Margarita Levivia Interview, The Invisible

MoviesOnline caught up with Margarita Levieva at the Los Angeles press day to promote her new film, The Invisible, a chilling supernatural thriller directed by David Goyer about a teenager who finds himself trapped between two worlds – invisible to the living and all too close to the dead. The film is based on the novel by Mats Wahl. The original screenplay and film was written by Mick Davis, while a re-write was done by Christine Roum.

A high school senior with a bright future, Nick Powell (Justin Chatwin) is suddenly attacked on a dark night, his shattered body left for dead. Now, caught in a haunting limbo where he can observe the world of the living but they can’t see him, his only chance at a future is to figure out the mystery of what happened to him and why before time runs out. As Nick attempts to uncover the ominous truth behind his ghostly condition, the trail leads from his mother (Marcia Gay Harden) to his best friend, Pete (Chris Marquette), to a shady criminal, Marcus (Alex O’Loughlin), to the tough, troubled girl, Annie (Margarita Levieva), who Nick comes to realize may hold the key to his awakening from the unexplainable.

As Nick learns to navigate as an undetectable ghost, he finds himself trying to reach out to one of the living – and perhaps the most unlikely person of all: Annie, Nick’s seemingly tough-as-nails schoolmate who is implicated in his disappearance. As with Nick, the role of Annie would require an unusual set of skills for a young actress. Whoever they cast would have to be able to pull off Annie’s seething, villainous exterior while also revealing her inner vulnerability and potential for redemption. She would have to be able to flip the audience’s feelings from hatred to sympathy.  

The plum role was sought after by many, yet after auditioning dozens upon dozens of Hollywood’s leading young actresses, the filmmakers had yet to see the qualities they were seeking. Then, newcomer Margarita Levieva came in and blew them away. Recalls producer Mike Macari, “The minute Margarita came in the room, you believed she was dangerous and that she could actually hurt you, yet when she did a tender scene you were completely with her emotionally. She was a godsend. Annie is such a tough role, yet you instantly buy into Margarita and believe in her.”  

David Goyer continues:   “I was getting depressed because I just didn’t think we were ever going to find Annie and I remember my casting director saying ‘Don’t worry, she’ll just walk in the door’ and literally the next person who walked in was Margarita, this virtual unknown. By the end of her audition, I said ‘Oh my God, that’s her.’ And from that moment onward we didn’t even really consider anyone else. I was so convinced that she was the one that I cancelled the other screen tests.”

Goyer continues: “Margarita has to make an incredible transition from this feral girl who seems completely irredeemable and vicious to someone who you feel conflicted about, someone who has been hurt by life and isn’t at all black-and-white. It’s an extremely complex role with many layers. Annie does this horrible act, but then you start to see her home life, which is awful, and how she's caring for her younger brother, and all these things. You want to hate this person, but you can't. And then progressively as the story unfolds, she ends up actually redeeming herself. Margarita handled it all so beautifully. She’s going to be a huge star.”

Also key was that Justin Chatwin immediately found an intense chemistry with Margarita, volatile though it may be. “From day one, she was very hungry and ready to go,” Justin says. “We bounced off each other a lot on the set and I really felt connected to her. David found somebody who truly has that kind of fierce, wild child in her. I enjoyed just watching Margarita because she was so on the edge.”  

Levieva, a former gymnast who moved to New York from her native Russia when she was 11, was thrilled at the opportunity to make her screen debut in such a strong and unique role. I feel so lucky and grateful to have had this chance to play a character that is so deep, so diverse and complex,” Levieva says. Last year, she was seen in the ensemble television drama “Vanished.”

Despite Annie’s sheer brutality early in the film, Levieva found she could relate to the character’s inner struggle.   “Like Nick, Annie just wants to be visible to the world,” she says. “To be just 18 and so broken and so hurt and so lost in so many ways; I think she feels like nobody really understands who she is.”

She continues:   “What’s really interesting is that Annie seems like she’s the dark, evil force you need to stay away from and Nick seems like he’s the perfectly lovable, good, innocent guy but in a way, they’re both coming from the same place. They’ve both been hurt, they both feel like outcasts, and they both have a different way of seeing the world – and because of that, they are able to ultimately see each other.”  

