ANTON YELCHIN RU

The beaver hand puppet becomes a character in and of itself. Yelchin said that Gibson’s character replaces himself with a talking beaver, and for his character “there’s some level of hurt that comes with having to deal with that, that he just ignores it. So for me, I was acting with Mel or Jodie like I never even…the beaver was just a toy to me. But whereas for Riley (Riley Thomas Stewart) the beaver is real, and he actually interacts with the beaver.”

Yelchin talks about the smaller movies he’s done versus the bigger movies. He’s been in indie films like Alpha Dog and Charlie Butler and big studio films like Star Trek and Terminator Salvation. “It’s been great. I mean honestly I think it’s mostly about the characters I find interesting, the opportunities I find interesting. I don’t really discriminate in terms of oh I want to do a big movie or a small movie…I think Like Crazy was really interesting to me, The Beaver was really interesting…Fright Night is a studio movie and I did that back to back, from a tiny movie to kind of a larger film. It’s mostly about the character and the people involved, they offer different kinds of opportunities and they are definitely different kinds of filmmaking experiences. I went from shooting on simple technology on Like Crazy to a 3D rig on Fright Night. It’s just different kind of worlds but it’s still the same job.”
When asked about Star Trek 2, Yelchin said, “I’m stoked, I’m excited to get with those people again and do that again, because it’s a really great group of people…the cast and crew, and J.J. and his whole crew, and they’re really great. Yeah it will be fun, it will be fun to do the research again and sort of refresh my memory as to the character and the accent and all the work I did, I’ll probably dig out the old script and go through the notes and stuff again just to build that up again.” He said he doesn’t know when it will start shooting but he’s been told sometime in the Fall.

THE BEAVER Jennifer Lawrence and Anton Yelchin copy 542x360 Interview With Anton Yelchin On The Beaver

Yelchin said working with Jodie Foster and other amazing people has been inspirational to him. “I’ve been really lucky in that I’ve been able to work with really amazing people since I was a little kid, and they don’t really give like advice but just their presence is inspirational…it teaches you a lot from how they behave on set to how they treat people around them to their process…I mean watching Jodie direct, I think she’s so brilliant in terms of the way she directs she’s just very specific but not controlling. Like she’ll give you direction and then give you all that room to go and play with that and see where that takes you. She’s so respectful of actors, because once she casts you she trusts you to do the job that she cast you for. But it’s great, like just how grounded she is, how polite she is, how intelligent she is.

Speaking on working with Mel Gibson he said, “Watching actors work is just so interesting. Mel is such a free actor, once he inhabits that space, magical things happen all over the place, that aren’t in the script. They’re just real things that come out of his knowledge of the character….It’s a pity that he had to go through all this because his performance was just so great. It would be a shame if people could not overcome however they feel about his personal life and see his performance for what it is. It’s so touching and honest. It’s such a difficult role and I think it’s great. An actor’s job is to act, not live out his personal life for millions of people. At the end of the day, his personal life is not any of our business. Our business is his movies and his performance. He deserves the recognition for this movie because it’s a very intense role.”

Co-star Jennifer Lawrence also starred with Yelchin in Like Crazy, the two seem to have good chemistry and Yelchin was asked about their working relationship. “Jen’s great. We got to be friends pretty quickly. I feel very lucky to have worked with her twice. She’s an amazing actress and a great person. I’m really happy for her, she deserves it. She’s just so real and very talented and smart and grounded. Grounded in a sense that she’s just a very strong, intelligent person. We had a great time on both films and it was just so comfortable. We knew how each other worked. I hope I can work with her again.”

On his upcoming role in the Fright Night remake and the original film, Yelchin said, “Actually I watched Fright Night when I was going to do the film and I love it now. It’s a great piece of filmmaking. It’s not just a horror movie from the 80s, it’s somewhere between a Fassbinder movie but not as mean spirited…it’s just got that weird Cronenberg feeling of being over the top, like bizarre and campy. I think it’s a great film, it’s so smart, and this one definitely borrows from that–not the camp, but the sort of self-conscious, self-reflective elements.”

