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Last Night

Coverage by Nobuhiro Hosoki

Story : A married couple, Joanna Reed (Knightley) and Michael Reed (Worthington), spends a night apart while the husband takes a business trip with a colleague (Mendes) to whom he's attracted. While he's resisting his temptation, his wife encounters her past love (Canet).

Opened May 6, 2011 (Limited 5/6)

Runtime:1 hr. 39 min.

Interview with Eva Mendes

(Q) : Some of your other characters have been femme fatale types but this one is more sensitive and someone people can relate to. Did you take this role for that reason?

(Eva Mendes) : When I first met with Massy Tadjedin, the writer/director who I love dearly, I wanted to be a part of this film but I thought “if you want to go sexy vixen with this role I’m not your girl” and she was like “No, no! I want to go a little anti-type. Otherwise that would cheapen the character of Michael (played by Sam Worthington).” She said “no I want these to be real people. I don’t want to play stereotypes with any of my characters.” I thought “huh that could be interesting.

I could maybe then take this character who’s sexually liberated in a sense and play her against type.” I found that as a nice challenge and my focus was to bring some humanity to her while still keeping her incredibly flawed because I love playing flawed characters because that’s what we all are.

Playing the grey instead of the black and white. That’s what I love about this woman. We did it in different ways. It might not seem like a big deal when I describe it to you but there are a couple scenes where I don’t have any makeup at all and when I do have makeup it’s very minimal and it’s not beauty makeup like they do in some films.

And you find your light and this and that. Here I didn’t care about anything for vanity purposes in that sense. And there was no hair product in my hair. My hair wasn’t big and bouncy, it was very tame. Now we had to be careful too because you don’t want to play the sexy secretary by doing the low bun and the pencil skirt.

I didn’t want to play that stereotype so it was very specifically chosen. We had the amazing Anne Roth as our costumer who is a legend and she really helped out with creating that kind of subtle working career woman without being hard as well.

(Q) : Speaking of specifics, how much did you and Massy discuss the fact that Laura’s feelings toward Sam may or may not have been fueled or influenced by the grief she was experiencing from her previous serious relationship?

(Eva Mendes) With my characters I always start off breaking down my script with my acting coach Ivana Chubic. Her and I like to just sit there and dissect and dissect the material and that to me is one of the funnest things. We will call each other or email each other at 4:30 in the morning if we come up with an idea.

That to me is one of the funnest parts of doing this whole thing. It’s an amazing process and it starts to become psychology. My character starts to become a case study in a way. Why they do what they do and the extreme-er the behavior the deeper the reason why it is they’re doing it.

With Laura she had tragically lost the love of her life to death and she then adopted this philosophy of live in the moment, we don’t have a guarantee that tonight is gonna happen. We have right now so if right now is presented to us let’s take it. Hopefully what people feel at the end of the film, and it’s not remorse on her end what it is is a display of when you do something that has the potential to hurt other people (including yourself, but especially other people) because of your actions there will be ramifications.

Whether those ramifications are spiritual or purely physical or whatever it may be, there are those ramifications. Everything has a price especially when you can possibly hurt or destroy what someone else has.

(Q): Did the film tap into scenarios or experiences people you know have had that have shared with you?

(Eva Mendes): You baaaad boy! (laughs).

(Q) : We were curious, who did you relate to the most and why?

(Eva Mendes) : I just think Massy (Tadjedin) did such a beautiful job writing these complex characters that I feel like I can't relate to each of these characters. Relationships can be so complex and I don’t think anybody has that figured out yet. A relationship is an evolving thing, so I don’t know.

(Q) : Is that one of the reasons why you made that recent comment about marriage?

(Eva Mendes) : "No, that was taken out of context. What I said was I just think that if we go back to the origin of marriage it was very unromantic. It was about land basically and ownership. It was a very unromantic idea and now when I look around and the emphasis people put on getting married and weddings and the reality TV shows about weddings I think, 'wait a second what does this really mean?' And then people getting divorced – the divorce rate is astronomical.

I’m the kind of person that appreciates a kind of private union and a union that doesn’t need a piece of paper. I think that’s more societal than anything else really. Its not that I’m against marriage, it’s just that for me it seems a little old fashioned. But I’m completely pro-union. I think the most beautiful thing in the world is to have your soul mate and your partner in crime with you and to have that spiritual connection and to honor that.

Whoever wrote that made it sound very hard, when in truth you don’t get more romantic than I do. I’m really like gushy, ucky, icky girl, crazy for romance. You know what I mean? (laughing) I like the random notes, I like lipstick kisses on the mirror and flower pedals in the underwear drawer.

(Q) : What was it like working with Sam Worthington?

(Eva Mendes) : It was amazing. Sam has a really great kind of old school quality about him. He’s got this kind of rough exterior, this sexy rugged exterior yet he’s so emotionally available and just really sexy. Did I say that already? (laughing) I find him extremely sexy and a lot of that has to do with his talent. I respond to his dedication to the craft. He’s a trained actor who really gets the material and just kind of embraces that process. He likes to rehearse, I love to rehearse. My kind of actor for sure.

