Gretchen Mol has Americana in her veins. When she first arrived on the scene in the late 1990s, observers and critics, wowed by her cottony golden locks, gigawatt smile and that arresting name, which Jack Warner himself would have been proud to create, proclaimed her to be the heir apparent to the immaculately-coifed bombshells of Hollywood's Golden Age. Like any smart ingnue, Mol soaked up the attention and used it to land meaningful roles, rising above the "it girl" fray to become a captivating performer able to hold the screen with any leading man, or on her own.
In 2005, the then 32 year-old Mol's talents were brought to bear in a role that few actresses would have been capable (artistically or physically) of pulling off - that of the patron-saint of pin-up beauties, Bettie Page. The once in a lifetime role cemented Mol's reputation as a versatile, exciting talent, and did nothing to satiate her fetish for period work; what's followed since The Notorious Bettie Page have been parts such as the faithful homesteader wife of Christian Bale in 3:10 to Yuma and her current gig as a lady cop in a man's world in David E. Kelley's 70s police drama, Life on Mars.
This week also sees the release of An American Affair, a dark rejoinder to the innocent sexuality of Bettie Page. Mol plays Catherine Caswell, a Washington wife and fictional mistress to JFK in the stormy fall of 1963; she's a woman of deep, uncertain bearings who begins to allow a 13 year-old neighbor boy to indulge his attraction to her as a way of taking back some of the control that powerful men have taken from her. Earlier this week, Gretchen took some time out of her busy schedule to call up SuicideGirls and talk about the film, as well as muse on her strange connection to those towering blondes from a bygone age.
Ryan Stewart: I don't think you've done any press since Bettie Page died a couple of months ago. Any thoughts?
Gretchen Mol: You know, she was so full of mystery. I found, when I was trying to uncover who she was, that she was just so full of all these juxtapositions. She was very much a 50s woman and she was religious, but she was also so comfortable naked. For a woman of that time just to not pursue the picket fence and get married and have three kids, to move to New York and do all the things that she did - it's fascinating.
I found that above and beyond her beauty, those images -- the strength and the confidence she had in front of the camera -- she was just one of a kind. It's a clich, I suppose, but there were a lot of pin-up ladies at the time and there was just something about her photographs. Her strength in them was unprecedented. A lot of that had to do with her physicality, yeah, but I think most of it was this light that came from inside of her. I remember when I was doing one of those scenes in the woods -- the first time she poses in the nude -- and Mary Harron said to me, "You know, this is her religion." Then it clicked. It was so moving, to see those two things together -- something taboo and yet liberating and beautiful.
RS: What do you think you learned from that experience of playing her, now that you look back on it?
GM: I think what I learned from doing Bettie was investigating how any given period affects how a woman reacts, you know? The culture of that time, how much of an effect that had on Bettie, being part of a time period when there was so much repression. That's why I love doing period films, because there's that much more information available about how someone might have behaved. Their circumstances are so far away from where I am today, and I'm attracted to that. I'm attracted to finding things that are removed from me, here and now. I can almost allow a little bit more of myself in, because it's that much more of a departure.
It's all about the things that were going on at the specific time, and for the specific woman. I'm sure that being a woman in Washington, D.C. who is married to an ex CIA-operative , that's going to be a lot different than what my mom was doing at the time, in Connecticut , going to art school. That is a totally different experience. I do enjoy going back into time, because it's one more mask to put on. It's one more detail that helps you understand a character. Doing something contemporary is fun too, but I've enjoyed being able to go into all these periods. Right now, this TV show I'm doing, Life on Mars, it's 1973 and my character is a police woman and women aren't even allowed to be detectives yet. All of that is stuff we get to play with, different challenges.
RS: Do you think it's just a coincidence that with An American Affair, you've gone right back to deconstructing Americana as a subject? It's almost a response to Bettie Page.
GM: I do think that's just a coincidence, although, you know, anytime you work on something you do get more knowledge and you do become fascinated by the period. You just think about it a lot more. After Bettie Page, I did feel like this film was sort of "the next generation," I suppose, but yeah, I do think that being able to do it was a coincidence.
