FEATURE INTERVIEW

May

Drawn to the Odd

- Getting Weird with Angela Bettis

By Sara Michelle Fetters

[Click here to read a review of May.]

Angela Bettis is drawn to the dark side. The gifted young actress has stood out with small but important rolls in films as different as Girl, Interrupted and Bless the Child. In fact, although Angelina Jolie won the Oscar for the former, I for one felt Bettis was far better in a much smaller role. And for those unlucky enough to have sat through the later, the only saving grace in the Kim Basinger disaster was her tragically self-assured performance.

After appearing in a couple of small independent features and some made for TV movies, Bettis garnered some of the best notices of her career for playing the title role in NBC’s version of Stephen King’s Carrie. It’s hard to make anyone forget about Sissy Spacek from Brian De Palma’s brilliant interpretation, but Bettis comes darn close. And, even if the remake pales (boy does it ever) in comparison to the Oscar-nominated original, this performance doesn’t. Bettis single-handedly lifts it out of the quagmire of mediocrity, cementing herself as an actress to watch.

Now she returns to the big screen with the slightly controversial and gruesomely graphic horror tale May. Playing the title character, this is a wondrous performance full of fidgety indecision and startlingly brutal self-determination. Shifting from mousy wallflower to devilish terror, Bettis is a revelation, commanding the screen from first frame to last. And if the film does finally stall out a bit in schlock horror familiarity, it’s still a thrilling ride.

I had the opportunity to talk via phone with the young actress the other morning about her role in May and her thoughts on acting and the film industry. What struck me most about our conversation was not only how smart and articulate Bettis is, but also how closely many of our feelings toward Hollywood and our taste in films seemed to mesh. It could be that we’re both basically the same age, or it might be we’ve just both seen a lot of the same films. Or, and maybe this is the most accurate assessment of all, we’re just a little bit odd. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Sara Michelle (SM): What originally drew you to “May?”

Angela Bettis (AB): [“May”] was, quite frankly, one of the best scripts I’ve seen since I’ve been in L.A. I’m impressed when things are written with heart and imagination. I’d also met Lucky [McKee – writer/director of “May”] and I knew he would be great to work with.

SM: “May” is obviously influenced a great deal by Italian horror, most notably the work of Dario Argento (“Suspiria,” “Deep Red”). Are you a fan of these types of films?

AB: Totally. I love those films. I think they’re fascinating.

Lucky is heavily influenced by [Argento]. It was behind much of what he was doing.

SM: May is a pretty dark character, but than, you seem pretty drawn to just those types after your work here and in “Carrie.” Is there something about the darkly shrouded outcast that attracts you?

AB: They’re interesting to me and good characters, and I’m attracted by pieces that are character driven [such as “May”]. But, then, I never seem to get called in for the girl next door in auditions, either. I’ve done a few of these, and [casting directors] seem to remember what you’ve done most recent, so some of it must seem self-inflicted. Still, I like fully-realized characters and some of the darker ones seem to fit that profile more often than not.

[In the case of May], the story wouldn’t be the story if she wasn’t so dark and odd. She truly is weird. She genuinely is odd. [May] is attracted to strange things like anatomy; the cat with the missing leg for example; blood and stuff. Most of us have some sort of “freak zone” that keeps us, no matter how weird we are, grounded, I guess.  We’re all odd in some way or another. Maybe [May] is the type of person that could walk by you on the street. She’s not unable to be identified with; [she] just doesn’t have a “freak zone.”

But, it’s also about what loneliness can push the human psyche to. It’s the hardest thing on this planet [to be alone]. Finding that connection you talked about is hard, especially when you don’t fit in. [But then,] I never though [May] was normal in the first place.

SM: You start out playing May as a very fidgety, almost autistic character. Then, as she starts down her macabre path, May becomes more and more self assured. How did you, as an actress, process and make those transitions? Was the film shot in sequence, or at least close to it, to help you make her evolve more realistically?

AB: No, they weren’t shot in sequence. It’s an aspect of filmmaking you actually get used to. [For “May”], it was a matter of mapping out the character arc, getting specific with Lucky about where he wanted her to go. If you work on it long enough, you know where you want to be at that point [when shooting]. I find that works best; knowing the arc very clearly; knowing the where, when and why. It’s actually one of the fun parts [about filming], gauging the scenes and where [you’re character] arc is. That’s fun for me.

In this case, it was great to be playing a lead role like [this] that had such a great arc. I felt like an extension of [Lucky], like his bionic arm. We worked on her for so long before filming. The thing is, [“May”] was made for $300,000 by a [fledgling] company that wanted to make movies for small amounts and then sell them to foreign markets and then later try to sell them to the studios [in the U.S.] by showing them [on] the festival [circuit].

But, [because of that] we were able to do a lot of rehearsal on our own time before we filmed. You usually don’t get that when making films. It’s what I miss most from doing stage work. How you act the character ends up being a lot more improvisational [because of that lack of rehearsing]. Not in the dialogue, but in how the character behaves and in their arcs. [In Lucky], I found a person I could work with artistically and creatively and that was the best feeling – finding that creative sort of bond. It was also the first time I got to work with a director my own age, and that might have made a difference. I definitely kind of like it – makes me want to work with Lucky again. Plus the fact that he’s completely brilliant.

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