Zoe Kazan’s grandfather directed the legends as Marlon Brando and James Dean in some of the biggest classics: ”on the waterfront”, ”East of Eden” and ”Line lust”. But it was only in the middle school that she took what grandfather did at work.
” the Token fell down first, when my teacher asked: ”Are you related to Elia Kazan?. If I was related to my grandfather? I thought it was a very wierd issue and went home and asked my parents. I am grateful to the mörkade släktarvet – probably deliberately – it made me feel normal, ” says Zoe Kazan in a hotel room with an oversized conference table in rosewood.
she was born into Hollywood. Both her mother, Robin Swicord, and dad, Nicholas Kazan, is a screenwriter in Los Angeles. As little was she trying to tell stories with the help of stickers before she could write.
” I was very creative and verbal already as a small child. My parents showed interest and helped me to write down the stories. I believe that my artistic orientation was more important than I would have received some sort of cinematic legacy of my grandfather who was a striking figure. He could fill up a whole room on its own, ” says Zoe Kazan.
Grandfather in all it’s glory, but her major creative role model is Ethan Hawke, who she’s known since she was 23 years old.
” He inspired me enormously, and still is, my mentor. I saw how he wrote own scripts, novels, plays, directed and played without a care if people laughed at him. It inspired me to dare to write their own script, ” says Zoe Kazan.
at the same time she can smile a little at himself as a young man and the death-defying artist.
” I had a kind of youthful arrogance that one must have in order to go forward as an artist. Ironically, I doubt more of myself the more experienced I become, but before I drove up. However, if I had stayed in the development phase, I had become a sociopath, haha.
in the oscar nominated and critically acclaimed ”The big sick” two years ago, and has also had roles in the tv-series ”Olive Kitteridge” and ”The Deuce” as in the brothers Coens, ”The ballad of Buster Scruggs”.
Zoe Kazan, and Tahar Rahim in ”The kindness of strangers”. Photo: per arnesen
Right now she is up to date in the Lone Scherfigs “The kindness of strangers” that are competing for the Guldbjörnen at the Berlin film festival. A modern fairy tale in which the sympathetic strangers crossing each other’s tracks in a Russian restaurant in Manhattan. Zoe Kazan plays Clara, who is on the run with their children escape a violent polismake. During his homeless life, she will in contact with a Russian restaurant where Tahar Rahim works as a waiter and owned by Bill Nighys ryskättade character.
” Because I had played in a piece five years ago, which was about the hustrumisshandel so I could relate to clara’s situation. I was very touched by it. Not having any support system, a strategy of survival or extended family to lean on was an interesting starting point for a character, ” says Zoe Kazan.
– I like the Lone Scherfigs mix of humor and emotion with characters that show our vulnerability. She is a very ogarderad, non-ironic narrator, I am far more cynical but appreciate her courage to be so open, ” says Kazan.
set between the luxury boutiques and soup kitchens in a kind of elevated, fabled New York.
” Yes, it’s not photorealism, more like a sagoversion of New York. It is in any case not quite the New York I know, ” says Zoe Kazan, who lives in Brooklyn together with the partner and colleague, Paul Dano (”Escape at Dannemora”) and their newborn daughter.
During the filming of ”The kindness of strangers” in Toronto had Zoe Kazan at the halfway point in the pregnancy.
– As if it was not enough to be in the snow in Toronto during the worst winter period, I was immensely tired and proppade in me spinach and slept between takes. My lasting memory was how exhausting it is to work when you are building another human being within themselves, ” she says.
was ”Ruby Sparks”, a film that she starred in together with Dano. Last year, the spouses script for the acclaimed familjedramat ”Under an open heaven” that Paul Dano directed. The movie with Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan is based on Richard Ford’s novel ”Wildlife”. As a screenwriter, she learned so much during klipparbetet with the ”Under an open heaven”.
Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal in ”Under an open heaven”. Photo: June Pictures/Kobal/REX
” me and Paul thought we had written the most sparse and frugal script we could of the book. Then we discovered that you could cut away half and still tell the same story. You know the cliché ”a picture says more than thousand words” …But I realized that a lot of that script is to put the images on paper to be able to film them. Once it is done so you do not have all the verbal information, ” she says.
with rotation to mix script writing with the acting.
– for A while I also considered to just wager on the writing of the screenplay. As the author has greater control over the whole production and the final product, but at the same time, I love to go in someone else’s shoes, ” she says, and tells the story of his idiosyncratic orientation.
” I have always been a bit hudlös the face of the world. I have realized that acting gives me a certain level of protection. To go into a character is a way to channel my sensitivity, ” she says.
in order to direct yourself.
” Absolutely, but first I need to understand when, where, how and why? I have learned to follow my instinct, written the script that will never see the daylight, the 100,000’s of words that will never be filmed. But the work is never wasted because it has taken me to the next level. I am fascinated by the whole ripening process. The first paragraph to my latest piece I wrote seven years ago. Then got those words simmer for so long until I had time to write. During these seven years I had learned to understand why I wanted to write that particular piece.