Did you find that most of the strippers you spoke with had that rule of never dating somebody they were dancing for?
Marisa Tomei: "Yes, so that was also another commonality, that there was a rule of not dating someone that's a client and then consistently breaking that rule. Yeah, not a lot of discipline."
What do you think she actually saw in Mickey Rourke's character?
Marisa Tomei: "Well at first I think that she thinks he's got a lot of money because he’s a semi-famous person, and I think she has an eye on that. And I do think she gets along with him. I think he’s one of those clients that she does get along with. It’s a higher point in her evening to just hang out with him. They just genuinely click. And then as time goes on and he gets more and more vulnerable because he’s in such a physically weak state that her heart, it affects her heart in a different way than she was expecting."
Do you think she does eventually come to really love him?
Marisa Tomei: "I don't know. I don’t think she really comes to really love him. I think she cares about him. I think she cares about him and wants to help him. I don’t think it’s a love story in that way, but I think that they're comrades of a certain kind because of what they've both been through in their lives."
Do you enjoy doing comedy more than you do something like this?
Marisa Tomei: "Well I did love the dancing in this, but I do really like doing comedy."
When are you going back to comedy?
Marisa Tomei: "I hope very soon. I'm talking to someone about a script now that I really hope works out."
Is it a broad comedy?
Marisa Tomei: "Really broad, yes."
So what is it you actually look for now? You can pick and choose anything you want at this point, right?
Marisa Tomei: "No, not really. I don’t really have that many choices. I've just been really lucky that the things that do come to me are like apparently I'm not going to do - it's so obvious - or they're like these gems. So it actually makes the decision process really easy."
How do you know it’s a gem?
Marisa Tomei: "You know. You just know."
Just reading it, it clicks?
Marisa Tomei: "Well you know that if Darren Aronofsky’s directing or if Sidney Lumet is directing, if Philip Seymour Hoffman’s in it or…"
Those are key things to look for. How often do you get to go out touring the country when you're in a movie like this?
Marisa Tomei: "This is only the second time I've ever done it."
Is it hard for you once you've completed a film to go back and talk about it? Have you put it behind you at this point?
Marisa Tomei: "Generally, yes. But with this one we only finished it in like…what? I finished my part in probably April, something like that. And he finished the final touches in terms of editing and everything just late August. So at least it’s within the year, so some of it is fresher."
I imagine it would be much more difficult if it took two years to get the movie out and you have to go back and think about what you did. Is this one you want to be out promoting?
Marisa Tomei: "I'm really proud of Darren and I'm really proud of what he set out to do. He knew that he had this vision and he accomplished it. It’s different from the other things he’s done and I'm very proud to have been a part of it with him."
You’re proud of it and yet you still talk about the fact Mickey Rourke got to change the line and it affected your scene. How do you balance that? You want to be proud of the film, but this was an important thing for you.
Marisa Tomei: "It was but, you know what? It’s the life of a woman."
Is it still that way?
Marisa Tomei: "I think so. But I also trust Darren to make the film that he wanted to make."
Do you feel less powerful than a man in Hollywood?
Marisa Tomei: "I don't know. I think that there's plenty of powerful women."
I was just talking to Catherine Hardwicke, the director of Twilight, and she says she can't get hired to direct a big effects movie even though that’s her background. She believes it's because Hollywood doesn't take a chance on women directors the way they do on men. You don’t find that to be true in acting?
Marisa Tomei: "Well there's just more… I mean I would say the proportional amount of parts that there are are more for men, so maybe there's four guys’ parts and then one girl’s part or something like that, just in terms of the jobs available. But, you know, we've come a long way and we still have a long way to go."
* * * * * * *
The Wrestler hits theaters on December 17, 2008 and is rated R for violence, sexuality/nudity, language and some drug use.