RS: Who is Catherine Caswell, as you see her? She represents lots of different things to different men in the film.
GM: She's someone who was embedded in that society. She had married an ex-CIA operative and all that, but at her core she is someone who just wanted to be a painter. And she was a painter, she had her own aspirations. I also think she was a smart woman and she was tuned in [to the political intrigue around her] and she knew about some things that were going on and then she fell for the President. She got some information and then she got in over her head.
RS: Did it come naturally, playing someone who is keeping lots of secrets?
GM: I don't think I'm the best at keeping secrets, but I am a Scorpio! [laughs] You know, it's funny, because I didn't think of her as someone keeping secrets, because her primary relationship in the film is with the young boy. Also, of course, she's negotiating these men and dealing with something that she knew something about, but not everything about. If anything, she wasn't even clear why this information they thought she had was so important, you know? I think that she was just trying to protect herself and protect the President.
RS: Speaking of JFK, I read a book once that delved into his various affairs -- there was even a German spy in there.
GM: I didn't know about the German spy, but I did definitely indulge in a lot of the information, the history of things that were going on at that time. I found the whole political thing, the CIA, to be fascinating, as well as the playboy aspect of our President. I guess it's all sort of known now, but it's interesting that I almost feel bad talking about it, like it's gossip or something, but it's out there!
RS: That's our history now.
GM: Absolutely! And the woman that was created for the movie, Catherine, I can't say too much about this, but there was someone who...she's not a Marilyn figure at all. There are definitely some characters who were similar.
RS: Let's talk about the boy a bit. I can certainly understand what a 13 year-old boy would see in your character, but what does she get out of encouraging him?
GM: There's some vanity there, but also, isn't it lovely just to be adored by someone? Especially at a time in her life when she's kind of alone. Also, everything else in her life is so complicated and then there's this young boy who is so pure. I think that's the thing. She's kind of been tarnished a bit by life, and then she meets this boy who just looks at her like...well, his agenda is a little muddy. [laughs] Still, I think that in comparison to everyone else that she's dealing with, that is at least a pure and honest relationship. He's also a strong, willful person like herself, and I think she finds a good companion in him.
RS: So, you didn't really see it as being about power struggles between her and these men, you see it as being about a woman who needs attention to be paid to her.
GM: I don't know if it was just attention being paid, but if you want to talk about power relationships, the boy definitely also had power over Catherine, just in terms of how much she ends up caring about him. But if you think of any relationship as a power struggle, then on any given day one person will have it and the other person won't, so I didn't look at it like that. I actually thought theirs was an honest and pure relationship in the film. She found something with him. It certainly wasn't consummated, but those moments when they're together in her painting studio are moments when he allows her to get back to someone that she might have been before she kind of got dragged through all of that mud. I don't think it really comes through in the film anymore, but there was a monologue that my character had about her child who had died, there's this whole backstory. It was almost like she was finding a son again - the child she never had.
RS: Their relationship isn't consummated, but it does sort of culminate in this big scene where she allows him to watch from the closet as she has sex.
GM: That's a tough, strange scene. I think that, and I'm not even sure if this comes through, but there's an element of "You're spying on me," meaning that she could yell at him or she could just stop the whole thing and shoo him out of the room, but in that moment , whether it's right or wrong, she decides to say "Okay, yeah. You're a young kid and you can see what this is, through me." It's a little sick, but you know, I do remember trying to figure out exactly what that moment should be. I think it was, if you will, sort of her gift to him.
RS: She's not going to have sex with him, but she'll let him have this experience.
GM: Right. I don't even know if she would have entertained that, but somehow in her mind she can justify that this is okay. It's sort of like, if you're going to look through a magazine or watch a video or whatever, you may as well just see it here and now. And also, the man she was with -- I don't think that relationship was anything she really valued. That was just disposable.
RS: Was it weird hashing all of this stuff out, on an acting level, with 15 year-old Cameron Bright? Or did you not even go there?
