An actress since childhood, Claire Danes had an early break with the popular TV series 'My So Called Life'. Her films include 'Little Women', 'William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet', 'Brokedown Palace', 'The Hours', 'Igby Goes Down', 'Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines' and 'Stage Beauty'.
In Shopgirl , adapted from a Steve Martin novella and directed by Anand Tucker, she plays lonely shop assistant Mirabelle. Employed on the glove counter at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills , she yearns to follow her dream of being an artist. But life begins to change when she meets grungy but kind hearted Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman) and wealthy older man Ray Porter (Steve Martin).
In Shopgirl you play an assistant at Saks Fifth Avenue - is this a store you know well?
"Yes, but it was pretty wild because the store remained open while we were filming, which I'd never experienced before."
Mirabelle is stuck in a rut in her life, selling dress gloves on a remote counter in the store, which speaks to where she is in her life, doesn't it?
"When we first encounter her behind the counter she is stuck in more ways than one, metaphorically and literally. So I think it's an appropriate expression of that emotional stagnation. She's on the most remote floor of the store, so it really does help articulate her isolation and loneliness."
Does this kind of role, where so much is happening below the surface of your character, give you a particular thrill?
"It was such a rare opportunity, to play a person who was so textured and layered and paradoxical, and is put in many different circumstances and forced to grow. That's the ideal. She was so rich, I had plenty of room to play. I felt very, very privileged."
Was it easy for you to identify with her?
"I think we can all identify with her on some level - I don't know a soul who hasn't experienced loneliness or disconnectedness or fear or naivety. These are unavoidable feelings and experiences."
Have you found over the years that your own artistic endeavours have saved you from the kind of personal despair Mirabelle experiences?
"Yeah, absolutely. I've always been driven to do so, for reasons that are still quite mysterious to me. But from a very young age I was certain that I wanted to act, and I managed to do it. I was fortunate enough to be raised by parents who were also creative. They had no experience with the performing arts but they were visual artists. And I grew up in New York and was exposed to culture, so I could act on my dream."
Steve Martin describes you as having great emotional maturity. Is that something you identify in yourself?
"I don't know where that came from. I grew up in a big city with parents who were rather progressive, and never condescended to me. I never felt like a kid. I don't know if that's healthy or right or what, but it was true for me. I've seen this in other children who've been raised in New York , they're able to appropriate or assume adult mannerisms which makes them appear more mature than they are. But there is often a significant discrepancy between their external maturity and their actual emotional maturity."
So, do you still have moments of wild immaturity?
"Of course. I'm becoming more of a bona fide grown up now, not just a bad imitation of one, but I'm still figuring it out. And I will be for a while. I hope I always have a chance to indulge my silliness."
Do you think it was more daunting for Steve Martin playing the kind of romantic role he plays with you than it was for you to act opposite someone with his reputation?
"I was terribly intimidated, he's a formidable man. He's legendary and of course I have a slew of very powerful associations that it took a while for me to get rid of. But he was very gracious and generous to all the collaborators that his story was being shared with. If there was any text that we felt uncomfortable with or limited by we had full licence to change it. He was very supportive and validating of the choices that I made, so I became more comfortable from that point on."
The great strength of the romantic scenes is that they seem so real, which is surely easier said than done, isn't it?
"I think it has to do with how well they were written, and how well they were interpreted by Anand Tucker. How respectfully and beautifully and discreetly they were shot. It's a romance, I was playing that, someone who was being seduced and seducing and falling in love."
Both Steve Martin and Jason Schwartzman are funny guys, can you compare and contrast their styles?
"Steve is very methodical and meticulous, very knowledgeable about the science of comedy, where Jason is much more intuitive and spontaneous. That was the fundamental difference. When Steve decides to be funny he is riotously so, but he's very cerebral and analytical. I don't know if that's necessarily the case with Jason."
And you knew Jason before starting this film - did that make for a comfortable on screen relationship?
"We've been good friends for years, and this is the first time I'd ever done that, acted with somebody with whom I had such a rich history. It was wonderful because we were already so familiar, I trusted him, so it was easier for me to play a character who is so vulnerable in his company."
And as for Englishman Anand Tucker, you have a director you didn't know, who's a foreigner to you, in whom you have to invest a great deal of trust. How easy was that to do?
"People ask me often if there's a difference between a European filmmaker and an American one, and I can never muster an answer. Every director is different. Anand was great. I remember on the first day of filming everybody was very anxious, as we typically are at the beginning of a shoot. We were shooting a scene on a sidewalk at a cafe in Beverly Hills . Usually directors will sit behind a monitor, which is quite a distance from the action. Others, who are more concerned with the performance, will stand by the camera. Anand was in the gutter, he was literally lying in the street by the kerb, because that was the closest he could get to me. I was so reassured by that, it was such an auspicious beginning because it made me feel so safe and free. He's very tolerant of emotions, and it's so strange that many directors are not. They're kind of frightened by them, it's ironic but true. Anand is such a feeling person, and so compassionate ."
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