The Devil Is Us
An Interview with Mia Farrow
On Tuesday, June 6 (06/06/06—get it?), director John Moore (Flight of the Phoenix) and 20th Century Fox bring us a remake of the 1976 horror "classic" The Omen. Mia Farrow, who opened her career long ago with another horror film, Rosemary's Baby, brings her list of roles full circle with a turn as Damien's nanny, Mrs. Baylock. I sat in on roundtable interviews on press day for The Omen in NYC a couple weeks ago. Our talk with Farrow was particularly interesting.
The questions come from a variety of different journalists, including me.
I was so glad to see some of the outtake footage and realize that was a croquet mallet you went after Liev Schrieber with, and not a sledge hammer.
MF: It was a croquet mallet.
Much more friendly.
MF: More refined. Respectable. John gave me the croquet mallet, with a message all written lovingly out, as my own personal memento. I said, “John, I don’t think I can carry this on the plane! Can we send it?” It’s a huge mother of a croquet mallet!
What kind of preparation did you do for your role?
MF: Well, honestly? I’d love to tell you that, you know, I went and studied with... bad people. But in fact, I went about it in the same boring way that you go about playing any character. I found those things that were identifiable that I had, and she has—which, through my spectrum, would be boring and ordinary. I have a work ethic; she has a work ethic. I’m a team player; she’s a team player. She has her faith; I have my own. She can be really focused and objective-oriented; I can be that, too. So, I mean, in essence I found enough things that I could play her. That fact that it’s for another purpose is the thing that makes it different. But finding the elements was not difficult.
Unfortunately, we’ve not seen a lot of you lately. What made you decide to do this?
MF: My kids are getting older now. I have a whole group of them that are seventeen and eighteen—going on eighteen—years old. So, next year in fact, I’m going to have one kid at home. It means that I can have more time. So I was able to do a play, which I could never have considered when they were all babies; and as some of you may know, I have many children who have different disabilities, and I just felt it was the responsible time of my life to be with my kids, and my pleasure and my joy. But I didn’t leave them easily. Even to come into the city. So I couldn’t have even contemplated going to Prague. As it was, I brought two kids with me, and one son’s wife—one of my older kids. We just had the best time.
When actors are able to go into characters that could be very different from themselves, and maybe it’s even a form of escapism in their artwork—when you’ve had two roles that require you to lean so heavily on the dark side of life, in a spiritual sense, it’s different than doing a mom in a sitcom. Or is it? Help me understand the connection to the demonic—the satanic stuff, the creepy stuff. It is like, “Aw, I just went and did it, it was work and I’ve got a role to play,” and you just leave all that stuff on the set...
MF: Or?
Or is there a sense in which you feel the weight of that? Or is there? I’m just curious.
MF: Nothing was further from my mind when I accepted this role than Rosemary’s Baby. I was intensely involved in Fran’s Bed, this play by James Lapine that I was doing with Julia Stiles. And John called me; he’s just so super-passionate, and he gave me all these reasons why I had to do this film and why he was going to make it for his generation, and make it his own. Nothing else would do. He had to do it. And then he dropped Liev’s name, and I was like, “I need to do it, too!” And then John says, “And Julia Stiles is in it...” And I said, “She’s right next door! She’s rehearsing a scene.” And he said, “What are you talking about?” And I said, “We’re doing a play together! It’s an omen!” So I hate to disappoint you. I don’t have any thread going through this, unless you really look at The Great Gatsby, and find THE thread in all forty-something of my films. No, I was lucky to get a good part in what I hope will be a fun movie for people.
Two of my favorite films are ones that you’ve been in—Crimes and Misdemeanors and Another Woman.
MF: Interesting choices!
Well, it seems to me that there are connections between movies like The Omen and those movies, because they do deal with the problem of evil—on a personal level.
MF: Yeah. That’s a different matter. In a more serious way.
