What drew me most to the character of Joey was her incredible strength and determination to fight through her given circumstances. A lot of actors fall into the trap of playing the victim; I tried to do the opposite. I believe it is more intriguing to watch a character in a shitty situation fight to make it through. For if you give into the pity party people will stop watching, and therefore the character will no longer come across as the hero (or heroine in this case).
I approached the role with rigor. I wanted to create a contrast between looking like the young ingénue on the outside, and being a fighter internally. Before I went into any scene, I did a vocal warm up and some Alexander technique in order to enhance my breathing, focus, and range. For the breakdown scenes, I preferred to step onto set literally right after my warm up, so that no time elapsed for me to get distracted or lose the place I needed to be in. The breakdown scenes were the most challenging because I had to sustain the emotional place I was in for about a half hour. I breathed, and Kirk limited the amount of dialogue between takes. At one point my mascara leaked into my eyes, and the PA had to get me a tissue. I used that physical pain to propel me into the emotional pain my character was experiencing.
Overall this shoot was a great experience. I am trained in practical aesthetics, and so analyzing the script was quite time consuming. However once I did the prep work, I was ready to dive in and have fun. Kirk was incredible to work with. He set up a work hard play hard type of environment, which gave everyone an incentive to work their hardest. On the last day, we went out for a wrap dinner after at this Mexican place, which was DELICIOUS! Buy me Mexican food, and I’ll act as good for you as I can J
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