It was very possible to lose one's mind...playing Catherine, says Mena Suvari, referring to her role in the film Hemingway's Garden of Eden, which opens in select US theaters today. Indeed the character at the heart of the Ernest Hemingway book, upon which the movie is based, is considered to be one of the writers most complex.
The novel itself has a complicated and intriguing background too. Published posthumously in 1986, Hemingway a contemporary of F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein started writing The Garden of Eden in 1946. He toiled on it for over a decade, but never completed the semi-autobiographical work. Given the nature of the text, and Hemingway's death (by suicide following years of mental illness in 1961), theres much speculation as to whether he would have even wanted it published.
Set in post-World War I Europe, Hemingway's daring story follows the increasingly unconventional relationship between David Bourne, an American novelist (played by Jack Huston), and, Catherine, an heiress whom he meets in Paris. After a whirlwind courtship, the two marry and embark on an extended honeymoon in the South of France.
The bliss of their early romance begins to unravel when Davids mind returns to his writing. Bored and restless, Catherine begins to explore the boundaries of her husbands love and her own gender and sexuality. Cropping her hair in various stages, she flexes her financial and erotic dominance over her husband. When that fails to satisfy her unarticulated needs, she brings a third party into the relationship, Marita, a sultry Italian (played by Casino Royales Caterina Murino). Noting that her husband is easy to corrupt, Catherine both enjoys and resents his compliance. How can you lose with two girls, she asks at the outset of their mnage trios. As paradise is lost, she ultimately finds out.
SuicideGirls spoke with Suvari (who is perhaps best know for her roles in the films American Beauty and American Pie) at length by phone about her character, the film, the fascinating tale of the original text, and how Hemingway's novel has affected her personally. (Reader beware: there are spoilers ahead.)
Nicole Powers: This film first premiered at Rome's International Film Festival in 2008, and has taken to years to reach cinemas here in the US. Judging by how you're supporting it, I'm guessing that this was a labor of love?
Mena Suvari: Yeah. Definitely. We worked on the project four years ago. When the script came to me I loved it. I'm always very drawn to very complex characters and I felt that I could identify with Catherine in certain respects. Then I read the book right away. I actually wasn't familiar with the book and I just fell in love with it even more. It's actually one of my favorite books to this day.
It was an absolute wonderful experience working on it. I'd actually worked with Jack Huston on another project called Factory Girl beforehand, so we'd known one another, and I fell in love with our director, John Irvin. To have it premiere in Rome was wonderful and a lot of fun. Then, as you said, it took a few years. It was an independent film, and, especially with the business changing a lot, I didn't necessarily know what was going to happen with the movie. To hear that Roadside Attractions came and picked it up was, I feel, the best thing that could've happened. It's nice, but at the same time you think about how you worked on it so long ago...
NP: In a way, the film's journey parallels that of the novel, because years passed before it saw the light of day too.
MS: What's interesting about that is, having struggled for over 10 years to write the story, it was published posthumously when [Hemingway's] wife Mary had taken, it's said, literally two shopping bags full of about 3,000 loose leaf pages to the publisher. You don't necessarily know if Hemingway really wanted this story to be told, or if it would've been told in the way that it has been. Because I feel like the book is the publishers' own interpretation of what Hemingway meant for it to be. It's even said that the second half wasn't finished. So it's a bit of a mystery, and I do hope that Hemingway isn't rolling over in his grave about us making this movie.
NP: I understand that roughly two-thirds of the original word count was cut during the editing process for the published book. It's so intriguing. It makes you want to see Hemingway's original text.
MS: Yeah...Our director, John Irvin, who we called Papa on set because he kind of even looked the part of Hemingway, he was so well versed in Hemingway. That was a beautiful thing, because he was so passionate about doing this in the right way and doing it the just way...My character cuts all of her hair off in several phases and then she dyes it platinum...At the end of the film, at the end of shooting...I remember him pulling me aside and talking to me about shaving my head. Because from what I was told, but from what I have not read anywhere else because it's not in the book, is that Catherine ends up in a sanitarium. We actually shot a scene of me in an all white room with my abacus, just clicking back and forth. Obviously that didn't make it into the Hollywood version of the film.
I remember talking with our writer James Linville about it because he had told me that he had access to the original, or the most complete draft of what Hemingway had written. That's what he used to write the screenplay. I wanted to get my hands on it, but I haven't been able to get my hands on it yet. I think there's only like two copies or something.
NP: The end was one of the only things that didn't feel right to me. Hemingway's title is Garden of Eden. The story is about the loss of innocence, and peace of mind along with it. So to have a happy ending - is that where Hemingway would've really gone with it?
