Jennifer Connelly Interview, 9

MoviesOnline sat down recently with Jennifer to talk about her new movie, “9,” an action-packed adventure animation fantasy directed by Shane Acker and produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov. While showcasing a stunning "steampunk"-styled visual brilliance, “9” dynamically explores the will to live, the power of community, and how one soul can change the world. Jennifer Connelly voices the character of #7, a brave and self-sufficient warrior. The voice talent also includes Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover and Fred Tatasciore.

When #9 (voiced by Elijah Wood) first comes to life, he finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world. All humans are gone, and it is only by chance that he discovers a community of other small beings like him taking refuge from fearsome machines that roam the landscape intent on doing them harm. Despite being the neophyte of the group, #9 convinces the others that hiding will do them no good. They must take the offensive if they are ever to survive, and they must discover why the machines want to destroy them in the first place. As they’ll soon come to learn, the very future of civilization may depend on them.

For her portrayal of Alicia Nash in Ron Howard's Academy Award-winning A Beautiful Mind, Jennifer Connelly was honored with the Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, the BAFTA Award, the American Film Institute (AFI) Award, and the Critics' Choice Award. Her other film credits include Ken Kwapis' He's Just Not That Into You; Scott Derrickson's The Day the Earth Stood Still; also for Focus Features, Terry George's Reservation Road; Edward Zwick's Blood Diamond, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou; Todd Field's Little Children; Walter Salles' Dark Water; Vadim Perelman's House of Sand and Fog; Ang Lee's The Hulk; and Ed Harris' Pollock.

Ms. Connelly was widely praised for her haunting portrayal of a drug addict in Darren Aronofsky's critically acclaimed Requiem for a Dream. The role earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination. Ms. Connelly next stars opposite Paul Bettany as Emma and Charles Darwin, respectively, in Jon Amiel's Creation.

Jennifer Connelly is a fabulous person and we really appreciated her time. Here’s what she had to tell us about her new movie, “9”:

Q: You get to play the power female but you didn’t have to do any training for action sequences.

JENNIFER CONNELLY: I would love to by the way because that sounds like so much fun to me. My husband is doing an action film now and he’s training and it just looks like so much fun. But this was great too. It was a great, great character but I didn’t have to stress out about my moves and whether I could pull it off.

Q: It’s not aimed for children but your kids will eventually see it, so how do you feel about being the female character who is the strongest member of this ensemble?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: I thought it was really fun. My older son actually has seen it and he loves it. He’s 12. Yeah, he thinks it’s just the coolest thing. Even my younger son has little images of the character, like they made little cards up, character cards. To him, he knows I’m a warrior and it’s really badass.

Q: Was it liberating to be in the studio? Did you work off anyone else?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: Not really. I did one other session with Elijah Wood but as it turned out, the day that they had us together, we didn’t really have that much to do together. It was really nice to meet him and I thought he was really lovely and an incredibly nice guy. We sort of more watched each other work which was also fun but it’s a really strange, entirely different endeavor, I think.

Q: Did you enjoy it?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: I enjoyed it. I mean, you feel differently about it than a film that you’re shooting for so many months. I guess also, this film in particular, the dialogue is pretty sparse. It’s not like some animated films where the characters are sort of playing off each other and have a sort of banter going on, a lot of intense scenes together with a lot of dialogue. It’s pretty limited what we actually say. So certainly, I had a great time. I would certainly do it again but it feels very different than that level of involvement that you have working on a live action film.

Q: What drew you to the film?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: Just I loved his short film. I thought it was beautiful. I thought he really had a vision. I thought he was incredibly talented, he being Shane Acker. I kind of just thought it’d be a nice thing to be a part of. I was curious about the process. I was curious about what he would do with it. It was a movie that I wanted to see having seen the short film.

Q: Did you see the detail in the faces before you did voice work?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: I think it sort of happened together. I saw pretty detailed renderings of what the character would look like but not much actual animated footage because we came in quite early on in the process to start recording. And I think it was sort of a give and take where they filmed us while we were recording, so they tried to take some mannerisms and movements and head tilts or whatever it is that they took from when we would all speak, and then integrate those into the character. In turn, we would then go back and see little bits of what they had done and try to work off that.

Q: Did you find the dialogue childlike?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: I didn’t really think about it that way. I guess because the subject matter that they’re contending with is so mature, but there’s not much social interaction between them. They’re sort of like different parts of each other, of this one soul that aren’t really joined together until 9 figures out how to unite them all. So I guess they don’t have much experience being connected with one another.

Q: What was your perception of how dark the film would be? How do you want the audience to see it?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: Well, I think there’s more - -  I think that American audiences have become more and more familiar with a different kind of animated film over the years. So I mean, certainly Miyazaki’s films, to cite one example, have a much more mature content within that framework. It’s for people who love animated films. I don't think it will be a shock in that way but certainly it’s not Lady and the Tramp. It’s a very different kind of enterprise. So it’s not a little kids film.

Q: Which animated films are on rotation in your house?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: My kids do love Miyazaki’s films. They like Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away, they like Kiki’s Delivery Service and what’s that earlier one? Castle of Cagliostro. And also Scooby-Doo. Scooby-Doo is the other big animated presence in our house.

Q: Like the old TV seasons?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: Old school. My son Stellan is a really die hard old school Scooby-Doo. He knows really, he could just tell you pretty much everything about the Scoob. Pre-Scrappy-Do. His birthday cake actually that he just had had, this is how much Stellan loves Scooby-Doo, had his collar pendant on it, decorated and it had SD. Stellan loves Scooby.

