Mary Elizabeth Winstead may be the coolest genre girl around. She always ends up in these massive films like Live Free or Die Hard or Death Proof, horror like Final Destination or the upcoming The Thing or even kids’ superhero movies like Sky High. So it makes sense that she’d be the girl Scott Pilgrim is VS. The World for. She met the press with a more old fashioned hairdo (one color only) and dress, not like Ramona Flowers wears but still beautiful.
Q: When you see Ramona Flowers in the comic books, do you see yourself in that picture?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I don’t. I think while I was doing it, especially after four or five months of being Ramona every day I think I did kind of see myself when I would look at the books. Now I feel separated enough from it now that even when I look at the movie, I don’t even see myself. I see Ramona.
Q: When you transform yourself, even between scenes, how does that make you feel more like not yourself?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Oh, it’s such a huge help. I was still kind of worried about my portrayal of Ramona and how I was going to do it and just the daunting task of becoming her the whole time through preproduction and everything. The day that we all put the clothes on and got the wig on and the makeup and everything, I suddenly was like, “Okay, I get what Edgar saw.” Everyone was telling me, “You’re the perfect Ramona. You look just like Ramona.” I was like, “What are you talking about? What do you mean?” Then when we all got together and we had the complete looks, it all sort of clicked. It was surreal. That was a great thing to have before we started shooting because then we could all walk on the set and feel confident that we were right for the parts and that it was going to be okay.
Q: What was your favorite hair color?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I always go back and forth between the pink and the blue but I think the blue is my favorite just for no reason.
Q: Do you understand the desire to change your hair constantly?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Oh, definitely. I think every girl feels that way. I don't think most of us are impulsive enough or brave enough to change radically colors every week and a half like Ramona does, but yeah, absolutely. I think I’m constantly changing it up.
Q: I’m not. What’s wrong with consistency? I like your hair. Leave your hair alone!
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: That’s good, there’s something to be said for consistency. Absolutely. I know, it’s hard. It’s hard to stay the same.
Q: Gideon seems like Ramona’s ultimate bad guy. Did you want to kick more ass on him?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I do get to kick him in the balls. I mean, it would’ve been cool to be a little bit more involved in that fight but I think at that point it was more about Scott’s arc and I think Ramona’s arc at that point is sort of like stepping away from that world completely and just trying to kind of move on from it. I think she was able to do that without physically hurting anyone, too much at least.
Q: Besides the comic books, where did you draw inspiration for your characters?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I don't think I drew inspiration from any other films or anything like that. I think mainly from talking to Bryan and getting information about Ramona that isn’t in the books and that nobody really knows and that delves a little bit deeper into her past and what she’s been through and kind of helped me to understand why she is the way she is and to hopefully bring a little bit of humanity underneath the sort of cold exterior that she has. That was the most important thing to me was trying to find that balance of how she relates to the world.
Q: Are you a gamer?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I don’t play videogames right now in my current life but I did as a kid and I think the way that it’s presented in the film is that kind of stuff that takes you back to when you played video games when you were young and when they were kind of new and exciting and fun. The Zelda and Mario Bros. and stuff like that, that I can tap into and relate to and it registers with me and I find it really funny and entertaining. I think that just video games are so much a part of our generation now, so even if you don’t play them, watching a film like that that has so many video game references, it still plays really well. I still get it and find it really funny.
Q: Were you familiar with Scott Pilgrim at all before? Or any other indie comic books?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I think we became familiar with it through auditioning or meeting on the film. I first got into it I guess about three years ago now when I first met Edgar about the film and there were three books out at that time. I read them and got so excited about the prospect of being involved in the movie version of it. I’ve never been a big comic book reader but I think that that kind of made me really want to delve into it a bit more. Admittedly, it’s kind of an intimidating world because there’s so much and you don’t really know where to start, but I think with Bryan’s work and also his wife Hope has got some cool stuff and I’ve kind of tried to get into that a little bit. So starting in the indie comic world and maybe branching out from there but I’m still baby steps.
Q: Are you a fan of Edgar Wright?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Big time. I was a huge fan. I don't know how many times I’ve seen Shaun of the Dead. I’ve watched every DVD commentary and Hot Fuzz, all the special features. And Spaced so I was a huge, huge fan of his so meeting him, first I had a general meeting with him and I didn’t know what it was about. It was just sort of set up through my agent. That was kind of enough for me. I was just like, “Oh my God, my agent somehow got me a meeting with Edgar Wright. How did he do that? That’s so cool.” Then I was talking about being interested in me for a movie and I was just like, “What? What?” It was kind of mind blowing to me. I think he’s just brilliant and I think he’s still going to get even better. I don't know how that’s even possible. I don't know how that’s even possible but he’ll do it.