GM: To be honest, I sort of felt like that was the director's job. To me, that would have been like me trying to direct him, you know? That would be me trying to tell him how to play something. I felt like my job was just to know what I'm doing and just to do the best that I can and then he could make the choices for his character. It's up to the director to make sure we're all on the same page, I suppose. That's what I always think, but it doesn't always work out that way. Also, he wasn't in the room when I did that [the sex scene that he covertly watches.] I was literally looking at a piece of tape. It wouldn't really have been appropriate for him to be there. It was almost like working with a green screen, where you have to imagine someone or imagine that something is happening. A lot of that can come from a great director talking you through it.
RS: You've worked with lots of interesting talent lately -- do you feel good about where your career is right now?
GM: I feel comfortable. I'm working, I have a good job on this TV show and it's allowing me to live in New York City with my family and be with my son a lot, and still feel like I'm working. I'm always struggling to find that balance and you give over to saying that some days you'll f eel it and some days you won't. But this job I'm on now will be over in three weeks and I don't know if we'll do another year, so I have to be okay with being "out there" again. But that's exciting, too. You never know what's going to come along, and I've had lots of practice developing my zen state.
RS: I'm surprised no one is hitting you up to do a movie about the last days of Marilyn Monroe. Now that would be a movie.
GM: [laughs] Oh, I don't know, there's so much Marilyn stuff out there -- do we really need more? You know, when I first moved to New York, you get these obsessions with people and I was into Marilyn Monroe for a time. I think it was just because she was blonde and I was blonde and my hair was cut similarly at the time, so there was that thing of, you know, everyone seems to find someone that they resemble a little bit, maybe the better version of themselves or whatever, so there was that. Also, just her struggle as an actress. Anything I ever read about her was about how she wanted to be taken seriously as an actress and I think at that time, when you're 19 years old and just starting out, of course you take yourself seriously, but it's such a struggle to get other people to take you seriously. So, I was interested in her for that, but you know, sometimes I think, Oh, Marilyn, let's just leave her alone! What is anyone gonna do at this point? It would have to be something really great.
An American Affair opens in select cities today.
In 2005, the then 32 year-old Mol's talents were brought to bear in a role that few actresses would have been capable (artistically or physically) of pulling off - that of the patron-saint of pin-up beauties, Bettie Page. The once in a lifetime role cemented Mol's reputation as a versatile, exciting talent, and did nothing to satiate her fetish for period work; what's followed since The Notorious Bettie Page have been parts such as the faithful homesteader wife of Christian Bale in 3:10 to Yuma and her current gig as a lady cop in a man's world in David E. Kelley's 70s police drama, Life on Mars.
This week also sees the release of An American Affair, a dark rejoinder to the innocent sexuality of Bettie Page. Mol plays Catherine Caswell, a Washington wife and fictional mistress to JFK in the stormy fall of 1963; she's a woman of deep, uncertain bearings who begins to allow a 13 year-old neighbor boy to indulge his attraction to her as a way of taking back some of the control that powerful men have taken from her. Earlier this week, Gretchen took some time out of her busy schedule to call up SuicideGirls and talk about the film, as well as muse on her strange connection to those towering blondes from a bygone age.
Ryan Stewart: I don't think you've done any press since Bettie Page died a couple of months ago. Any thoughts?
Gretchen Mol: You know, she was so full of mystery. I found, when I was trying to uncover who she was, that she was just so full of all these juxtapositions. She was very much a 50s woman and she was religious, but she was also so comfortable naked. For a woman of that time just to not pursue the picket fence and get married and have three kids, to move to New York and do all the things that she did - it's fascinating.
I found that above and beyond her beauty, those images -- the strength and the confidence she had in front of the camera -- she was just one of a kind. It's a clich, I suppose, but there were a lot of pin-up ladies at the time and there was just something about her photographs. Her strength in them was unprecedented. A lot of that had to do with her physicality, yeah, but I think most of it was this light that came from inside of her. I remember when I was doing one of those scenes in the woods -- the first time she poses in the nude -- and Mary Harron said to me, "You know, this is her religion." Then it clicked. It was so moving, to see those two things together -- something taboo and yet liberating and beautiful.
