Georgina Cates: A Woman of Many
Parts
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By T. Virgil Parker
Many people park artistic integrity alongside other quaint American indulgences, such as journalistic objectivity. It may exist in some form, but it doesn’t pay the bills. Contemporary film, with budgets like the GDP of small countries, is not a place one would expect to find droves of it. For countless thousands of hopeful actors, getting noticed is the main thing, the only thing. Georgina Cates, nearly as famous for the way she broke into film as she is for her startling performances, wouldn’t seem at first glance the most obvious defender of artistic integrity, but it occupies her hierarchy of needs just a tad below food and shelter.In fact, her impetuous emergence into mainstream film is a testament to what talent can do when it is driven by vision. Rejected for the role of Claire in 1995’s An Awfully Big Adventure, she disguised herself, went back to auditions under an assumed name, and got the part. This may seem like a brazen act, but the more you know about her, the more obvious it becomes that her vision of the character was more compelling than her career goals. Georgina rejects roles she doesn’t find challenging.
If her entrance into the spotlight seems impetuous, her departure from it seems even more so. No one simply walks away from a burgeoning film career. With former husband, actor ‘Skeet’ Ulrich, she packed off to rural Virginia to raise their children.
Her fans complained bitterly about her absence, and were more likely to blame the industry than her choice of real estate for child-rearing. As a result, her reemergence seems almost like a vindication of the medium itself. She’s choosing parts that require a frightening range of talent and intellect, only casually drawing on her profound aesthetic advantages. She’s not trying to impress anyone, she’s trying to blast them through the wall.
T. Virgil Parker: Does acting feel different this time around?
Georgina Cates: Yes, because I know why I’m doing it now. I started very young, and I loved it, but there came a lot of pressure to do things a certain way. After a certain point you have to choose one path or the other. Are you going to be known, or are you going to keep on doing work that people don’t see?
Now I really know when I want to do something, when something really feels exciting and new. It means spending time without my kids, and that’s a really good yard post to know how you’re really responding to something.
TVP: Has the time off affected the way you approach a character?
GC: Not really. I think I’ve always worked the same way. I’m a gut-reaction actor. I know inherently what I want to do. I’m always someone who does homework and homework and homework so that I can turn up on the set and play. Then, I can throw it all out because I know instinctually how this person would do something. As soon as someone throws out an idea, I can just go with it. I’ve never been a pre-planned scene kind of girl. I do that in my homework time and then when I get there it’s really about making it better than it can be. I think it’s really dangerous to preplan too much.
TVP: How much does your classical training go into the way you work a part now?
GC: I was always the rebel when it came to classical training. I’ve heard so many actors talk about this in . A., people talk about what class they’re going to. When people really dig deep, they know what their strengths are, and if they’re born to act, or just learning how to do it well.
I started seriously going to classical training at 15. It gave me a basis from which I can now diversify. I can look at something and know the safe way, and that lets me turn the safe way completely on its head. That’s exciting to me.
TVP: Your early acting was in the UK. The way acting is approached there is completely different from the way it is approached in the US
GC: Yes. In the UK, the good actors are good, and they do it because they love it. They have very little embarrassment levels. They’re not pre-planning their careers, they’re not playing themselves. You do your training and you take from that what works for you. It is not geared towards anything in particular. When you come to the States, people class themselves in very specific ways. Are you a television actor, are you a theater actor, are you and Indie file actor, or mainstream? That just doesn’t happen there. You do what you do and you do it professionally. The other stuff doesn’t enter in, the magazines, the interviews. It isn’t a part of the lifestyle there.
TVP: The BBC seems to be trying to bridge the gap between theater and film. Has your experience with them encouraged you to be more pliable when you approach a character?
GC: Maybe. This is the way I’ve always done it. I’d rather have fun with something and go for it, than I would be safe and fit in the middle. When you talk about bridging the gap between theater and mainstream, at the BBC they enjoy letting actors act. It isn’t so much about the nifty camera moves, or special effects. They let actors breathe. Directors really direct. If you’re an actor in England you’re not doing it for the money, you’re doing it for a reason. It’s what they believe they should be doing, they have a passion for it, and they’d rather be earning very little money doing that than very little money doing something else.
TVP: That is somewhat true of American Independent Film.
GC: American Independent Film doesn’t really exist that strongly anymore. That was a change I noticed from the time I left acting to the time I came back. Now the majority of Indie films still require "names" and what it used to be was a great script. You go in, you blow the director away, you get the part and you all make the movie for the right reasons. There were no other requirements, and if people saw the movie, great, and if they didn’t, they didn’t. Now it seems there’s only a handful of truly independent movies. The one I did last, Sinner[In post-production] was truly an independent movie. They chose to do it that way because they didn’t want to give up control of that film. I don’t believe there’s a truly independent film festival anymore. Look at Sundance.