Q: Did you create a lot of backstory for your character?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: To be honest, not really for this. I mean, it didn’t really feel like the kind of film in which that kind of work you were really ever going to feel or see. So much of it are action sequences and so it didn’t really - - I would love to say yes if it made me seem like a - - you know, but it is what I normally do. In this instance, it didn’t feel - - I guess I wanted to understand where she’s been living and how long she’s been there and that kind of stuff, but it wasn’t like trying to come up with a really involved personal history.

Q: Did you like the direction Shane took the feature film into?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: I do. I think that the additional characters that he’s created are really beautifully rendered and interesting characters. I like the overall storyline. I think it’s interesting. I like that they’re living in the aftermath of some great conflict that’s come out of the tension between man and machine and spirit and machine but that each side holds part of the talisman, the reason and the spirit, and that they need to be integrated for the soul to be liberated. I think it’s nice.

Q: There are no voices in the short, so did you feel total freedom to do whatever voice you wanted?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: Well, “7” wasn’t in the short. And, I think the style of what he was doing, I don't think he was trying to - - they’re supposed to be part of the scientist’s soul. They’re supposed to be the little bit that’s left of humanity. So I don't think - - he didn’t want affected voices. He didn’t ask for us to explore different types of voices. I think he wanted it as simple and straightforward as possible.

Q: What’s the difference between working with a director on animation and live action?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: Well, Shane was very collaborative and accessible but, as you can imagine, there’s less stuff to talk about because you’re getting rid of entirely the physical component. You’re not dealing with blocking. You’re just dealing with your voice so, by nature of what it is, it’s a very different kind of interaction and you don’t have the rehearsal time beforehand. You don’t have that time where you’re so intensively working together as you do in a live action film.

Q: Was Shane really specific about what he wanted?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: He was sometimes specific about what he wanted. He asked my opinion and we’d try different takes different ways. The characters were pretty well fleshed out and I think he had strong visions for each of the characters and felt strongly about them, so I really felt like it was an instance where it’s really his creation, this whole universe. So I really felt like I wanted to support his vision. That was largely my job.

Q: How was working with your husband, Paul Bettany, on Creation?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: It was really great. I loved it. I think it was an appropriate film for us to do together, It’s sort of strange being at work and feeling so much at home. It was kind of disarming but that ease, I think, worked. That ease that we obviously have together worked for this film. Emma and Charles Darwin were married many, many years and also were first cousins. They grew up together. They knew each other all their lives so I think it really suited the material. I happen to think he’s a really great actor and he’s my favorite guy, so it’s nice. I get to work with someone I think is good and I get along with him really well and you feel comfortable and you feel safe.

Q: Do you have similar or compatible acting styles?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: We work really differently. You’ve probably talked to him. We have really different temperaments and rhythms. There’s a lot about us that’s very, very different but it was really nice working together. It was great. It was very easy working together.

Q: Any Career Opportunities memories, did you have much interaction with the late John Hughes?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: I didn’t really have interaction with him on that film so much. I don’t really remember him being around that much. I remember that movie was a very strange period because we filmed it in a store. We didn’t film it in a studio and, because it was a real store, we were filming during off business hours which meant the whole thing was a long night shoot. So, a lot of it frankly was sort of a blur, and it was just a couple years ago, but I remember it being lovely. I do have a scar on my shin from roller skating into the dolly. Other than that it was lovely.

Q: Which theme of “9” personally resonated with you?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: I think we touched on it earlier, but I was particularly attracted to the idea that neither the soul is dismissed or humanity nor reason and technology, and that there’s a balance that’s struck by the end of the film. It seems to me that what he’s saying is that’s what we need to sort of move forward and that sort of somehow seems to be hinting at supporting the idea of integration of those attributes. I found that appealing.

Q: How about hope vs. darkness? Was it important to have hope at the end?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: I think so. I mean, I’m an optimist. I like to think things can work out well. I like that ending of the film. I think you want that by the end of the film, you know. So yes, I like that.

Q: Is it hard to be optimistic when you see people arguing against health care?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: [Laughs] I think that there are a number of things that are unjust in the way that we’ve come to live our lives and inequitable. I think that a lot of the way we live is quite out of balance so I think that the themes in this movie are pertinent.

Q: Well done.

JENNIFER CONNELLY: [Laughs]

Q: Everyone may have a favorite Jennifer Connelly movie. What’s yours?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: That’s really hard to answer because I don’t ever go back and watch them. It’s not like I can watch them and enjoy them to tell you the truth. God, I don't know.

Q: Do you have a favorite Paul Bettany movie then?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: I thought he was really good in Gangster No. 1. He was really good in that film. You know, there are things that I like for different reasons. I like different parts of different films. I like Requiem for a Dream. I don't know. I haven’t watched. I have to go back and watch them which isn’t going to happen.

Q: What do you have coming up next?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: Well, I have this film coming out and I am going to start working, I believe, on a little independent film at the end of September that I’ll start back east. But I’m evidently not supposed to talk about it yet.

Q: I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but Waking the Dead is a great one.

JENNIFER CONNELLY: I like Waking the Dead. I like that movie. I had an amazing time making that movie. Yeah, Waking the Dead, I had a really special time making that.

“9” opens in theaters on September 9th.