RS: What do you think you learned from that experience of playing her, now that you look back on it?
GM: I think what I learned from doing Bettie was investigating how any given period affects how a woman reacts, you know? The culture of that time, how much of an effect that had on Bettie, being part of a time period when there was so much repression. That's why I love doing period films, because there's that much more information available about how someone might have behaved. Their circumstances are so far away from where I am today, and I'm attracted to that. I'm attracted to finding things that are removed from me, here and now. I can almost allow a little bit more of myself in, because it's that much more of a departure.
It's all about the things that were going on at the specific time, and for the specific woman. I'm sure that being a woman in Washington, D.C. who is married to an ex CIA-operative , that's going to be a lot different than what my mom was doing at the time, in Connecticut , going to art school. That is a totally different experience. I do enjoy going back into time, because it's one more mask to put on. It's one more detail that helps you understand a character. Doing something contemporary is fun too, but I've enjoyed being able to go into all these periods. Right now, this TV show I'm doing, Life on Mars, it's 1973 and my character is a police woman and women aren't even allowed to be detectives yet. All of that is stuff we get to play with, different challenges.
RS: Do you think it's just a coincidence that with An American Affair, you've gone right back to deconstructing Americana as a subject? It's almost a response to Bettie Page.
GM: I do think that's just a coincidence, although, you know, anytime you work on something you do get more knowledge and you do become fascinated by the period. You just think about it a lot more. After Bettie Page, I did feel like this film was sort of "the next generation," I suppose, but yeah, I do think that being able to do it was a coincidence.
RS: Who is Catherine Caswell, as you see her? She represents lots of different things to different men in the film.
GM: She's someone who was embedded in that society. She had married an ex-CIA operative and all that, but at her core she is someone who just wanted to be a painter. And she was a painter, she had her own aspirations. I also think she was a smart woman and she was tuned in [to the political intrigue around her] and she knew about some things that were going on and then she fell for the President. She got some information and then she got in over her head.
RS: Did it come naturally, playing someone who is keeping lots of secrets?
GM: I don't think I'm the best at keeping secrets, but I am a Scorpio! [laughs] You know, it's funny, because I didn't think of her as someone keeping secrets, because her primary relationship in the film is with the young boy. Also, of course, she's negotiating these men and dealing with something that she knew something about, but not everything about. If anything, she wasn't even clear why this information they thought she had was so important, you know? I think that she was just trying to protect herself and protect the President.
RS: Speaking of JFK, I read a book once that delved into his various affairs -- there was even a German spy in there.
GM: I didn't know about the German spy, but I did definitely indulge in a lot of the information, the history of things that were going on at that time. I found the whole political thing, the CIA, to be fascinating, as well as the playboy aspect of our President. I guess it's all sort of known now, but it's interesting that I almost feel bad talking about it, like it's gossip or something, but it's out there!
RS: That's our history now.
GM: Absolutely! And the woman that was created for the movie, Catherine, I can't say too much about this, but there was someone who...she's not a Marilyn figure at all. There are definitely some characters who were similar.
RS: Let's talk about the boy a bit. I can certainly understand what a 13 year-old boy would see in your character, but what does she get out of encouraging him?
GM: There's some vanity there, but also, isn't it lovely just to be adored by someone? Especially at a time in her life when she's kind of alone. Also, everything else in her life is so complicated and then there's this young boy who is so pure. I think that's the thing. She's kind of been tarnished a bit by life, and then she meets this boy who just looks at her like...well, his agenda is a little muddy. [laughs] Still, I think that in comparison to everyone else that she's dealing with, that is at least a pure and honest relationship. He's also a strong, willful person like herself, and I think she finds a good companion in him.
RS: So, you didn't really see it as being about power struggles between her and these men, you see it as being about a woman who needs attention to be paid to her.
