Original subtitles

I was doing a play called Vesper's Eve, and I was playing a wonderful character

that I had a fun time with named Ruby Diamond.

And I think Willem Dafoe and Billy Friedkin both came to see me in that

And it's not that they made their decision based on that, but they did

see me, and shortly after that I found out that I had the role.

My agent told me, she called me up one day and she said, I'd like you to go on

an interview for this movie.

It's a wonderful director.

And I said, okay, great, give me the info.

And she said, you know, I can't get you the script in advance, so just go there.

You're going to meet, you'll see the casting director and you're going to go

right in and meet the director.

And the actor, one of the actors, is going to be there. And I said, okay,

fantastic.

So she read me the breakdown of the character, which I'll share with you

I'm going on memory.

But the character's name was Bianca, and she was a mulatto,

bisexual,

you know, a girlfriend of a counterfeiter. And I

said, well, Eileen, my agent, a mulatto? Really?

are you sure I should go on this interview?

I mean, really.

I think it's a bit of a stretch. And she said, well, you know what? They know

who you are. They want to see you. Just go.

And so that was it. I went to the interview.

I think I met briefly with the casting director. He walked me right in to meet

the director.

I sat down.

Willem was there.

And I had sides. I think we did a little bit of a reading.

But I think Billy was really looking for chemistry. He really wanted to see what

the chemistry was.

And Willem and I had instant chemistry. I mean, I just thought the guy was

fascinating and intriguing and sexy

and intelligent.

And I, you know, so there was so much there, right, right, you know, almost in

a moment of meeting him, of the meeting. And I think that's the way it really

is. You can, I mean, I'm sure if you don't really have chemistry with

you can sort of develop it.

Or maybe as you get to know the person, more happens.

But I think it's really initially there's either something really there or

there's not.

And someone who's intuitive and has a good eye can spot that. And I think

that's what Billy saw right away.

I had a bad dream last night.

Tell me.

I was on stage and people were burning me with cigarettes.

Serena once told me if she writes her dreams down, she keeps them in a little

book. Who's Serena?

What did Carl say?

He says Max ripped us off.

Believe him?

Looks that way.

What are we going to do about it?

Take care of that problem.

So, of course, they had...

several other girls to see, so I went on my way.

And like I said, I spoke about the play that I was doing.

I was doing theater.

I just happened to be doing theater at the time, but I'd been doing a lot of

television and movies of the week and, you know, other features.

I just happened to be doing a theater piece, which was nice because Willem

is a theater guy.

So that was... perfect for him.

He was very happy to go see me, you know, in some LA, downtown LA theater,

know.

I loved the way Billy Friedkin worked.

He would actually say, okay, here's the scene.

One day he asked me, he said, do you play a musical instrument? And I said,

I play sax and flute.

And I also play piano, but I don't play it anymore. I play sax and flute. And he

said, bring your flute in.

I want you to play a song on the flute. And I was like, Oh my God, I haven't

played the flute for years.

But all right, I'll bring it in and I'll do something.

I can remember something. So I brought my flute in and he said, okay, what I

want you to do is Willem's going to be painting you.

And you're sitting over here on the couch in your dance rehearsal clothes.

First of all, the scene, I'm supposed to be completely nude in the scene anyway.

So when he said you're in your dance rehearsal clothes, I was like, oh God,

thank God. You know, I don't want to be sitting there nude playing my flute.

So I'm in my dance rehearsal clothes, and I start playing, you know, I think I

started playing Hey Dude or something really lame because I couldn't remember

anything else. I was playing my flute, and then he said, so you guys just start

the scene whenever you're ready.

And I'm not going to say action or anything. You're not going to know when

start filming.

I'm just going to be filming, so you guys just start the scene when you're

ready.

I'd never worked like that.

I mean, it was just a dream to have someone with such a sense

of... I don't know if he had an understanding of how actors work,

certainly, in my opinion, he did. Not that he was trained that way, but I

he just really had a sense of when you were being truthful and real,

or not. And that's what he wanted in this film. As a matter of fact, All the

clothes that I wore were my own clothes. Every time I came to work, he said, I

like that.

Wear that.

Can you wear that? Do you mind wearing that?

So everything I wore, I was watching the movie last night. I was like, that's my

wardrobe, my whole wardrobe.

And I think the wardrobe people were really freaking out about that.

There's nothing in there.

Some tennis rackets in the trunk, men's clothing with palm springs, door labels,

business letters.

with return addresses in the Cayman Islands.

