Date: February 2005
Interviewed by: Chris Neumer
Source: Stumped Magazine Online
CHRIS NEUMER: How are you doing today?
ALISON LOHMAN: Good, how are you doing?
CHRIS NEUMER: I am doing very well. Thanks for taking the time to speak with me. I appreciate it.
ALISON LOHMAN: Definitely.
CHRIS NEUMER: Particularly considering the quotes I saw attributed to you saying the acting is fun and the
publicity is what you get paid for. And I thought, wow, anyone who can come out and say that deserves some
kind of credit.
ALISON LOHMAN: It’s true. [Laughs]
CHRIS NEUMER: Now, I was curious, is there any good press? I’ll start out by saying this; I had done a
big feature on Rosario Dawson probably a year and a half ago. And she said she almost called off the
interview. She said she almost dialed my number to call it off and then thought better of it. And she
just launched into a tangent to me about how everyone thought she was bringing down J. Lo’s marriage at the
time. And then she said, ‘I realized you weren’t going to ask me anything about Cris Judd, you weren’t going
to ask me anything about Ben Affleck, and I thought, okay, I can do this.’ And I thought, ‘Ok, good!’ So is
there good press?
ALISON LOHMAN: Um, I guess if you’re dealing with a social-environmental-political issue that could inform
people or make people more aware. Like, for instance, I think this movie is a great movie for anybody to see,
because it does have environmental — like, just what’s happening right now, with the pollution of the world
and the toxic jungle, and understanding nature and humanity. God, it’s so pertinent to now because…
CHRIS NEUMER: Even though it was made twenty-one years ago.
ALISON LOHMAN: …Even though it was made twenty-one years ago, yeah, with war, and my character is
a pacifist, and believes that she’ll do anything… To get what you want, you have to understand the
other side. So, that’s how she saves her valley, by understanding how the toxic jungle was formed.
It’s very similar to what’s happening now, I think.
CHRIS NEUMER: Really? Is anyone trying to understand how the other people think right now?
ALISON LOHMAN: Well, I mean… [Laughs]
CHRIS NEUMER: No, I understand what you’re saying, but you can’t…
ALISON LOHMAN: No, they’re actually not.
CHRIS NEUMER: Okay. But if you’re promoting a movie that has a good message like this, press is good?
ALISON LOHMAN: Ah, yeah, I think press is good. Yeah.
CHRIS NEUMER: But if I were pressing you hardcore about something with Tara Reid then it would probably go
the other direction.
ALISON LOHMAN: It would be so boring, and I would not even want to have that kind of conversation.
CHRIS NEUMER: Boring? Interesting.
ALISON LOHMAN: Yeah.
CHRIS NEUMER: Now, are you familiar at all with our magazine?
ALISON LOHMAN: No, I’m not. I’m sorry. I didn’t even…
CHRIS NEUMER: Oh, that’s fine. Troy has a copy or two lying around his office. But, that’s the
furthest thing from what we want. We want to talk about the art of acting. But you say it’s boring.
And it strikes a nerve with me because it seems that every housewife in Iowa is fascinated by it.
It’s the end-all, be-all, of their day.
ALISON LOHMAN: I know. It’s our culture.
CHRIS NEUMER: It is, this is why In Touch and People, well not People, but The Star and things like that are
making billions of dollars.
ALISON LOHMAN: Mm. it takes the place of the king and queen, right?
CHRIS NEUMER: One would think.
ALISON LOHMAN: People are obsessed with the king and queen and, I don’t know, people who are wealthy and beautiful, or…
CHRIS NEUMER: Part of the glitterati.
ALISON LOHMAN: Yeah.
CHRIS NEUMER: But to you it’s boring! That’s…
ALISON LOHMAN: I think it’s boring to, I don’t know, I…
CHRIS NEUMER: It’s just an interesting contradiction, not in what you’re saying, but that one’s person’s
interest is another person’s boredom.
ALISON LOHMAN: Well, there’s so many… Yeah, exactly. It’s interesting, because there are so many other subjects
to be talking about right now. But we are diverted by… I mean, what is that? It has no meaning, no relevance
to anything, it’s just… so, I don’t know.
CHRIS NEUMER: Well, the American president has done a lot to spur a lot of different conversations.
ALISON LOHMAN: It’s almost like we need to brainwash ourselves to listen to what’s really happening and not just
to the propaganda and what the press shows us.