That concludes our interview but we’d like to thank Anton very much. Be sure to check out The Beaver when it hits theatres on May 20, 2011. Also, remember to check out our review on The Beaver if you haven’t already.
http://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/anton-yelchin-kyle-killen-beaver/

Small character devices similar to that truly add a lot to the film. Being so afraid of becoming his father, Porter even has 5o-something post-its planted on his wall filled with their similarities, so he can avoid doing them.

Here’s what Anton Yelchin had to say about the SXSW reaction to the film, the notecards, and his character’s relationship with Norah (Jennifer Lawrence):

I hadn’t seen the movie. I had never seen the movie with an audience, obviously because I hadn’t seen it. It was cool I got to see it with an audience.

The film got a very interesting and, somewhat, of a polarizing reaction.

You know, listening to the audience yesterday, I feel like people seemed to enjoy it. Honestly, for me, it’s going to be polarizing film. It’s on a very serious subject. People are going to feel however they feel about it after the movie. One thing that I hope isn’t polarizing: people see how great Mel’s performance is. It’s such a great performance, and I hope that people can see that. Nothing should really should stand in the way of appreciating just how good a performance is.

And it’s one of those invisible type of performances, too.

Oh yeah, totally. Personally, when I think about Mel Gibson, I think of Mad Max, Road Warrior, and then the Lethal Weapon‘s and the all action movies he did. It’s definitely not the Mel Gibson you think about. It’s Walter Black, this broken, broken man. I really am a big fan of what he did in the film. I saw a lot of beautiful moments on set, but when you see it cut together and the scenes you didn’t get to see, it’s pretty great.

It’s such a subtle performance. My favorite is when he says ‘bye’ to his son, and just the heartbreak of it. You can hear his voice crack when it’s partially the beaver and partially Walter, and there’s just these little special moments in there. The dinner scene where he is having that panic attack and how furious he gets is pretty brilliant. It’s the one thing I hope people walkout with… I mean, who cares about anything else? His job is to act. He does it beautifully.

When it comes to Porter’s note cards, how much detail was put into those and did you and Mel actually perform a lot of those similarities in the film?

A lot of them were ones that I did, but then they rewrote them because my handwriting just sucks. There were ones — like rubbing their eyes — but there ones that Mel and I agreed with. We made lists for it. I kept in close touch with the prop department, because it’s not really something you see in the film, but Porter has that little notebook. Originally, the post-its were suppose to be in there and you’d see him write in it.

It doesn’t really factor in the movie, but I’m glad I had it, because it really helped. I wrote a lot in that journal. I think a lot of those were similar that we just picked up with. There are probably 30 or so that were real, and then they added 10 or something. There were a lot. The fundamental ones are the story points cards, especially the father card. They have a mutual anxiety over their fathers.

Can you recall one of the similarity cards that we don’t clearly see in the film, but were played out?

Yeah, I’m trying to think. There were things I wrote down that were things that Mel did, but I don’t remember how I described them. There’s a whistle. I cant remember if Mel whistled, but I whistled and that was in the script. We both do a whistle under our breaths. There was something that he would do with his eyes, but I cant remember how I described it. There was a thing that he’d do with his eyes where they get bigger, do you know what I mean? I noticed it when he’s talking, because they light up. They light up really intensely, and it’s bizarre.

There’s a lot of things, because I remember studying him through the monitor. We both did the biting of our lips, touching our hair, and the rubbing of our eyebrows was just a shot transition thing. There were a bunch of places where we’re both just biting our lips. I’m trying to think, and I’m sorry if I’m not answering your question.

