Emily Mortimer Deals By John Esther January 2, 2006 - 3:54 AM PST "I find things disconcerting." Emily Mortimer sits across from me in a hotel room in Century City, California, her legs crossed, her posture correct. When she speaks, she smiles and looks me in the eyes. As luck, fate or free will would have it, Mortimer is here to promote Woody Allen's new film, Match Point, which takes place in Mortimer's native country, England. The eldest daughter of film and stage writer John Mortimer (Tea with Mussolini), Emily has been busy the past decade. Since her debut as Annabella Lagrange in the 1995 miniseries, The Glass Virgin, the bright, talented 34-year-old has been cast in nearly 40 roles for the big and small screen. Mortimer made her feature film debut in the 1996 film, The Ghost and the Darkness. Working her way back and forth amongst small, medium and big roles in independent, foreign and Hollywood films, Mortimer has performed in films as varied as The Saint, Elizabeth, Notting Hill, Scream 3, Love's Labour's Lost and Bright Young Things. For her performance as Elizabeth Marks in Lovely and Amazing, Mortimer won an Independent Spirit Award in 2003. More recently, she received an Empire Award nomination for her small role in David Mackenzie's much overlooked film, Young Adam. In Match Point, Allen's best film in years, Mortimer plays Chloe Wilton. A gentle, sweet and spoiled English aristocrat, Chloe is married to Chris (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), a man who has had to work his way up in the world. Preoccupied with reproduction and the daily activities of the leisure class, Chloe is too smart to acknowledge her husband is having an affair with an American (Scarlett Johansson). When it looks like the affair is about to get out of hand, Chloe is set, match and game for tragedy. Or is she? Soon to be seen on the silver screen opposite Steve Martin in the upcoming remake of The Pink Panther, Mortimer is married to actor Alessandro Nivola (Junebug) and they have a child. I spoke with Mortimer about Chloe, jolly sex, class awareness and luck. Emily Mortimer in Match Point You must have had a good time working with Matthew Goode and Woody Allen? Matthew was my soul mate, my little partner in crime. Given that the American Woody Allen is writing English characters, how much flexibility did you have with regard to the dialogue? The only note we ever got was in the beginning. It just said, "I don't know how English people talk, and you're English, so just feel free to change it whenever and make it your own." Did you do that? I did a little bit, yes, when I felt he didn't phrase something exactly. I tried once to improvise something and it was a disaster. What do you think you have in common with your character? I have practically nothing in common with her. On the outside maybe a bit. I've met a million girls like that and the funny thing is that they're all the same somehow. She's such a type and she's such a recognizable type - in England anyway, a girl who's been to very nice schools. You know they're definitely not vegetarian. They definitely vote Tory. They probably had a lot of sex with a lot of people - jolly sex; very nice, sort of uncomplicated jolly sex. That is why you have nothing in common with this Chloe? No, but I've met a million of them. She was a stereotype, and the very hard thing is how do you stop that from being ridiculous and comic because they are kind of funny people. They have no introspection. They're so blithe. They're so untouched by the disasters of life that there's something chronic about them. I'm completely the opposite. Do you think she's a romantic character? I think she is a romantic. But what I love about her is that she's not stupid. Even if she is a completely happy-go-lucky, direct, straight person, she's fascinated by people who aren't and finds Chris fabulous and wonderful. "It's wonderful he finds life so difficult. How fascinating he's so sad." That is adorable. And he appreciates art and he likes the opera. She has very little subtext and that's very interesting, playing someone like that because normally, as an actor, you're busily exploring what the subtext of your part is. And you say the dialogue, but actually what you're really feeling is something completely different from what you're saying, and part of the job is working out what those two things are. With her, what you see is what you get and that's where I completely differ from her. I might have bits of giddy in me. Not the jolly sex? Not the jolly sex [she laughs]. No, no, no. No jolly sex - hardly any ever. I'm a worrier. I'm not like her. What do you worry about? I find things disconcerting. I am not very good at being in denial, which I think is a very good asset in some cases. Particularly when your husband is murdering someone [she laughs]. There is a class-consciousness in the film that is particularly English. What do you think about America's attitudes toward class-consciousness or lack thereof? I think an American coming to make a film about British class can very often see it more clearly than we can because he or she comes with a lack of judgment about the whole thing. We're so bound up and neurotic about class at home that we can't make films about posh people without being clouded by our own neurosis about it. So it's very interesting when an American or a foreign person comes and makes a movie about the class system in England. I think they nail it better. Class in America? For example, having spent a lot of time in LA now, I feel like there's such a divide. At least in England we're very open about it. We're fucked up about it, but we've copped to it. In Los Angeles there's a huge underclass, which really isn't acknowledged. People that are incredibly poor are totally ghettoized, live on one side of the town that no one ever sees. I feel that's something that isn't really commented on here very much and it's almost like you're pretending it doesn't happen. Why do you think that is? I think it's because it doesn't fit in with the "American Dream." It doesn't fit in with the way you think of yourselves and that's sort of interesting. God knows it's not like England's any better at all. We're totally screwed up in lots of ways, but because we've lived so long with this huge differential class system and it's completely a part of our culture, we're now very, very aware of it. It's not very comfortable to admit to the fact that you're living in a very sophisticated first-world country that's meant to be so benign and advanced and all the rest of it, and you've got very, very poor people who are completely struggling - who have no health [coverage], no education, no anything - living in your midst. I think we all find it difficult to really admit that it's going on to the extent that it is in every country. In the film there is discussion about luck and determinism. How much of a role do determinism and luck play into your life and where does free will kick in? It's a really difficult question. When you start thinking about it in your own life and how much of it's luck and how much of it's fate and how much of it's just life, it's so hard to work out. I did realize that lucky things happen to all of us, and unlucky things definitely happen to all of us no matter who you are. And the difference is, I think, what really defines you as a person in the end, is how you deal with the bad luck and whether or not you can weather it in some way. I think that's sort of the test because good luck is easy to cope with. Bad luck happens to all of us, even Woody Allen, and it's how you deal with it that's important. back to past articles >>> Index "I find things disconcerting." back to past articles

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