TVP: They have assumed control.
GC: It’s a real shame. It will change again, it has to. When the only thing people want to see is Little Miss Sunshine, it’s telling people something. I think things are shifting again, where truly creative people are starting to fight back and make their own movies, but there really are so few truly independent movies right now.
TVP: So much of that is economics.
GC: Of course.
TVP: I’ve noticed that the parts you’re taking now require a great deal of psychological commitment. Does having children, that connection, watching them develop, help with that kind of dimensionality?
GC: First, I’m older now; I have more experience to bring to the table, but I’m not doing things with an essentially different approach. A lot of people build up a name and basically start playing a caricature of themselves in every movie. I never did that, and it was something I was really scared of happening. I’m not that interesting to begin with. I’m not Julia Roberts with a smile that can make people that interested.
TVP: I don’t know if you can honestly call that acting.
GC: It’s not. I think people fall into a trap, very quickly, of playing caricatures of themselves in any given role. Slight variations, maybe you have an accent, or you walk a little differently, but inherently you’re being cast as yourself. That was never very interesting to me and it certainly isn’t now.
I love what I do and I really care about what I do. If you’re not willing to really push the limits then it’s kind of pointless. It has to be that kind of thing that keeps people energized and on their toes. When you have kids, it’s a blessing. You relive being a kid again. You open up and understand that you can go from one emotion to the other in three minutes. Kids do it all the time. The more life you live that’s real, the more you can bring that forth.
That’s the joke of LA existence. Most of the time
you’re not living real life, writers aren’t writing about real life.
TVP: The industry is almost completely self-reflexive.
GC: Yes. That will have a change too. Actors should admire what other actors do, should respect other actors. Really, the obsession with what actors do outside of acting has become a joke unto itself. That can really restrain you as an actor. You’re not allowed to take risks anymore. The actors you truly admire are not the actors you want to read about who they’re having sex with.
We’re actors, that’s what we do, we’re only part of an equation. That’s the huge difference between being on stage and being on a movie set. When you’re on stage you’re in complete control of your performance every night. In a movie, you don’t have a clue until you’re in that ADR room.
TVP: That has to be a lttle scary.
GC: It is. I was i loopng the last movie yesterday and I was talking to the director. Aside from what I was saying about actors not acting, directors don’t direct. When you’re an actor who wants to be fearless, wants to do not a good, but a great job, you have to feel safe. You have to trust who you’re working with. I don’t know that that happens a lot.
My friends and I play a game in which we recast a movie. There are a lot of films that if you recast with the right actors, would be fascinating to watch.
TVP: You seem unusually adventurous in terms of where you want to bring a character.
GC: I think it’s the only reason I want to get up at 5:00am and get on the set with all that mayhem and cry your heart out in various scenes, be buck naked in other ones. The only reason to do any of that is to make people look at things in new ways.
I think strong, fresh, female characters are rare. It’s about time that changed. You can have a woman who’s funny and gutsy and ballsy and interesting and diverse. People are shocked by it.
TVP: We have this cultural dichotomy between talent and attractiveness. That has to have affected your career in the past.
GC: In what way?
TVP: Getting casted for beauty when you want to bring your talents to bear on complex roles, perhaps.
GC: This is what’s really interesting. And this is why you grow up. In fact, I used to be the girl who wasn’t pretty enough, and later I wasn’t getting parts because they said I was too attractive. I honestly had to burst out laughing. Without putting myself in a box, I’ll never be anything other than a character actor. That’s what I am. The whole female physicality thing is staring to evolve slowly, not fast enough. Female characters are under-written anyway.
When I first came here and I was twenty years old, sitting down in these ridiculous general meetings and they’d seen the movie I came here with, they would talk to me in this bizarre way about what I wanted to do. I’d say that I’d never been cast in anything I’m physically right for, or look right for. Movies sometimes simply don’t step out of the box enough. The ones that do, that’s when people talk about it.
TVP: And many people are afraid to do that.
GC: I’m lucky that no one knows what I look like or knows what I sound like. Every movie has been different. When I came back to acting it was an advantage that nobody knew what I looked like in the first place, or where I was from, or how old I am. When I’m reading a script I always want the part that they’re not offering me. I have the balls to tell people I know what I can do.
The way the business is set up these days, actors are limiting themselves. If you’re not the gorgeous blond you think you have to be the quirky ex-girlfriend.
TVP: Is that more apparent now than when you first went to Hollywood?
GC: No, because I was never the conventional cookie cutter beauty. I had to convince everyone that I could be American. They wanted a gorgeous blonde for Clay Pigeons. I went in with no makeup and my hair pulled up. Luckily there was a director who had some brains and some balls and fought for me. It’s been the same with every movie.