CHRIS NEUMER: I refuse! I’m just going to read about Lindsay Lohan from now until 2008, that’s it!
ALISON LOHMAN: [Laughs] Will you be happy?
CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah, I’m going to be ignorantly happy, I’m going to be full of bliss. Well, okay, let’s jump
into this right away, like, I was thinking about doing voiceover work like you did on this one.
Because this was your first voiceover experience, correct?
ALISON LOHMAN: Mm-hm.
CHRIS NEUMER: And I was curious, how did this differ from regular looping, that you might do for something that…
ALISON LOHMAN: Oh, well you have to create a character just — I mean, obviously, you have the cartoon
image that is creating the movements and the kind of gestures that she makes. Then you have to fit the sound
to that. So it’s not like you’re coming up with… I mean, the body’s not there. The body movement, the gestures
have already been created for you so you have to kind of match that. So if you have a sound that doesn’t go with
that, that kind of clashes with that, then the audience isn’t going to get the full effect of that character.
So you have to sort of adapt yourself to that, what Miyazaki created.
CHRIS NEUMER: Now, wouldn’t that be, and correct me if I’m wrong here, I certainly have never been on an
A.D.R. stage or anything like that. But this was animated back, as I said, twenty years ago. And it was
you fitting a new, American voice to the character. Isn’t that, in principle at least, the same as,
well, in terms of voiceover work, the same as you doing something on a soundstage somewhere and then
matching your voice to what you did previously?
ALISON LOHMAN: Um…
CHRIS NEUMER: Or am I going very deep there?
ALISON LOHMAN: I guess so, but you don’t remember those movements.
CHRIS NEUMER: You don’t remember? Okay.
ALISON LOHMAN: You remember what you did, but how can you, because you never created that image.
Those movements aren’t familiar for you. You’ve never done them.
CHRIS NEUMER: That seems like more of a challenge, then.
ALISON LOHMAN: It is a challenge. It’s almost more of a challenge than… but the other thing that’s not a
challenge is when you see her mouth talk it’s not as intricate as if you were trying to match your mouth,
because it’s animation.
CHRIS NEUMER: More room for error?
ALISON LOHMAN: Exactly.
CHRIS NEUMER: Oh, well, that’s certainly nice.
ALISON LOHMAN: It’s just kind of like a mouth — I don’t know how to explain it — like the Pac-Man mouth, in a way.
CHRIS NEUMER: [Laughs] Yes.
ALISON LOHMAN: It’s easier to get words out of that. You have more space to, kind of, make up what you want.
You don’t have to be so… strict with it.
CHRIS NEUMER: It seems nice. More freedom seems like it’s always beneficial.
ALISON LOHMAN: It is nice, yeah. Definitely.
CHRIS NEUMER: Hm. Well, you mention this, and it sort of taps into something else. How do you — and feel free
to answer this for any of your movies — how do you determine what you are going to create in a character
that you’re playing?
ALISON LOHMAN: Um, definitely the actions behind the words because somebody can be talking the talk,
and then they can… so it’s all about what the actor actually does — if it means anything. It creates
that kind of… or how she says it, why she says it. I mean, there are so many different aspects of it.
And then, when you’re actually doing the scene, sometimes things happen spontaneously, that it creates itself.
CHRIS NEUMER: Ah, is there an example of something like that, either on this or on another film,
that you can give me?
ALISON LOHMAN: Um, I think Matchstick Men was probably a good example, with Nick Cage. Because if you
have a great director like Nick, he is so spontaneous that he forces you to be that also, and
your character takes on other dimensions that you haven’t previously worked on or studied.
CHRIS NEUMER: Sort of, just in response, you’ve created an almost organic environment and the
characters and things are spawned from that.
ALISON LOHMAN: Yes, yes. And sometimes that doesn’t happen at all and you’re relying on what you worked out on your own.
CHRIS NEUMER: On projects that probably will remain nameless?
ALISON LOHMAN: [Laughs] Yes, exactly.
CHRIS NEUMER: Okay. Well, let me ask you this too. You mention Nick Cage, and I read a couple of different
things where you mentioned that it was great working with him. Now, I’m always curious when I hear an
actor — I’ll say this, I have no training as an actor and the way I look at actors is very similar
to the way director Robert Altman looks at them, which is, he says he has absolutely no clue how they
do what they do, he has absolutely no clue how they get in the mindset to do what they do, but he has
an enormous amount of respect for what it is that they do. Now, what is it that makes somebody a great actor
to work with?
