November 2007 | blackfilm.com | features | AUGUST RUSH | An Interview with Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers

AUGUST RUSH
An Interview with Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, continued
By Wilson Morales

November 26, 2007

Q: You were talking about the magical element of the story. Do you think it's a challenge for audiences in 2007 to embrace that?

KR: I know what you mean. I love these kind of movies. I like to feel good, I like to think that there's something other that's ushering us all along and protecting us. I can only tell you my experience thus far promoting this film, I was worried about what you just said and I was so surprised how grown men will come up to me and say, "I've never been so emotional during a film."

Q: Did becoming a mother make you understand that mystical bond in the movie between mother and child and father and child?

KR: Absolutely. There is something, undeniable about what your talking about. You become a parent and you see everything. We were watching "Finding Nemo," and I got so emotional about him not finding his dad. I was sobbing, it was crazy. You can't control yourself. You're a parent and you feel like you're a parent to everyone.

Q: What did you feel about magic and cinema?

JRM: Well there's a lot of magical movies coming out at this moment. A lot of real thinkers. Sort of political movies. Films that really make you think. "August Rush" has it's place. You can't watch that kind of movie all the time and people don't want to.

It's not getting better out there. So sometimes its nice for two hours, to be entertained and wonder. It's a fairy tale. Fairy tales are predictable. They have to be, in essence they wouldn't be a fairy tale if they weren't. I love that the kid finds his parents. I love that the parents find each other. I like that there's no intense cruelty for anybody. That the pain is something that can be overcome. That hope wins out and love wins out. It's not the truth. The truth is we live in a very compromised world where that doesn't often happen. More often that not, the bad guys win. But its nice to see in a cinema that the good guys win.

Q: How was working with Kirsten Sheridan?

JRM: Good. Very good. Kirsten works long and hard. So you might find yourself on hour 16, or 17, in the middle of the night, in Columbus Circle, running for the 20th time. She's kind of like her dad, I think. From shooting "The Tutors" back in Ireland, most of the crew have shot maybe six or seven Jim Sheridan movies. So there's a big similarity between Jim and Kirsten. They like to really, really work and work and work. You almost have to stop them.

I think there was one night, where I was running across Columbus Circle, it was 7 'o clock in the morning and I'd been running since 8 o' clock that night. They did all the running scenes in New York in one night.

KR: Go go go! Keep going!

JRM: Yeah. I had to turn around and curse and say "No. I don't care. I'm stopping you and I'm leaving."

KR: [laughs] That's so funny because Terrance [Howard] said that one time. We were shooting a really emotional scene, I was screaming and yelling at someone, crying, we were outside and I was wet---she kept on saying, "We're going to go again, and again, and again." I was just like, "Yeah, sure," because I'm a good kid. Terrance was in the back of the room and he said "And this is when you say 'Last one Keri.' No more." But she's a worker. She really is.

JRM: But that's her stock. If you every met her father, that's the stock where she comes from. If they're shooting or writing, they get up at 5 o' clock in the morning and shoot or write, and they don't leave the job until they're done. It feels good. It feels like someone is paying attention. She wasn't having dinner at Cipriani's or something. She was there the whole time. And she had a kid. And she's had another one since. And she's just finished the draft for her next film.

Q: And what is was like working with Freddie Highmore?

KR: I love Freddie. You don't meet him and go, "What a jerk." [laughs] He's so lovely.

JRM: [laughs] I hope that's a tabloid quote.

KR: [laughs] Yeah, like Keri Russell on Freddie "What a jerk." That would be so funny. To choose one person and it's the nicest little kid. I'd see him everyday because he would have to learn how to play the guitar and I would have to learn how to play the cello. Jonathan can fake his way through everything. Anyway, Freddie was complaining that he had to play the guitar, and Jonathan didn't have to do much so me and Freddie would commiserate together. But I love him, and we saw "Sweeney Todd" while we were together. He's fabulous. And he's not a creepy kid actor. There's plenty creepy kid actors out there, but he's not.

JRM: I think that has a lot to do with upbringing. He's got very nice parents. He's got a very nice brother, Burt.

KR: Ah, yes. Burt.

JRM: They are very close together. I went to meet them last weekend because Freddie and I follow the same football team in England. We got season tickets. Arsenal. So we had breakfast at a greasy spoon café and went to this football game. He's a kid. In every essence, he's a kid. But he happens to be a kid that can sit in a room full of adults and have equality there. He's done a lot of stuff and he's smart. There's reasons why great actors like Johnny Depp take to their kids so much because Johnny's not dumb. He's a great guy. And he saw something different in him. It's not better or worse...he's just got great empathy for people. I think that makes him very attractive as an actor, as a human being. He's the heart and soul of the film. If Freddie doesn't work, it doesn't work. Freddie is "August Rush." He is this movie. We're just there to support his story.

Q: Was that scary for you to play a character who wears his heart on his sleeve?

JRM: The thing about having your heart on your sleeve, it's like an open wound, the oxygen can heal those, or it can get infected. I think this movie has a great healing quality to it. It does have a lot of open vulnerability. If you want to be critical or cynical, you can say that's not plausible. But fairy tales are not plausible. It's not plausible that a kid who was born 11 years ago can come to New York and find his parents. You know, in the same way that Tom Cruise is "Ethan Hunt."

KR: [laughs]

JRM: But we buy into it for the sense of the story. Because it's fantastic. Even great films like "Lawrence of Arabia." If you've ever read any of Lawrence's books, it's completely poppycock. But it's fabulous because it inspires me to be that adventurer. For "August Rush," it inspires kids that because you're 10 or 11, doesn't mean that you're not brilliant. Doesn't mean that the whole vast world of music isn't at your fingertips. Remember Mozart was writing symphonies at 10. He didn't ask how. He just wrote them. He had a different sense.

There's this girl who is six, and she's selling her finger paintings for $600,000 a painting. It's not because her parents have asked her to paint a picture, it's not because she sketches brilliant things, its because she understands color in a way that we can't see it. She will see this room differently and this character "August Rush" won't hear the way we hear. A beep of a horn, a clang a plate, to us is an annoyance--to him its alto. And this is how he composes, with the organic sounds from the city that he's in.

Q: There's a scene with a car accident that seemed nerve-wracking. What was be the scariest experience in your life?

KR: That would be giving my secrets away wouldn't it? [laughs] The imagination of losing a child is probably the worst. You would fight anything to keep them safe.

Q: What's the biggest surprise of being a mom?

KR: The loss of sleep. And the best thing is when they start smiling and they recognize you.

Q: Sorry to get off the subject but is there a second season of "Tudors," even with the writer's strike?

JRM: It was before the writer's strike.

Q: Don't you film it in LA?

JRM: No, we film it in Dublin. It would certainly matter. All writers are certainly Screen Actor's Guild writers.

Q: Are you going to be a fatter Henry VIII in the second season?

JRM: Well I put on some muscle, but I couldn't put on the waist. I said to them, when I started the series, I'm not that guy to put on 200 pounds. My frame wouldn't hold it. It's almost like, we laid the rope. Second season, the rope is pulled. It's very vicious. The fall of the Boleyn family is quite incredible. It's magnificent.

Q: Speaking of weight, you look gorgeous.

KR: [laughs] Why thank you very much. I would love to say it's some kind of workout, but really its just your genes. My dad's whole side of the family is long and lean. My brother is one of those 35 year olds, where you wonder when he's going to fill out. 6' 3'' and like a coat hanger. [laughs] I would like to say that it was because of a work out, but it wasn't. I eat ice cream everyday.

Page 1 | Page 2