I’m better at protecting myself now. It isn’t easy for any person to go through the process that this brings up. You’re basically all the time trying to please other people. Now I have a firm idea of what I can do and what I want to do. I’ve never had a game plan or a career plan, I want to do good work. If you can say that you’re proud of your work, you’re ahead of the game.
TVP: You’re not going after the big bucks. As a result you’re in a position to go after the roles you want.
GC: Yes. I’m a single mom with two kids. I’m conscious of the fact that I haven’t had to do anything else to support myself, I’m really lucky. I’m optioning two books. If I believe in what I’ve been saying to you I have to make a change. From an actor’s viewpoint I’m not optioning so I can have a starring vehicle, It’s about making movies that you actually want to see. You can do and say what you really want to say. I’m not saying that anybody should turn down ten million bucks for a movie, then you’ve got time on your hands to go and do the stuff you really want to do.
When you take a risk and it doesn’t work, you’re kind of tainted by that, but the bottom line is, sometimes things don’t work. In film I don’t believe any one person can be blamed for that.
TVP: Film is, by definition, risk.
GC: It is. I found this tough when I decided to take a break People had a certain game plan. When Clay Pigeons came out, I was getting a lot of those femme fatale offers, and I had just done that, so I didn’t want to do it again.
TVP: The fastest way to get typecast.
GC: That film was supposed to be the next big thing. Very few people saw it. That’s why I say, if I did a good job, I can walk away. I have no control over what turns up on screen or how people react to it. If my experience was good, then I’m one step ahead. Of course it would be great for a lot of people to see my work, but you can’t be reliant on that.
TVP: You’re doing it for intrinsic reasons. Your goal is to produce experience, rather than being motivated by so many of the other reasons people are doing it.
GC:. I did a movie with John Turturro, and he’s one of the most creative people I’ve ever met. Everyone on that set was there for the right reasons. None of us really understood the script. It was his vision and you were there. You wanted to be a part of his vision. That’s what actors do, that’s what’s fun. That movie [Iluminata] had a really good script and a really good heart, so you go for it.
TVP: Given your commitment to executing vision, have you thought about directing?
GC: I write quite a bit, but I don’t think I’m there yet. Any actor has to find a project they feel so passionately about- and that they’re not in- that they really need to see it to fruition. It’s hard. The next movie I’m doing, Among the Shadows, is really close to me. I can see it in my head. Then, as an actor, I’ll have to let that go. I’m not technically minded as a director. As a director I’d need an entirely different vocabulary. When I quit acting, I photographed for five years. It can’t be an ego thing. That’s why I think George Clooney had such success. It was very evidently coming from his passion and not from ego.
TVP: He was driven by an agenda, one that has been culturally undernourished lately.
GC: Very surprising. I don’t think anybody thought he could do that. Actors are great with other actors, but you have to become very careful about the whole ego thing. I have to guard myself when I’m writing, about the ego thing. As an actor you come from a different viewpoint. That’s why it’s fun when you do things that are more like a collaboration. When they feel like a collaboration, you don’t feel like you just did your thing and left. Not to the level of directing, but you feel like you’ve had more of an effect on the outcome.
TVP: When I saw the storyline for Among the Shadows I had to wonder how much of a part like that becomes internalized.
GC: It’s an interesting thing. The last movie I did I had two weeks prep time- which I hate. The character was completely and utterly opposite from me, and it was bizarre. The only way I work is by knowing the script inside out, knowing everything. I have every question answered before I get there. And this is stupid, I know, but clothes are really important to me. I have all that down and I can turn up the next day and throw it all away. I already know how the character sounds, I know how they laugh, so that I don’t have to consciously think about it while I’m on set. I can walk in and out of a character in every scene. In Sinner I’d be sobbing and they’d say "cut" and I’d be out of it. If you can walk in and out, then it’s easy. How much is internalized? A lot, but this new movie, Among the Shadows is the closest to me of anything I’ve ever done. It’s kind of nice to go from something that was overt in every way to something that’s kind of insular.
TVP: I’m guessing that your perspective must have been enriched by developing so many latent aspects of yourself out when you’re acting.
GC: A lot of the people I’ve played were not sympathetic. I don’t believe in playing roles that are too pat. I told the director of the last movie that I wasn’t going to play a prostitute with a heart of gold. I said that when they offered the part to me. Partly because of this business and partly because of who people are and who they are on the next level and the next level don’t have to coincide, I’m not judgmental of who I am, and I’m not judgmental if anything I read, or any person I read. There’s always an interesting question for actors, do you have to like the character? The answer is no. I don’t have to like them, I have to be them for a period of time. You absorb a lot of things when you’re playing a part, or getting ready to play one. Everyone has their moments of being obnoxious, or sympathetic, or unsympathetic. That’s how I approach everything. Blank page, start from zero, there you go.
I don’t appreciate dumbing a character down for the audience.