ALISON LOHMAN: Um… that you don’t really know what they’re going to do. They have a look in their eye
that says, ‘You could throw anything at me and I would be completely open to it.’ They are completely
open and responsive to every nuance that you give them, even if it’s a look in the eye, they would give…
So they surprise you, I guess.
CHRIS NEUMER: Almost an ability to think in character?
ALISON LOHMAN: Yes, yes. Definitely.
CHRIS NEUMER: Hm.
ALISON LOHMAN: You know, where they don’t necessarily know the lines… Nothing’s too structured.
Because then that’s the excitement of it, you know, you want to be in that moment together. Nobody
knows what’s going to happen, I guess.
CHRIS NEUMER: Hm. You probably just don’t tell the director that in those words before doing the scene, right?
ALISON LOHMAN: [Laughs] No.
CHRIS NEUMER: Okay. Well, that certainly makes sense. And I’m assuming Nick Cage has that. Are there
other people you’ve found who just bring something a little bit different to the roles, that allow
you to create your character more fully?
ALISON LOHMAN: Um… Oh, Robin Wright Penn, definitely.
CHRIS NEUMER: What was it that she did?
ALISON LOHMAN: She surprised me. Every scene, each take that she did, was so different. And you
could just tell, from the look in her eye, that she was right there in that moment. She wasn’t
thinking of the next line and she wasn’t thinking of how she had done the line before, or how she
looked in that moment, it was just one hundred percent in that space, in that time.
CHRIS NEUMER: Hm. Much to the horror of…
ALISON LOHMAN: Oh! A good listener! To me, Nick Cage and Robin Wright Penn, you could just see them
listening. It makes you feel differently when you’re an actor and someone’s actually listening.
CHRIS NEUMER: Rather than focusing on how they can better themselves, they’re actually focusing on you?
ALISON LOHMAN: Yes. Yes. So, they’re putting their energy onto you. It actually makes them a
better actor because that’s what people do when they talk, and vice versa, you get to talk to everybody.
CHRIS NEUMER: It’s ironic that actors actually come off as better the less they try to actually
focus on themselves.
ALISON LOHMAN: Yes.
CHRIS NEUMER: Isn’t it?
ALISON LOHMAN: Hm-mm. Definitely.
CHRIS NEUMER: If only all of the soap stars could get that lesson, things would be going forward.
ALISON LOHMAN: [Laughs] I know.
CHRIS NEUMER: All right. Well, here’s another thing for you…
ALISON LOHMAN: But, of course, there’re exceptions to that, right, because you have people who
don’t listen — characters who don’t listen. You know?
CHRIS NEUMER: True.
ALISON LOHMAN: And that’s really hard, because it can come off as being bad acting. I don’t know.
But that’s like a whole other thing, I guess.
CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah. But you know, bad acting is one of those strange things — and I’ve been writing
about acting for eight years — bad acting isn’t necessarily something you can specify. It’s just that
you don’t believe it.
ALISON LOHMAN: Yes, yes.
CHRIS NEUMER: You watch it and you’re like, ‘Ok. I don’t like it.’
ALISON LOHMAN: But you don’t know why, necessarily.
CHRIS NEUMER: But you don’t know why. Exactly.
ALISON LOHMAN: Hm-mm.
CHRIS NEUMER: And maybe it’s not even the actor, maybe it’s just the editor with some really bad
cutting. You never know. But this is bringing on something, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot,
what with the prevalence of biographical epics and people playing real people who have been getting
honored with all sorts of statues and nominations at this time of year. I saw Million Dollar Baby for
the second time last night. You’re familiar with the broad strokes of that project, I assume?
ALISON LOHMAN: I am. I haven’t seen it, but yes.
CHRIS NEUMER: Okay. Well I was struck by the thought, when I was watching Hilary Swank, much like I
felt when I was watching Charlize Theron in Monster, that it was just too easy! It seemed as though the
role was almost crafted to get a really good acting performance out of it.
ALISON LOHMAN: Yeah.
CHRIS NEUMER: And in my book, that’s kind of like a baseball player using steroids. And maybe this is just a
personal thing. And then I started thinking about you and how many times you have played fourteen-year-olds
and how aggravated you get when people ask you about playing fourteen.
