Actress Elisha Cuthbert and Director Jamie Babbit Discuss Their Film 'The Quiet'

Before settling in for our interview, Elisha Cuthbert ("The Girl Next Door", "24") prepared her sixth cup of coffee for the morning, though one so doused with milk that it could hardly be called coffee. While Cuthbert likens drinking black coffee to drinking tar, she takes a decidedly different approach in the roles she chooses, where the darker it is, the better. Cuthbert and director Jamie Babbit ("But I'm A Cheerleader," "Gilmore Girls") sat down to discuss their latest film, the dark drama, "The Quiet."

Daily Californian: What drew you to a film like "The Quiet"?

Elisha Cuthbert: This was a movie that was perfect for me at the time because I'd just come off of "House of Wax" and I was ready to do something that was definitely more character-driven. After reading it, seeing how dark it was and the journey that happens to her during the course of the film, it all felt worth it. It's one thing to make a dark, edgy film about real topics and leave it as it is, but this movie really ends on such a positive note that I felt like it was worth putting the audience through this journey.

DC: What were you looking for in the role of Nina?

Jamie Babbit: Elisha and I first met at a hotel lobby, and she was telling me that she really responded to the Dot character. She was talking about Valentine's Day and chatting about her boyfriend and how he had a card for her but he didn't give it to her, so she didn't give him anything. She said, "Well, if he's not getting me anything then I'm certainly not getting him anything!" and I thought, wow-something about the way Elisha is kind of guarded in love could totally work for Nina.

EC: I did go home and reread it. My original pass through the script, I focused so much on Dot, but really ignored the rest of the script. When I made another pass through it, I specifically zeroed in on Nina, going holy cow, this girl is dealing with even more stuff. The layers there exceeded, in my opinion, Dot's character and her issues. Sometimes as an actor, you say, I want to play the eccentric one, but it's important to consider the ideas of the people on the outside looking in going, this is what you're looking for, and to not be stubborn about things like that. And really, I cared about the movie, and now watching it, thank God for Jamie.

DC: The film deals with such taboo issues, how did you arrive at a place where you could connect with your character?

EC: Before we started filming the movie, we got together and Jamie put us in circumstances on stage. We weren't rehearsing actual scenes in the film, but we were rehearsing the ideas of the scenes so that it felt like this had been happening for a really long time, which was important because I assume that my character specifically was going through this at a very young age.

DC: Yeah, I felt kind of unsure as to whether Nina really hates her dad or if she really loves her dad...

JB: I didn't want it to be just that Elisha hated his guts and wanted to get away from him. It had to also be that she loved him...

EC: ...and manipulated him just as much as he manipulated her. There are under layers of her using her powers on him and sometimes getting out of the situation. Which probably comes out of being older and being subjected to this for such a long time. So we knew this wasn't just, there's incest and there's this going on.

DC: How did you approach acting and filming the uncomfortable scenes between Nina and her father?

JB: It was complicated for me because I felt I wanted to protect Elisha during the intense scene with her father where he's physically yanking her. We did one take and Martin, he's very method, was hurting Elisha. She was like, dude, you're hurting me. You've got to make it real, but you can't yank me like that. He said, I'm so sorry, I feel terrible. I told Elisha, you know it's my job as a director to protect you and I really want to, but this scene is also about you not being protected, so forgive me if I back off a little bit because you have to go to a scary place.

EC: Because I am such a strong person in real life as an individual, everything about those scenes were very wrong to me. I make the conscious effort in other movies to avoid playing a victim. But I knew why and I understood why we had to go there with it. There were moments when I would go to the bathroom and bawl. I was like, this is not healthy. I don't want to do this. As soon as I let my mind go to that vulnerable place, it made me feel just miserable. But we got through it.

by Daily Californian