In a more serious way. But in the way that Martin Landau’s character in Crimes and Misdemeanors sets the plot in motion—
MF: I think that’s Woody Allen’s best movie.
Yes, I think so, too.
MF: Excellent movie.
But the way that he sets the plot in motion by these very small decisions that he makes, regarding dishonesty—
MF: Right, right.
This movie does the same thing by setting the plot in motion with the priest convincing Liev’s character that the one small lie will be forgiven.
MF: Uh-huh.
So is that the level at which you interact with these characters being evil?
MF: Well, not far from that point, I was brought up a Catholic, and in my early catechism books, the devil was portrayed as a little character with horns, and a tail, and a pitchfork—and he’d be whispering in your ear, and if you were lucky you’d have an angel whispering in the other ear. Well, what’s more interesting and accurate is the dual nature of humankind and our—I’m stating the obvious, but—our capacity for altruism and tremendous good, and our capacity for evil and the terrible... I mean, you don’t have to look further than the Darfur region of Sudan as we sit at this table. Four hundred thousand people dead. And counting. There were three million people relying on the world food program, and their rations were cut! This is in the front of my mind, because I am going there, on the sixth of June. So the fact that we have the capacity for both of these things makes the representation of evil in this film, though it may be simplistic—but the face of a child is more accurate than that cartoon devil in my catechism book. I’m a great believer in education. I think it should start, of course, at home; but in every level of education, we must acknowledge that it isn’t just some little devil on the outside. Unfortunately, the devil is us. And unless we acknowledge that, teach our children that—especially our male children, because they are the ones who are victimizing women around the world... I have seven sons. I take my role very seriously. Peaceful resolution to conflict is like number one in my house. And responsibility. All these issues are big ones. So I make a movie. It’s a just movie. That’s true. But if evil is personified by a human being, I think that’s a good beginning, or a good opening for a conversation.
What organization are you going to Darfur with?
MF: UNICEF. You know, you can’t get in, otherwise.
As a private individual.
MF: Yes. And this wonderful woman from the Times is going with us—Lydia Polgreen is coming. It’s very hard for people to get in now. If the region is closed to humanitarian aid, too, then our journey will end in Khartoum. But we shall see.
The responsibility, then, to get involved. Obviously, the parents in this movie have a demon child, so they have a responsibility to get involved. On a personal level, what is the responsibility to get involved in areas that are outside of our domain, for social good?
MF: Well, here’s the old philosophical question, Philosophy 101: You’re walking by a pond; a baby’s drowning. Do you have an obligation to take the baby out? Most people would say yes. Even if you’re in a hurry? Yes. Even if you’re hurrying to work, and you might lose your job? It gets more complicated. What if your house is burning? Now, suppose that the baby is a mile away, drowning in the pond. Do you have a responsibility there? Supposing you just hear the cries? Do you have a responsibility? You’re late. You have a job. Therein lies a lot of the great, philosophical, Solomon-like decisions. My own personal feeling, and I can only say for myself, is yes. I think we have human responsibility. We are a family, of humankind. Our brothers and sisters, on another continent, are in great need. And for us to turn away and just take care of ourselves, is not only—and I hate to deal with this in simple terms, like “right” and “wrong”—but it’s unacceptable. But also, just looking at it economically and every other way, it’s the post-McLuhan world. We’re all connected. We’ve seen how irresponsibility and pillaging in the Middle-East has resulted in, first, humiliation and then outrage; do we want to do that with—well, we are—with another continent?
Where would you say, then, that involvement becomes imperialism?
MF: Well, there’s a difference between assistance and ruling. I don’t believe that we should take over. I don’t believe that we have any role in that capacity. But to assist, and help people find trade, and help people find the stability that we have here—health-wise, and economically—I think we could do that. You just drive down Fifth Avenue, and you think, “It just can’t be right, that everything is so A-OK, and it’s not A-OK everywhere.” I think we all have a shared responsibility.