ALISON LOHMAN: Hm-mm.
CHRIS NEUMER: But nonetheless, I was thinking about it, and I was thinking, you did a damn fine job
when you were playing those teenaged characters.
ALISON LOHMAN: Thank you!
CHRIS NEUMER: And I think the mark of that is that whenever people hear you were twenty-two or
twenty-three when you were doing Matchstick Men, they go, ‘No way! Really? No!’ Yet it seems that
your performance in Matchstick Men and in White Oleander was much more subtle. It wasn’t as overt a
role and you seemed to capture a little bit more humanity because there weren’t the extremes.
ALISON LOHMAN: Oh, my god. Thank you.
CHRIS NEUMER: And so I just wanted to… I figured, hey, I have an interview with you. I just wanted to
ask you this. Are there ever roles that are too easy for an actor? Where you can just fall into it?
You know, you’re playing Helen Keller. You’re playing a deaf, blind woman who’s sort of thumbing her
nose at the Nazi regime. It seems almost too over-the-top to work, but nonetheless, it seems like the
kind of thing people would do to utilize their acting skills. Is there anything that’s ever too easy for an actor?
ALISON LOHMAN: Um, I don’t think so, just because there’s always some aspect — whether it’s like, you
have somebody — where it’s just not working. There’re so many elements to making a film or even doing
theater. There’s always going to be something that will challenge you, no matter what. Which, in a way,
is a good thing because if you had it too easy, I don’t think the performance would be good because
there’d be too much attention on… basically, because I think a better performance is something that
doesn’t have — what’s the word? — too much attention on it.
CHRIS NEUMER: Okay.
ALISON LOHMAN: You know what I mean? Because then it creates too much of an expectation or a dilemma
or… it’s too heavy. Because, I don’t know, I just think people are naturally like that.
CHRIS NEUMER: Naturally like what?
ALISON LOHMAN: Just that heaviness all the time. By having problems, you know, like maybe the
costume is not working out right now, so you have that distraction. Which, in a way, kind of helps
the performance. You know what I mean?
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s after you’ve yelled, ‘Cut,’ right?
ALISON LOHMAN: Yes. Is that what you’re talking about? Is that what you mean, like all aspects of
filmmaking or theater?
CHRIS NEUMER: I don’t know. I was letting you roll with that. I was just seeing where you go. But,
specifically, is there anything… I mean, as an actress you love challenges.
ALISON LOHMAN: Yes.
CHRIS NEUMER: This is evident with the roles you take. But is there ever a sense that there’re just
not enough challenges in a role, where there’s just so much information that it makes your job of
fleshing out a character too easy?
ALISON LOHMAN: I don’t think so. Because I almost find everything I do hard, I think.
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s a great quote!
ALISON LOHMAN: Yeah. I just find everything — not hard, not like, ‘Oh, God! This is so difficult I
could cry,’ kind of thing, but just — well, sometimes I feel that way, but…
CHRIS NEUMER: Well, you’re literally climbing into the shoes of another person and attempting to have
people believe you.
ALISON LOHMAN: Yeah. Almost everything you do is scary, whether it’s film, whether it’s making dinner
that night, everything is somewhat… I’ve never… you know what I mean? But that’s the beauty of it,
it’s excitement, it’s something new. I guess that’s why it would not be easy because you’re always
doing something new. Each step you take, in everything you do.
CHRIS NEUMER: So you try not to repeat yourself?
ALISON LOHMAN: Yeah.
CHRIS NEUMER: Or, I guess, you could even make the argument that even if you are playing a role
that’s similar to something you’ve played before, there are more nuances in the…
ALISON LOHMAN: Oh, my gosh, yes, definitely.
CHRIS NEUMER: Maybe the next character’s name happens to be named Emily, as opposed to Jennifer,
or something like that…
ALISON LOHMAN: Yeah. And then that would have so many different aspects to it. Yeah, definitely.
CHRIS NEUMER: I remember the director of whatever that really bad — oh, what was it — Secret Window, with Johnny Depp.
ALISON LOHMAN: Oh. Yes.
CHRIS NEUMER: And they were talking to the director and they said, ‘Why did Johnny want to do
this movie?’ And the director shrugged and said, ‘It’s possible he just wanted to play a
character whose name was Mort. We don’t know.’ I thought that was…
ALISON LOHMAN: That’s so funny. It’s true, it’s true. It’s kind of like, it’s what you’re feeling
in that moment. What you want to play, I guess. If you’re lucky enough to be Johnny Depp.