MS: I agree with you. That's the thing that can be a bit frustrating, there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen. And for me, as the actor, you play your part. I worked really hard on playing Catherine, and it was really important to me that the language in the book carried over into the film. I did a lot of re-writing on the film myself because I didn't want it to sound too contemporary.
I scoured the book and I had it highlighted everywhere. I carried it with me with my script. I really believed that every single word that was in that book, that Hemingway chose, had it's own importance and it was beautiful to me. So it was important to have that in the film. I didn't want any of that lost. I felt so thankful to have a director like John Irvin, because we really bonded. I felt that he supported me one hundred and ten percent, and was there for me every single moment of the day, scene by scene, to talk about Catherine and really dissect her. I needed to understand exactly where she was every single second because she's continually changing. Not just physically, but emotionally and mentally, and it was a big challenge. But he was so passionate about this project and understood Hemingway and the best way for it to be communicated on to the screen. I just felt real lucky to be with him and be in his hands...
It's such a personal film. I put my heart and soul into it. I bared my soul really in all respects in playing Catherine. It's never been difficult for me to watch a film that I'm in or watch my work, I'm able to disassociate, but this is so personal to me that it touched me on a whole other level, and it still does.
I really feel like working on the project, it really changed my life in ways that I'm still figuring out. After the screening in Rome, I just found myself crying. I found John afterwards, and I just went over to him and he gives me this huge bear hug as he does and I just said to him, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity and believing in me...
'Cause I've worked on so many types of films with so many different kinds of directors and really, he had everything. He had a vision. He knew what he wanted, and was super professional and very passionate about what he was doing. But at the same time he knew how to relate to the actors. He knew how to relate to me and to really help me and to guide me. I think it was very possible to lose one's mind working on this project and playing Catherine. It was so intensive.
NP: You say that it struck a chord personally, in what way?
MS: It's funny, because I've been doing what I do for about 18 years and all of the sudden I got to this point where I looked back on my career and I made these connections between the characters and the projects that came my way and where I was at in my life. Even when I worked on Six Feet Under with Alan Ball where I played a performance artist. There were things that I was struggling with personally...I'd never done theater. I'd never really been on the stage in front of people. Even though what I do for a living, thousands or millions of people will see it, I'm able to disassociate when the camera is in front of me.
I really feel when I worked on Six Feet Under that it pushed me to a different place within myself, facing a fear that I had... She was somebody who had to lead, and be on stage, this powerful figure. I guess personally, in my own life, I struggled with that. I've struggled with insecurity my whole life really. I think probably every actress has - that's what they say about us...I was grateful for that role because it kind of pushed me in this new direction of feeling empowered within myself.
With Garden of Eden, this was like 4 years ago, I really believe that if that project had come to me in a different point in my life I might not have been as open to it. I might not have identified with Catherine the way I did then because of the things that I was going through in my life at the time. I was kind of setting out on my own in my life personally.
We went and worked in Spain. I'm there for about two and a half months and I went there by myself, just embarking on a complete exploration. It wasn't just physically going and being in another country and new city, [with a] new language and new culture around you. To play someone like Catherine where I really had to address almost everything within myself, it was everything personally that I was going through...
NP: I guess filming coincided with the aftermath of the breakdown of your first marriage.
MS: I got married for the first time when I had just turned 21. Even some of those things, I feel like I could identify with Catherine, being young and being married and not really knowing who you are. Growing in a relationship and learning more about who you are and what you want, and all of those things conflicting with one another continuously. I felt at that point in time, not just leaving a relationship but in every sense, kind of pulling the chains off of myself and just going for it, really going on this journey of self-discovery. And that's what it really is with Catherine. It's coming to terms with all of these different things that you feel within yourself. Who you really are and not knowing who that is, but, I think, at the same time having the best intentions. I think that's another thing that's really important. Some people said, Catherine, she's like the bad girl and she's mean. I hope that people don't see it that way because I see her as someone who's really lost.
NP: I see her as someone that's lost, but also someone who unleashes the destructive power of boredom. What causes the conflict and the drama is basically the psychological games that Catherine plays with the people around her to keep herself entertained. I don't think that she even realizes what she's doing or why she's doing it.