On Tuesday, June 6 (06/06/06—get it?), director John Moore (Flight of the Phoenix) and 20th Century Fox bring us a remake of the 1976 horror "classic" The Omen. Mia Farrow, who opened her career long ago with another horror film, Rosemary's Baby, brings her list of roles full circle with a turn as Damien's nanny, Mrs. Baylock. I sat in on roundtable interviews on press day for The Omen in NYC a couple weeks ago. Our talk with Farrow was particularly interesting.
The questions come from a variety of different journalists, including me.
I was so glad to see some of the outtake footage and realize that was a croquet mallet you went after Liev Schrieber with, and not a sledge hammer.
MF: It was a croquet mallet.
Much more friendly.
MF: More refined. Respectable. John gave me the croquet mallet, with a message all written lovingly out, as my own personal memento. I said, “John, I don’t think I can carry this on the plane! Can we send it?” It’s a huge mother of a croquet mallet!
What kind of preparation did you do for your role?
MF: Well, honestly? I’d love to tell you that, you know, I went and studied with... bad people. But in fact, I went about it in the same boring way that you go about playing any character. I found those things that were identifiable that I had, and she has—which, through my spectrum, would be boring and ordinary. I have a work ethic; she has a work ethic. I’m a team player; she’s a team player. She has her faith; I have my own. She can be really focused and objective-oriented; I can be that, too. So, I mean, in essence I found enough things that I could play her. That fact that it’s for another purpose is the thing that makes it different. But finding the elements was not difficult.
Unfortunately, we’ve not seen a lot of you lately. What made you decide to do this?
MF: My kids are getting older now. I have a whole group of them that are seventeen and eighteen—going on eighteen—years old. So, next year in fact, I’m going to have one kid at home. It means that I can have more time. So I was able to do a play, which I could never have considered when they were all babies; and as some of you may know, I have many children who have different disabilities, and I just felt it was the responsible time of my life to be with my kids, and my pleasure and my joy. But I didn’t leave them easily. Even to come into the city. So I couldn’t have even contemplated going to Prague. As it was, I brought two kids with me, and one son’s wife—one of my older kids. We just had the best time.
When actors are able to go into characters that could be very different from themselves, and maybe it’s even a form of escapism in their artwork—when you’ve had two roles that require you to lean so heavily on the dark side of life, in a spiritual sense, it’s different than doing a mom in a sitcom. Or is it? Help me understand the connection to the demonic—the satanic stuff, the creepy stuff. It is like, “Aw, I just went and did it, it was work and I’ve got a role to play,” and you just leave all that stuff on the set...
MF: Or?
Or is there a sense in which you feel the weight of that? Or is there? I’m just curious.
MF: Nothing was further from my mind when I accepted this role than Rosemary’s Baby. I was intensely involved in Fran’s Bed, this play by James Lapine that I was doing with Julia Stiles. And John called me; he’s just so super-passionate, and he gave me all these reasons why I had to do this film and why he was going to make it for his generation, and make it his own. Nothing else would do. He had to do it. And then he dropped Liev’s name, and I was like, “I need to do it, too!” And then John says, “And Julia Stiles is in it...” And I said, “She’s right next door! She’s rehearsing a scene.” And he said, “What are you talking about?” And I said, “We’re doing a play together! It’s an omen!” So I hate to disappoint you. I don’t have any thread going through this, unless you really look at The Great Gatsby, and find THE thread in all forty-something of my films. No, I was lucky to get a good part in what I hope will be a fun movie for people.
Two of my favorite films are ones that you’ve been in—Crimes and Misdemeanors and Another Woman.
MF: Interesting choices!
Well, it seems to me that there are connections between movies like The Omen and those movies, because they do deal with the problem of evil—on a personal level.
MF: Yeah. That’s a different matter. In a more serious way.