(Q) Do you think you could love two people at the same time?

(Eva Mendes) : I personally can’t but I think people can. I don’t personally have experience with that but I think that that’s totally possible. I have known people who…. I think the French do that a lot (laughing). I think that’s possible, just not for me.

(Q) : You said you like playing against type. With that in mind, what would be your ideal role?

(Eva Mendes) : Well it’s not playing against type for the sake of playing against type, you know what I mean? It’s really just honoring the role that I’m portraying. It’s just more about, for me, expanding those roles that are offered to me, that come my way. So I constantly have to beat down the door to be seen for projects that people wouldn’t normally see me in.

And that’s why I take acting class still to this day and I take great pride in it. I get to play with certain things in my acting classes that I wouldn’t normally get to do in a film because someone is unlikely to cast me in Moliere’s “Tartuffe” which I got to play last month. I put up thirty minutes of Moliere’s “Tartuffe” in class and that is a classical piece of theater that is just exquisite and I’m sure if someone was casting for a film version of Moliere’s “Tartuffe” I wouldn’t be the obvious choice.

(Q) : Would you like to be offered that?

(Eva Mendes) : Of course. That’s why I do certain work and preparation for those opportunities. When they do come up I want to show that I can do Moliere and I can do Shakespeare and I can do the classics, as well as the Edward Albee. He’s my favorite hands down. It’s about expansion.

(Q) : Your timing in films is really great. You give so many pauses to the audience where we are looking at your face and thinking “what is she thinking about?” Do you particularly work on that?

(Eva Mendes) :Thank you! No but like a play, when I do these wonderful plays in class and I feel how Albee or Tennessee Williams gives you exactly what you need. You have exactly what you need – you have that line and maybe you have a comma and then an “oh” and you have to honor that because it’s there for a reason. I felt like Massy wrote this script like that.

I didn’t want to mess with her lines, I didn’t want to adlib. I adlibbed one little thing in there but I didn’t want to. I wanted to let the moment sit with what she created and honor that instead of trying to fill voids by adlibbing which sometimes can be a cheap way of filling a moment. So I let it sit.

(Q) : Was there any of the adlib?

(Eva Mendes) : The little adlib that I did do was when we were at the bar and Sam asks me about cheating or something and he says “chay-ted” and I go “chay-ted?” because he has a very strong, adorable Australian accent. So that was my only adlib in the film. “Chay-ted”.

(Q) : Do you think it’s the media reacting to society’s views on mistresses and infidelity or is it just the media creating the hype?

(Eva Mendes) : I have no idea and I’m not gonna even begin to try to give you a clever answer. I don’t know. And seriously if you do, it’s astonishing to me.

(Q) : Regarding your character: if you were in Kiera Knightly’s role and you were with Sam and madly in love and Kiera had an affair with Sam. Would you embrace that relationship?

(Eva Mendes) : I’m gonna quote my character here and say “I suck at hypotheticals.” I think she says something like that in the film. (laughing)

(Q) : You said all this stuff about grey areas so it seemed almost like it was okay for you to sleep with her husband. That’s what I’m getting at.

(Eva Mendes) : I never said that. Please don’t take that from anything I’ve said here. I’m interested in how your brain works. How did you get that from anything I just said?

(Q) : Well this is a married man and she knew that…

(Eva Mendes) : You mean the character obviously. Well that’s what I’m saying because of the love of her life dying and with the grief and the hurt she adopted a defense mechanism or whatever it is, a philosophy of live by the moment.

I’m not saying that’s right I’m just saying what she adopted as a character. Live by the moment. I can’t guarantee tonight but we’re right here right now and this is all there is… take life and go with it. I’m not saying I agree with that, just explaining her situation and headspace.

And then what I love about the film is when you see my character Laura at the end of the movie with that face like I said I don’t think it’s so much remorse but it’s just what happens when you do something that potentially can hurt other people, especially a union and a family and the devastating impact that can have on you.

I’m sure someone breaks up a family – that’s not just the family feeling the devastation that’s also the mistress. Karmically or however that mistress is gonna pay, there is destruction that will happen because of that. Consequences.

(Q) : In the past you’ve played the mistress role. What attracted you to those roles?

(Eva Mendes) : I’ve only done that in two films and one being a comedy, “The Women” and this being the antithesis of that being a serious romantic [film]. I’m attracted to great material and working with people like Kiera Knightley and Sam Worthington. And in “The Women” I was attracted to great material [as well]. I was attracted to working with Annette Benning. If I could have half her career I would be very fortunate.

I am actively pursuing doing a play. You have no idea, it’s been three years now and I don’t want to throw it out there but there’s this one play that we were so close to production on, a theatre in London, that has not happened yet. When the stars align it will happen but I am actively pursuing it.

End.