MS: I completely agree. I think she's really unhappy. It's funny if you think about how there are these moments where at the beginning of their honeymoon they go to this city and that city. They go to Madrid, and then she makes this comment: "It's too big of a city." It's too overwhelming for her and they end up in this shut down small hotel that's completely isolated, and it's almost in that moment where she starts to feel the most comfortable. She can manipulate and feed off of her husband, but I think her insecurities are so great that she's convinced herself that everyone is looking at her or making assumptions on her. It's [set] back then when there were certain things that women were expected to do and certain ways that women were expected to look. Catherine always pushed that. In the book and in the film, she wears fisherman's shirts and shorts, and you just didn't do that back then. That was really, really pushing it. And to have your hair cut short. I think she just lived with an immense amount of this feeling of being judged all the time, so the more isolated the environment the more comfortable she feels...It's said that Catherine is based on one of Hemingway's wives, not Mary...
NP: His second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer I think.
MS: A mix of one of his wives and then Zelda Fitzgerald, who was F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife. That's what was said, that she was a mix of the personalities of the two. I think these women were rebellious in their own right at that time.
NP: It's interesting that you mention F. Scott Fitzgerald because there is an element of Daisy from The Great Gatsby in Catherine. She's also a bored, care-free and careless heiress.
MS: Yeah. Catherine comes from a very wealthy family and that's something that she holds over her husband too. There's a comment that she makes to him where she says, "Well, it's not like we need your money anyway." She's always threatened by her husband's success. She doesn't know how to really support that.
NP: Well she wants him to be her play thing, and, when his success threatens to eclipse that, she gets insecure.
MS: I think she's always been insecure, but I think what sets her off even more is when she finds out that he hasn't been writing their story, and she just doesn't know how to deal with those emotions. She doesn't have the tools to manage really.
NP: Also, she's constantly searching for external things to make herself happy because internally she just doesn't have the capacity for happiness.
MS: That's why I really feel this story is a bit timeless and universal. I would hope that people would be inspired to read the book because even on subconscious levels I feel like I really learned a lot from the book. It really affected me, just even reading the story.
NP: In what respect?
MS: Just about relationships, about life in general, about the search for one's self - all of that.
NP: Are you happier in your own skin because of it?
MS: I think so...I feel at this point in my life, I'm much more at ease and at peace with myself for sure. I'm not perfect. I'm certainly human like everyone else, but I don't feel that angst the way that I did years ago. And I don't feel like I fight life as much. I'm much more accepting of me, but at the same time I'm much more accepting of learning about who I am because I feel like I'm continuously learning new things about myself.
Hemingway's Garden of Eden open in select cities on Friday, December 10.
The novel itself has a complicated and intriguing background too. Published posthumously in 1986, Hemingway a contemporary of F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein started writing The Garden of Eden in 1946. He toiled on it for over a decade, but never completed the semi-autobiographical work. Given the nature of the text, and Hemingway's death (by suicide following years of mental illness in 1961), theres much speculation as to whether he would have even wanted it published.
Set in post-World War I Europe, Hemingway's daring story follows the increasingly unconventional relationship between David Bourne, an American novelist (played by Jack Huston), and, Catherine, an heiress whom he meets in Paris. After a whirlwind courtship, the two marry and embark on an extended honeymoon in the South of France.
The bliss of their early romance begins to unravel when Davids mind returns to his writing. Bored and restless, Catherine begins to explore the boundaries of her husbands love and her own gender and sexuality. Cropping her hair in various stages, she flexes her financial and erotic dominance over her husband. When that fails to satisfy her unarticulated needs, she brings a third party into the relationship, Marita, a sultry Italian (played by Casino Royales Caterina Murino). Noting that her husband is easy to corrupt, Catherine both enjoys and resents his compliance. How can you lose with two girls, she asks at the outset of their mnage trios. As paradise is lost, she ultimately finds out.
SuicideGirls spoke with Suvari (who is perhaps best know for her roles in the films American Beauty and American Pie) at length by phone about her character, the film, the fascinating tale of the original text, and how Hemingway's novel has affected her personally. (Reader beware: there are spoilers ahead.)
Nicole Powers: This film first premiered at Rome's International Film Festival in 2008, and has taken to years to reach cinemas here in the US. Judging by how you're supporting it, I'm guessing that this was a labor of love?
Mena Suvari: Yeah. Definitely. We worked on the project four years ago. When the script came to me I loved it. I'm always very drawn to very complex characters and I felt that I could identify with Catherine in certain respects. Then I read the book right away. I actually wasn't familiar with the book and I just fell in love with it even more. It's actually one of my favorite books to this day.