CHRIS NEUMER: Oh, well, there’s that too. But it’s also tough for you because acting is
one of those things that seems very non-verbal, it’s a lot of gut feeling, it’s a lot of…
ALISON LOHMAN: Hm. And that’s the hardest part of it sometimes.
CHRIS NEUMER: Especially verbalizing why you did things that you just sort of intrinsically wanted to do.
ALISON LOHMAN: Hm-mm. It’s your intuition.
CHRIS NEUMER: Yes, exactly. And would you think that the better actors and actresses have better
intuition on those things?
ALISON LOHMAN: Um. Hm. I think there are so many psychological reasons why actors are better. Because I
think there are some actors who are incredibly shy and can’t verbalize and then all of a sudden they’re
on stage and something happens that… or vice versa. I mean, I don’t know what it is that actors have
that would be all the same. The good actors, anyway.
CHRIS NEUMER: Hm.
ALISON LOHMAN: Training?
CHRIS NEUMER: [Laughs] That helps, doesn’t it?
ALISON LOHMAN: Which I don’t have, but…
CHRIS NEUMER: Well, we just scrapped that up. Well, I will ask you this last question, Alison. Going back
to do the voiceover work on this, was it intimidating at all? I mean, Miyazaki has done so much widely renowned work.
ALISON LOHMAN: It was. No. Really. It was. You want to make it good. Because I loved Spirited Away and I
thought that they did a good job on it. But, yeah, I was nervous going in there. But after the first day, I felt better.
CHRIS NEUMER: What was it about that that sort of calmed your nerves and put the intimidation you felt to rest?
ALISON LOHMAN: I think just seeing your image onscreen and hearing your voice with the girl. Seeing it happen,
and knowing that it could work, because I had been listening to the Japanese animé because I wanted to keep
that… I mean, it seemed like it had such great range with the voices and that kind of young, spirited… I don’t
know, it was just that energy, I wanted to keep that.
CHRIS NEUMER: Hm.
ALISON LOHMAN: And I felt that I was on the right track after the first day, I felt. But still there’s always
doubt, you know?
CHRIS NEUMER: [Laughs] So once you felt that you had captured the energy of the original, it got a lot easier for you.
ALISON LOHMAN: It did.
CHRIS NEUMER: Okay.
ALISON LOHMAN: Hm-mm.
CHRIS NEUMER: Okay. Well…
ALISON LOHMAN: I mean, I was doing it my own way, and in the Japanese animation, she definitely did her own
thing. You can’t possibly compare, unless…
CHRIS NEUMER: No, you really can’t. If you’ve seen the original version of The Ring, you know there’s nothing
you can do that will compare with that.
ALISON LOHMAN: Exactly. I mean, in my opinion, I would never even dub with English actors, I would just keep
it in the original format, but…
CHRIS NEUMER: Well, you know people don’t like to read when they go to theaters, how dare you!
ALISON LOHMAN: It’s true, I mean, it kind of goes along with the, what were we talking about before? I can’t
even think right now! The tabloid magazines.
CHRIS NEUMER: Oh, yes.
ALISON LOHMAN: You know?
CHRIS NEUMER: Well, we want everything easy, right?
ALISON LOHMAN: Exactly.
CHRIS NEUMER: I mean, isn’t that what it’s about, having everything in our own hedonistic society?
ALISON LOHMAN: [Laughs] Exactly.
CHRIS NEUMER: All right, well, thank you so much for your time.
ALISON LOHMAN: Well, thank you. I can’t wait to read the magazine.
CHRIS NEUMER: Well, there should be some copies there that I FedEx’ed over. There is a piece on Charlize
Theron and some other stuff in it. Also, if you are interested, you might want to take a look at the
interview I did with the actor Tom Jane. He had the ability to verbalize actors’ non-verbal traits
more than anyone else I’ve ever spoken to. We got into a great riff and he was talking about how he acts
for a handheld as opposed to how he acts for crane shots.
ALISON LOHMAN: Yeah.
CHRIS NEUMER: I’ve never even seen it touched before and I find it fascinating. So, if you’re interested, take a look.
ALISON LOHMAN: Ok, definitely, definitely. I will.
CHRIS NEUMER: All right. Thanks again for your time, Alison.
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