Here’s more about what Magarita Levieva had to tell us about her new film:

Q: What attracted you to the project?

A: Annie’s character for sure. When I first read the script, I remember the day that I read it, I was fascinated by the story but mostly the character. I think as a young actor, there are a lot of roles that we fantasize about playing and one of the roles that was always my dream role is Girl, Interrupted, the Angelina Jolie role. I felt like this was one of those roles where I didn’t get to play someone’s love interest or someone’s daughter, and it’s a character that’s very deep and complex and stands on its own. For me, that was very appealing. Also, when I first read it, I didn’t think there was a chance that I was going to get it. [Laughs]

Q: How much are you like Annie?

A: I would say nothing like Annie, but there are definitely aspects of Annie that I related to a lot and I understand, I definitely understand it. I get Annie. I got her from the first time I read the script, but as far as me and Annie, I don’t know.

Q: Did you stay in character the entire time you were playing Annie?

A: Because it was my first big feature film role, that was one of the things that I was playing with because at first I definitely thought that I would have to stay in character the whole time. When I got there and went through the rehearsals, I realized it would be impossible, and it would probably take a toll on me that would be detrimental to the movie. Once I did the emotional, preparational work, the background work of the character, and we started shooting, I made it a point to step out of Annie and even sometimes between takes. There were days when I had to stay in it, and then there were days where I would shoot the most serious scene in the movie and in between make jokes and laugh and dance. That was part of the process. It was just so different every day.

Q: Did you see the original movie?

A: I never saw it. I knew that it was based on a movie and I had a lot of hesitation because it was my first movie. I didn’t know what my process was, so I didn’t know if it would be helpful or not to watch the movie. I chose not to watch it. After the movie was done, one of the producers gave me a copy and I said, ‘Okay. I’ll watch it when I get home.’ But then it was too close and I was afraid that if I watched it now, I’d see parts of it that I should’ve taken and blame myself for not watching it. I didn’t watch it and now time has passed, and I’ve actually completely forgotten about it until a few days ago when someone mentioned it to me, and I was like, ‘I still have to see the movie.’ I would see it now.

Q: You had a physically demanding role. How did your Meisner training and your background in gymnastics inform your acting?   Did you draw on either of those?

A: The gymnastics training absolutely helped with the physical aspect. I’ve always been very physical and very good at expressing myself physically and embodying the emotional life into physical movement. The Meisner training helped a lot with the acting and it helped a lot with staying in [character] moment to moment and really experiencing the world that I was in.

Q: How was your relationship with Justin Chatwin?

A: Again, because of the process, at first I wasn’t sure. I was trying to be so focused. I was like, ‘Okay. This is the relationship in the movie. Does that mean that we shouldn’t get too friendly?’ I remember during the weeks of rehearsal, we went on a 7-hour hike – Alex O’Loughlin, Justin and I – and we had the greatest time and I was like, ‘Wow, I really like this kid. He’s a great guy.’ Part of me was ‘I can’t like him because we now have to go and basically kill him.’ So I struggled with that, but I think towards the middle of the movie, I was able to separate the boundaries and I really liked Justin. He’s a wonderful guy.

Q: When we first meet your character, she seems very mean and evil. When you were delivering your first lines of dialogue in that first scene where you’re about to cut Chris’s finger, at any time did you guys bust out laughing about how mean you were?

A: No, I was so into it. [Laughs] I so got it and that probably came from a lot of preparation, but I just so got it. She’s completely justified to me. I didn’t have any hesitation at all.

Q: Did you accidentally kick Justin?

A: I was afraid of that. I was really afraid of that. I mean that was one of my biggest fears when coming into this role, because the more I got to explore the role and the character, the more I realized that again, because of my physical background, I really embody the emotional life. I was really scared to go off in the middle of fighting and allow my emotional anger or physicality to take over. I had to always make sure before takes that we practiced all our fighting sequences and worked with a stunt coordinator because I do not want to hurt anyone. That was part of Margarita that just didn’t want to hurt people.

Q: David comes from the world of Blade and kick ass comic books. Is his approach to directing much different from other directors that you’ve worked with?