It was an absolute wonderful experience working on it. I'd actually worked with Jack Huston on another project called Factory Girl beforehand, so we'd known one another, and I fell in love with our director, John Irvin. To have it premiere in Rome was wonderful and a lot of fun. Then, as you said, it took a few years. It was an independent film, and, especially with the business changing a lot, I didn't necessarily know what was going to happen with the movie. To hear that Roadside Attractions came and picked it up was, I feel, the best thing that could've happened. It's nice, but at the same time you think about how you worked on it so long ago...
NP: In a way, the film's journey parallels that of the novel, because years passed before it saw the light of day too.
MS: What's interesting about that is, having struggled for over 10 years to write the story, it was published posthumously when [Hemingway's] wife Mary had taken, it's said, literally two shopping bags full of about 3,000 loose leaf pages to the publisher. You don't necessarily know if Hemingway really wanted this story to be told, or if it would've been told in the way that it has been. Because I feel like the book is the publishers' own interpretation of what Hemingway meant for it to be. It's even said that the second half wasn't finished. So it's a bit of a mystery, and I do hope that Hemingway isn't rolling over in his grave about us making this movie.
NP: I understand that roughly two-thirds of the original word count was cut during the editing process for the published book. It's so intriguing. It makes you want to see Hemingway's original text.
MS: Yeah...Our director, John Irvin, who we called Papa on set because he kind of even looked the part of Hemingway, he was so well versed in Hemingway. That was a beautiful thing, because he was so passionate about doing this in the right way and doing it the just way...My character cuts all of her hair off in several phases and then she dyes it platinum...At the end of the film, at the end of shooting...I remember him pulling me aside and talking to me about shaving my head. Because from what I was told, but from what I have not read anywhere else because it's not in the book, is that Catherine ends up in a sanitarium. We actually shot a scene of me in an all white room with my abacus, just clicking back and forth. Obviously that didn't make it into the Hollywood version of the film.
I remember talking with our writer James Linville about it because he had told me that he had access to the original, or the most complete draft of what Hemingway had written. That's what he used to write the screenplay. I wanted to get my hands on it, but I haven't been able to get my hands on it yet. I think there's only like two copies or something.
NP: The end was one of the only things that didn't feel right to me. Hemingway's title is Garden of Eden. The story is about the loss of innocence, and peace of mind along with it. So to have a happy ending - is that where Hemingway would've really gone with it?
MS: I agree with you. That's the thing that can be a bit frustrating, there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen. And for me, as the actor, you play your part. I worked really hard on playing Catherine, and it was really important to me that the language in the book carried over into the film. I did a lot of re-writing on the film myself because I didn't want it to sound too contemporary.
I scoured the book and I had it highlighted everywhere. I carried it with me with my script. I really believed that every single word that was in that book, that Hemingway chose, had it's own importance and it was beautiful to me. So it was important to have that in the film. I didn't want any of that lost. I felt so thankful to have a director like John Irvin, because we really bonded. I felt that he supported me one hundred and ten percent, and was there for me every single moment of the day, scene by scene, to talk about Catherine and really dissect her. I needed to understand exactly where she was every single second because she's continually changing. Not just physically, but emotionally and mentally, and it was a big challenge. But he was so passionate about this project and understood Hemingway and the best way for it to be communicated on to the screen. I just felt real lucky to be with him and be in his hands...
It's such a personal film. I put my heart and soul into it. I bared my soul really in all respects in playing Catherine. It's never been difficult for me to watch a film that I'm in or watch my work, I'm able to disassociate, but this is so personal to me that it touched me on a whole other level, and it still does.
I really feel like working on the project, it really changed my life in ways that I'm still figuring out. After the screening in Rome, I just found myself crying. I found John afterwards, and I just went over to him and he gives me this huge bear hug as he does and I just said to him, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity and believing in me...
'Cause I've worked on so many types of films with so many different kinds of directors and really, he had everything. He had a vision. He knew what he wanted, and was super professional and very passionate about what he was doing. But at the same time he knew how to relate to the actors. He knew how to relate to me and to really help me and to guide me. I think it was very possible to lose one's mind working on this project and playing Catherine. It was so intensive.
NP: You say that it struck a chord personally, in what way?
MS: It's funny, because I've been doing what I do for about 18 years and all of the sudden I got to this point where I looked back on my career and I made these connections between the characters and the projects that came my way and where I was at in my life. Even when I worked on Six Feet Under with Alan Ball where I played a performance artist. There were things that I was struggling with personally...I'd never done theater. I'd never really been on the stage in front of people. Even though what I do for a living, thousands or millions of people will see it, I'm able to disassociate when the camera is in front of me.