GM: I don't know if it was just attention being paid, but if you want to talk about power relationships, the boy definitely also had power over Catherine, just in terms of how much she ends up caring about him. But if you think of any relationship as a power struggle, then on any given day one person will have it and the other person won't, so I didn't look at it like that. I actually thought theirs was an honest and pure relationship in the film. She found something with him. It certainly wasn't consummated, but those moments when they're together in her painting studio are moments when he allows her to get back to someone that she might have been before she kind of got dragged through all of that mud. I don't think it really comes through in the film anymore, but there was a monologue that my character had about her child who had died, there's this whole backstory. It was almost like she was finding a son again - the child she never had.
RS: Their relationship isn't consummated, but it does sort of culminate in this big scene where she allows him to watch from the closet as she has sex.
GM: That's a tough, strange scene. I think that, and I'm not even sure if this comes through, but there's an element of "You're spying on me," meaning that she could yell at him or she could just stop the whole thing and shoo him out of the room, but in that moment , whether it's right or wrong, she decides to say "Okay, yeah. You're a young kid and you can see what this is, through me." It's a little sick, but you know, I do remember trying to figure out exactly what that moment should be. I think it was, if you will, sort of her gift to him.
RS: She's not going to have sex with him, but she'll let him have this experience.
GM: Right. I don't even know if she would have entertained that, but somehow in her mind she can justify that this is okay. It's sort of like, if you're going to look through a magazine or watch a video or whatever, you may as well just see it here and now. And also, the man she was with -- I don't think that relationship was anything she really valued. That was just disposable.
RS: Was it weird hashing all of this stuff out, on an acting level, with 15 year-old Cameron Bright? Or did you not even go there?
GM: To be honest, I sort of felt like that was the director's job. To me, that would have been like me trying to direct him, you know? That would be me trying to tell him how to play something. I felt like my job was just to know what I'm doing and just to do the best that I can and then he could make the choices for his character. It's up to the director to make sure we're all on the same page, I suppose. That's what I always think, but it doesn't always work out that way. Also, he wasn't in the room when I did that [the sex scene that he covertly watches.] I was literally looking at a piece of tape. It wouldn't really have been appropriate for him to be there. It was almost like working with a green screen, where you have to imagine someone or imagine that something is happening. A lot of that can come from a great director talking you through it.
RS: You've worked with lots of interesting talent lately -- do you feel good about where your career is right now?
GM: I feel comfortable. I'm working, I have a good job on this TV show and it's allowing me to live in New York City with my family and be with my son a lot, and still feel like I'm working. I'm always struggling to find that balance and you give over to saying that some days you'll f eel it and some days you won't. But this job I'm on now will be over in three weeks and I don't know if we'll do another year, so I have to be okay with being "out there" again. But that's exciting, too. You never know what's going to come along, and I've had lots of practice developing my zen state.
RS: I'm surprised no one is hitting you up to do a movie about the last days of Marilyn Monroe. Now that would be a movie.
GM: [laughs] Oh, I don't know, there's so much Marilyn stuff out there -- do we really need more? You know, when I first moved to New York, you get these obsessions with people and I was into Marilyn Monroe for a time. I think it was just because she was blonde and I was blonde and my hair was cut similarly at the time, so there was that thing of, you know, everyone seems to find someone that they resemble a little bit, maybe the better version of themselves or whatever, so there was that. Also, just her struggle as an actress. Anything I ever read about her was about how she wanted to be taken seriously as an actress and I think at that time, when you're 19 years old and just starting out, of course you take yourself seriously, but it's such a struggle to get other people to take you seriously. So, I was interested in her for that, but you know, sometimes I think, Oh, Marilyn, let's just leave her alone! What is anyone gonna do at this point? It would have to be something really great.
An American Affair opens in select cities today.
nicole_powers:
Gretchen Mol has Americana in her veins. When she first arrived on the scene in the late 1990s, observers and critics, wowed by her cottony golden locks, gigawatt smile and that arresting name, which Jack Warner himself would have been proud to create, proclaimed her to be the heir apparent to the immaculately-coifed...