was putting it together that it really was worthy.

What’s more difficult, playing a real person or a fictional character?
Well, this one was pretty scary to me because of the comedy and not having really done it in such a big way on screen before. I was so glad we had rehearsal because I really needed that time to go through the material several times and just take stabs at it, you know? “Thhis feels too big. This doesn’t feel right.” Pat Nixon was at least more enigmatic. Nobody really knew what was going on with her.

Page 3: Joan Allen on "Off the Map" and "Bourne Ultimatum"