I really feel when I worked on Six Feet Under that it pushed me to a different place within myself, facing a fear that I had... She was somebody who had to lead, and be on stage, this powerful figure. I guess personally, in my own life, I struggled with that. I've struggled with insecurity my whole life really. I think probably every actress has - that's what they say about us...I was grateful for that role because it kind of pushed me in this new direction of feeling empowered within myself.
With Garden of Eden, this was like 4 years ago, I really believe that if that project had come to me in a different point in my life I might not have been as open to it. I might not have identified with Catherine the way I did then because of the things that I was going through in my life at the time. I was kind of setting out on my own in my life personally.
We went and worked in Spain. I'm there for about two and a half months and I went there by myself, just embarking on a complete exploration. It wasn't just physically going and being in another country and new city, [with a] new language and new culture around you. To play someone like Catherine where I really had to address almost everything within myself, it was everything personally that I was going through...
NP: I guess filming coincided with the aftermath of the breakdown of your first marriage.
MS: I got married for the first time when I had just turned 21. Even some of those things, I feel like I could identify with Catherine, being young and being married and not really knowing who you are. Growing in a relationship and learning more about who you are and what you want, and all of those things conflicting with one another continuously. I felt at that point in time, not just leaving a relationship but in every sense, kind of pulling the chains off of myself and just going for it, really going on this journey of self-discovery. And that's what it really is with Catherine. It's coming to terms with all of these different things that you feel within yourself. Who you really are and not knowing who that is, but, I think, at the same time having the best intentions. I think that's another thing that's really important. Some people said, Catherine, she's like the bad girl and she's mean. I hope that people don't see it that way because I see her as someone who's really lost.
NP: I see her as someone that's lost, but also someone who unleashes the destructive power of boredom. What causes the conflict and the drama is basically the psychological games that Catherine plays with the people around her to keep herself entertained. I don't think that she even realizes what she's doing or why she's doing it.
MS: I completely agree. I think she's really unhappy. It's funny if you think about how there are these moments where at the beginning of their honeymoon they go to this city and that city. They go to Madrid, and then she makes this comment: "It's too big of a city." It's too overwhelming for her and they end up in this shut down small hotel that's completely isolated, and it's almost in that moment where she starts to feel the most comfortable. She can manipulate and feed off of her husband, but I think her insecurities are so great that she's convinced herself that everyone is looking at her or making assumptions on her. It's [set] back then when there were certain things that women were expected to do and certain ways that women were expected to look. Catherine always pushed that. In the book and in the film, she wears fisherman's shirts and shorts, and you just didn't do that back then. That was really, really pushing it. And to have your hair cut short. I think she just lived with an immense amount of this feeling of being judged all the time, so the more isolated the environment the more comfortable she feels...It's said that Catherine is based on one of Hemingway's wives, not Mary...
NP: His second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer I think.
MS: A mix of one of his wives and then Zelda Fitzgerald, who was F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife. That's what was said, that she was a mix of the personalities of the two. I think these women were rebellious in their own right at that time.
NP: It's interesting that you mention F. Scott Fitzgerald because there is an element of Daisy from The Great Gatsby in Catherine. She's also a bored, care-free and careless heiress.
MS: Yeah. Catherine comes from a very wealthy family and that's something that she holds over her husband too. There's a comment that she makes to him where she says, "Well, it's not like we need your money anyway." She's always threatened by her husband's success. She doesn't know how to really support that.
NP: Well she wants him to be her play thing, and, when his success threatens to eclipse that, she gets insecure.
MS: I think she's always been insecure, but I think what sets her off even more is when she finds out that he hasn't been writing their story, and she just doesn't know how to deal with those emotions. She doesn't have the tools to manage really.
NP: Also, she's constantly searching for external things to make herself happy because internally she just doesn't have the capacity for happiness.
MS: That's why I really feel this story is a bit timeless and universal. I would hope that people would be inspired to read the book because even on subconscious levels I feel like I really learned a lot from the book. It really affected me, just even reading the story.
NP: In what respect?
MS: Just about relationships, about life in general, about the search for one's self - all of that.
NP: Are you happier in your own skin because of it?
MS: I think so...I feel at this point in my life, I'm much more at ease and at peace with myself for sure. I'm not perfect. I'm certainly human like everyone else, but I don't feel that angst the way that I did years ago. And I don't feel like I fight life as much. I'm much more accepting of me, but at the same time I'm much more accepting of learning about who I am because I feel like I'm continuously learning new things about myself.
Hemingway's Garden of Eden open in select cities on Friday, December 10.