In a more serious way. But in the way that Martin Landau’s character in Crimes and Misdemeanors sets the plot in motion—
MF: I think that’s Woody Allen’s best movie.
Yes, I think so, too.
MF: Excellent movie.
But the way that he sets the plot in motion by these very small decisions that he makes, regarding dishonesty—
MF: Right, right.
This movie does the same thing by setting the plot in motion with the priest convincing Liev’s character that the one small lie will be forgiven.
MF: Uh-huh.
So is that the level at which you interact with these characters being evil?
MF: Well, not far from that point, I was brought up a Catholic, and in my early catechism books, the devil was portrayed as a little character with horns, and a tail, and a pitchfork—and he’d be whispering in your ear, and if you were lucky you’d have an angel whispering in the other ear. Well, what’s more interesting and accurate is the dual nature of humankind and our—I’m stating the obvious, but—our capacity for altruism and tremendous good, and our capacity for evil and the terrible... I mean, you don’t have to look further than the Darfur region of Sudan as we sit at this table. Four hundred thousand people dead. And counting. There were three million people relying on the world food program, and their rations were cut! This is in the front of my mind, because I am going there, on the sixth of June. So the fact that we have the capacity for both of these things makes the representation of evil in this film, though it may be simplistic—but the face of a child is more accurate than that cartoon devil in my catechism book. I’m a great believer in education. I think it should start, of course, at home; but in every level of education, we must acknowledge that it isn’t just some little devil on the outside. Unfortunately, the devil is us. And unless we acknowledge that, teach our children that—especially our male children, because they are the ones who are victimizing women around the world... I have seven sons. I take my role very seriously. Peaceful resolution to conflict is like number one in my house. And responsibility. All these issues are big ones. So I make a movie. It’s a just movie. That’s true. But if evil is personified by a human being, I think that’s a good beginning, or a good opening for a conversation.
What organization are you going to Darfur with?
MF: UNICEF. You know, you can’t get in, otherwise.
As a private individual.
MF: Yes. And this wonderful woman from the Times is going with us—Lydia Polgreen is coming. It’s very hard for people to get in now. If the region is closed to humanitarian aid, too, then our journey will end in Khartoum. But we shall see.
The responsibility, then, to get involved. Obviously, the parents in this movie have a demon child, so they have a responsibility to get involved. On a personal level, what is the responsibility to get involved in areas that are outside of our domain, for social good?
MF: Well, here’s the old philosophical question, Philosophy 101: You’re walking by a pond; a baby’s drowning. Do you have an obligation to take the baby out? Most people would say yes. Even if you’re in a hurry? Yes. Even if you’re hurrying to work, and you might lose your job? It gets more complicated. What if your house is burning? Now, suppose that the baby is a mile away, drowning in the pond. Do you have a responsibility there? Supposing you just hear the cries? Do you have a responsibility? You’re late. You have a job. Therein lies a lot of the great, philosophical, Solomon-like decisions. My own personal feeling, and I can only say for myself, is yes. I think we have human responsibility. We are a family, of humankind. Our brothers and sisters, on another continent, are in great need. And for us to turn away and just take care of ourselves, is not only—and I hate to deal with this in simple terms, like “right” and “wrong”—but it’s unacceptable. But also, just looking at it economically and every other way, it’s the post-McLuhan world. We’re all connected. We’ve seen how irresponsibility and pillaging in the Middle-East has resulted in, first, humiliation and then outrage; do we want to do that with—well, we are—with another continent?
Where would you say, then, that involvement becomes imperialism?
MF: Well, there’s a difference between assistance and ruling. I don’t believe that we should take over. I don’t believe that we have any role in that capacity. But to assist, and help people find trade, and help people find the stability that we have here—health-wise, and economically—I think we could do that. You just drive down Fifth Avenue, and you think, “It just can’t be right, that everything is so A-OK, and it’s not A-OK everywhere.” I think we all have a shared responsibility.
posted by Greg Wright at 6:42 PM
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