Q: What is it about Scott Pilgrim that Ramona likes about him?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I think for Ramona it’s really a slow burn for her. I don't think she’s instantly smitten with Scott. I think she’s attracted to him and she doesn’t really know why necessarily. I think if I were to delve into her brain, it’s probably just that he represents something completely different from all the guys that she’s been with before. She’s trying to basically do what Scott’s been doing with Knives. Here’s a guy who’s just sort of simple and sweet and he’s not going to hurt me so I’ll give this a try and see where this goes. Then over the course of the film he kind of proves himself to be more than that and maybe a viable choice of someone to actually really be with.
Q: How did Scott Pilgrim compare to your previous films like Die Hard, Final Destination and Sky High?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: It was so much beyond anything I’d ever done. I’d never had to do any training for any of the other films that I’d done or anything like that so this was a whole new world of stunt training and wirework and kung fu.
Q: But even being around big setups could’ve been familiar.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I’ve been around that, absolutely. I think a lot of the other actors had done a lot more smaller films and indie films and things like that so I think I was more familiar than a lot of people with the big sets and big set pieces and things like that so a lot of things didn’t seem as crazy to me as it did to some of the other actors. I was sort of like, “This is just a day at work. This is how films are made” coming off of Die Hard which was a crazy big action movie as well. But yeah, as far as my involvement, the ante was upped 100% so it was definitely a new experience for me.
Q: Would you be interested in taking over the Die Hard franchise?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Of course, of course, that would be awesome. I love the idea of being an action heroine. I think there need to be more female action heroines out there that are intelligent and not overly masculine and things like that so I’d love to find - - and real too. Not necessarily the superhero perfect archetype of what an action hero is represented as a lot of times. I would love to find that kind of action heroine role to play.
Q: Is there talk of another Die Hard?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: There’s been rumors but I’ve only just read them on the internet with everyone else so I don’t know any more than you I’ll say.
Q: Tell us about the Thing remake.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Sure, I just wrapped it 2-3 weeks ago in Toronto again and it was great. I’m really excited for people to see it. I think the fans of the John Carpenter version are going to be pleasantly surprised. I think we really worked really hard on making as great of a movie as we could possibly make on every level. The special effects and the animatronics and the puppeteering work is really great. The performances are, not talking about myself but everyone in general is fantastic. We have a really diverse interesting cast. Most of the actors are from Norway and they’re so good. they’re trained amazing actors who normally wouldn’t get the chance to star in a big Hollywood production so it was a really special experience to work with them and to get to play kind of the type of roles that I was talking about earlier, a kind of action heroine who’s just like a real woman who happens to be really smart, happens to be able to take care of herself and it was a really cool experience.
Q: Is it set in the same universe and timeline as Carpenter’s?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: Yeah, it is. It’s a true prequel. It takes place at the Norwegian base where the John Carpenter version, the characters in that find The Thing and bring it back to their base. So it’s the story of what happened there so it’s a completely different set of characters but in that same universe. Actually the end kind of matches up perfectly with the John Carpenter version so you can watch them both back to back and it’ll be cool.
Q: What are your thoughts on the changes to your character from the comic book?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I feel they really kept all the elements of Ramona that were important for the film. There certainly were a lot of details that were left out but you’re condensing six books into a two hour film and that kind of goes without saying. But I didn’t feel like there was that much that was lost when it comes to the whole story of everyone and the arc that everyone has to go through and the journeys that everyone has to fulfill throughout the film. I felt it’s hard to nitpick anything when you see a film and you feel like it’s perfect, so I certainly don’t regret anything about what they did with my character.
Q: Didn’t they shoot an ending where Scott ended up with Knives?
Mary Elizabeth Winstead: I think for me, when I initially read the new ending, I was really excited. I thought it was great. I agreed about Knives’ arc. I thought it was a really interesting way for her to wrap things up and sort of made her a bit stronger. My only fear with it was at first I was like, “If I knew this was going to be the ending, what if I would have played things differently earlier in the film.” Then I thought it’s actually kind of great because when I walk away at the end, I don’t expect him to turn around and follow me. That’s a surprise. Ramona thinks I should leave him be and I shouldn’t cause any more chaos in his life and I should just move on and escape again. He sort of surprises her at the end and they sort of start over having known a lot more about each other and kind of on this new level, a more equal playing field. It’s like now they can go off and try this again in a new and better way.