A: It’s hard to answer because I didn’t have a lot of experience before. I haven’t worked with that many directors before so I don’t have a lot to compare it to, but I do have to say that David’s approach, for me at least, was the best. The way we always talked about the movie, I was actually surprised with how visual it came out in the end. I always thought it was really gritty and really grey and sort of dark and slow. He was able to bring that aspect without letting us know about it which was really cool because when I watched the movie, I was like, ‘Wow. This is really big and beautiful and expansive.’ As far as directing the acting, David was very hands off, but he has a very sharp eye and once in a while he would come up and just whisper something in my ear. The few words that he would say were enough to steer me in the direction that he wanted me to go to which a lot of times was very helpful.

Q: What about your character’s bruise? When she’s about to shower, we notice it. Where do your bruises come from? Are they a result of your being tomboyish or something else?

A: Unfortunately, it never made it into the movie and I think that was the implication that maybe some people won’t get. There’s physical abuse with Annie and the family. With her father, there’s fighting. I think it’s hinted on, but I don’t know if it’s made very clear. You kind of pick up on it and I think just showing off the bruises is like saying, ‘Look here.’ But I can see how that could get a little blurred. Also, even in her relationship with her boyfriend, there was a point when I was like, ‘If people see her with these bruises, they’ll think it’s from my father or my boyfriend.

Q: Do you think her relationship with those two characters is similar in some respects?

A: Usually those kind of girls pick up those kind of relationships to mirror.

Q: What projects are you working on next?

A: While shooting The Invisible, I was in Vanished, the Fox show that was cancelled, and I did this independent movie called Noise which I heard last week just locked picture so we’ll see where that goes. I think they’re submitting it to Cannes. I think we should find out in the next few days. Right now, I took the pilot season off to pursue films more. I was just in New York auditioning for some theater. I’m really just trying to figure out what the next best step is for me. I’m trying to be very careful and cautious with the projects that I pick next. I think stage might actually be the next one. We’ll see.

Q: Wouldn’t theater be kind of fun for you given your background?

A: Yes, absolutely. I went to theater school. Because I started working right off the bat, I never actually got a chance to be on the stage.

Q: Can you talk about what you auditioned for?

A: Last week I auditioned for the Neil LaBute play, but I was very wrong for the part and we all knew that, but I just wanted to go in and have the experience of the audition. Also, it’s good to make an impression on the casting directors because they cast so much theater. It was actually really good.

Q: Can you talk about Annie’s relationship with her family? She’s the dark character, but her relationship with her brother is very sweet. Did you draw on your own experiences with your family?

A: Yes, I have a twin brother in real life and he’s always been the one place where I can go and always be a kid with him. I think I was always looking for an outlet for Annie because I really believe there is so much light in her and so much innocence and a lot of the childlike aspects that never got to develop, and I think the one place where she allows herself to be that is with her brother. Maybe I took that subsconciously from my relationship with my brother. It was never conscious, but now that you ask, it probably came from there.

Q: There’s a line of dialogue that refers to something that happened to your character’s dad. Was there a scene that was left out that we might see on the DVD that explains why he’s no longer a police officer and he’s now a security guard?

A: No, it was never in the script. It’s implied that there is a history. I think also the implication is that my father’s character is an alcoholic and he’s abusive and he just gave up on life, left his position as a police officer, and now he works as a private security guard. He’s very unhappy and he takes it out on the kids and the environment at home.

Q: Was there a different ending that was shot? The original screenwriter, Mick Davis, told us the film made in Sweden ended differently.

A: No. The one thing that I knew about the original was that the ending is very different. I don’t know what the writer’s goal was, but I would assume essentially we wanted to bring a story that was uplifting and had a positive effect on people. The original film does not have a positive ending. It has a very negative effect because I think she ends up killing him and maybe herself. I’m not sure because I haven’t seen it, but I think it was part of our goal to leave the audience feeling more positive, although I do hear that people miss Annie but the redemption part is still there. I think it’s positive in the end.

The Invisible opens in theaters on April 27th. You can checkout some great clips from the film below.

The Invisible Making of

The Invisible TV Spot 1

The Invisible Movie Trailer