What did the letters say?

Something about, please forward the stock we discussed, or something like

Who were the letters addressed to?

Caribbean Banking Unlimited, that's Antilles.

Did you notice the name Jessup or Victor on any of the letters?

No.

The sexuality of my character in the script was that she was bisexual.

And my relationship with Jane,

I'm going to call her Jane because that was her character's name in the film,

was, there was a flirtation. It was sort of, I want to say ambiguous, my

relationship with her and the sort of menage a trois reference that there was

for us. We never filmed anything like that, but certainly.

We were ready to film something like that because at any moment, as a matter

fact, I'll just tell you a little, I'll give you a little nugget. The end of the

movie, the end of the movie for my character, when I leave with my

in the Ferrari, we leave together. Well, that was not in the script.

That was a last second, Billy Friedkin said,

You know, I leave, I get in the Ferrari, and I drive off.

And so he said, you know, I want to try a take where you and Jane leave

together.

So we said, okay, great. So that's kind of the way it was with that character.

But definitely in the breakdown for the character Bianca, she was bisexual.

Yeah.

Sexually fluid.

That's the term.

But there ain't no beginning to the dead time.

In the dance performance, I was wearing kabuki makeup, and that was Billy

Freakin'. I mean, that was written in. She's a kabuki dancer.

So that was definitely scripted. The rest was he really wanted my input, and

he really liked, Billy Freakin' really liked what I had going on at the time.

hair. I had this do from the play. That was the character Ruby Diamond in the

play.

Um, and my clothing, he, every time I came, like I said, every time I came to,

to, to work, he said, I love what you're wearing.

Can you wear that in the film? Or he would remember something that I had worn

and said, can you wear that thing?

And so I.

There was a lot of input on my part. It was sort of a collaboration.

I think that Billy Friedkin just was on to something with me, like he saw.

That's not the way I always dressed, but it definitely was my theme at the time.

And I think he just tapped into it, and he was embellishing it, and he gave me

the confidence to sort of go in that direction, maybe in the direction that I

intuitively had hit on with this character. I loved the character.

I just, I loved Bianca. It was so, it was such a juicy part for me and

probably the best part that I had been offered at the time with, you know, such

a fantastic director and cast.

Well, it's interesting because I was married.

to Mickey, and Willem was with someone for a long time, and

Billy freaking wanted us, and he could see that there was, you know, there was

an attraction, and of course, that's what he wanted, and there was one, and

everyone was fully aware of that, so he wanted us to spend time together, and,

you know, embellish that.

and feel comfortable with each other.

But he definitely wanted all the juicy, spicy stuff to be on screen, not

off. And he was very clear about that.

He specifically said, I want it on screen, not off. And so that was our

instruction.

So we did, I mean, we didn't work on the scenes off screen. We just, we spent

some time and, you know, to sort of get to know each other, but we didn't

work on the scenes. We didn't really have rehearsals like that.

Friedkin was very generous about giving us the time we needed before shooting to

run over it, to rehearse, to feel comfortable in the space, as I told you,

improv a little bit.

So that was it.

Really. It was a very good experience for me work -wise. I think I learned

a lot.

You know, I felt good. I felt comfortable. You know, one thing I want

that when I watched the film last night, I looked fabulous.

And I attribute that to Robbie Mueller. He was a brilliant cameraman.

cinematographer and he just made me look beautiful and I'm not talking about

filters and stuff like that I mean just absolutely such an artist with

lighting and the other thing about him and the atmosphere of the set is that

they made me feel so comfortable I had some sex scenes and there was some stuff

shot that was not in the film and it was very delicate for me it was really my

first fully nude

love scenes and I was nervous about it and I felt uncomfortable and Billy

freaking just he treated me like I was like his daughter or something I mean he

was so tender and it's not what I heard about him I heard otherwise beware

you know he was such a gentleman with me and I just I mean to this day I just I

I really um I cherish that relationship that we had that he was so respectful

and um

And Willem Dafoe, too. And, I mean, Willem Dafoe was walking around totally

in one of the scenes. He was completely comfortable.

I don't think that's in the movie.

I don't remember seeing that last night.

And he was very comfortable. I wasn't. But the whole thing, it was just, you

know, the atmosphere of the film itself, for me, was very accommodating.

Again, that's, I think, the brilliance of Friedkin is that he's...

intuitive like that or trust his spontaneous gut feeling about

something or something pops in and he gives it permission to have a birth.

And I think that's really wonderful about him.