Your character in “The Tourist,” Helen Chambers, is so kind and endearing throughout the entire series, but I was wondering if there was one scene in particular you read that made you say, “I have to play this role.”
I knew I had to play it from the first moment I read it, honestly. As I continued to read, I grew more and more in love with her, to be honest. Honestly, from the first meeting, it was such a crazy scene when she shows up at his [The Man’s] hospital bed. It changed over time, but it was originally nine or ten pages of just dialogue, and me just talking at him, really. Filming that was like verbal diarrhea. It was a lot! I remember the crew actually applauded the first time we got through the whole thing because they were like, “We weren’t sure how you were actually going to get through that.” I was like, “Me neither!” But we got there.
That’s acting! You muscled your way through it.
Acted. Got there. [Laughs]. Okay! Now, let’s do one that’s actually good because now I know that the words are there.
Well, I’m sure that played into it, though! Because if you’re nervous, then it works with the scene to be like vomiting all these words out.
When I throw the pen in that first scene, that was actually me accidentally throwing the pen out of actual nerves and not a part of the character, but they decided to use it.
It makes it even better as a viewer to know that. [Laughs].
It was very realistic!