It’s funny, you work, and then you just kinda let it go. It’s a burden you carry and carry, and then it’s funny how something so intense, just turns into scattered memories that you have. Basically, I would watch the monitor and pickup on little things that Mel did and incorporate them in the performance. If I couldn’t necessarily incorporate them in the performance or if they didn’t fit, I would just write the stickies.

Are devices like that helpful when it comes to creating a fully fleshed out character? I’d imagine getting 50 character traits would be beneficial.

Yeah, completely. I mean, there are other things. Porter wears a rubber band, and there’s a thing in the script with Porter snapping the rubber band. All those devices he uses to control his similarities with his father and the way he punishes himself with his idea of punishment and self-loathing… Mel and I talked about the way self-loathing and self-pity are like two sides of the same coin. You’re so full of self-loathing and simultaneously pity for yourself. The loathing builds because you’re pitying yourself. And the pity builds… it’s like a vicious circle. Definitely all these little physical things they wrote in help you build an outline for the character. It’s like connecting the dots for why he does all these things.

There’s a lot of symbolic devices that Kyle uses in the script like that. It’s interesting how Porter tries to understand people, because he cant understand his own father–

For me, it’s more that he doesn’t try to understand people, but that he understands everyone but himself. He’s willing to take on everyone else’s voice, except his own. That’s the thing: he wants to lose everything about himself. He’s just running away from something that’s getting bigger and bigger and it’s just chasing him. If you imagine someone running and things opening underneath beneath him, the faster he runs, the more things open up and he finally falls through by the end.

He just can’t avoid facing the biggest fear that he has. He can’t avoid it by punishing himself, physically. He can’t avoid it by trying to note the differences, and trying to never do them again. He can’t avoid it by writing other people’s papers. He can’t avoid what is going on, even though he tries. Everything leads to that cycle of pity, loathing, and anger. It’s just this chamber of pain that gets stronger and more unbearable to a point that doesn’t make sense to him, because he’s turning into his father.

Would you say that a part of Porter’s attraction for Norah is wanting to help someone because he can’t find a way to help Walter?

Yeah, it’s funny. I didn’t think about it that way, but that could be very valid. At the time, I had thought more about it as this subconscious desire to do something for someone that… Once again, he’ll point out to Norah what she needs to face, but he won’t face his own things. He’s not willing to face the most fundamental thing in his life. He is running away. He does this insensitive thing, and it comes from a good place. It’s naïve, not malicious, with how he wants to help her. He sees pain in her, and that’s what attracts him to Norah. She’s attractive and intelligent, and suddenly she’s in a lot of pain. Being a person consumed by pain, he’s attracted to it. Simultaneously, though, he’s unwilling to acknowledge his own pain. It’s a poignant thing that she brings him out of that.

[Spoiler Alert]

My final question: Do you consider the ending to be a happy one?

I think it is a happy ending. I think, ultimately, what’s good is that the family is brought back together. The guy is still missing an arm and they’ve still suffered through these things, but ultimately, is it happier than losing their loved one? Is it happier than what you saw in the rest of the film? Sure. What happened is Walter has finally adjusted to being the man that he is, and so has Porter. That’s the danger zone he was in that he did not want to face what was going on. Things didn’t seem like they were going to be okay for him, but suddenly through this awful experience, it’s a new beginning. The ending, really, is a beginning… Now that I think about it, not to say he wont have bumps on the road, but at least it’s starting to pickup a little.

The Beaver opens in limited release on May 6th.
http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/feature....ver.php

Rising star Anton Yelchin ("Star Trek," "Terminator Salvation") is front and center in the new flick as Porter, the teenage son of Walter (Mel Gibson), a seriously depressed man who turns to a beaver puppet as his last resort of communication (Foster plays Gibson's wife).

The film debuted at this year's South by Southwest Festival, where we sat down with Yelchin to talk about his experience working with Foster and the tabloid-maligned Gibson. And no, there were no puppets involved in this interview.
The Beaver
Summit

Jodie Foster has said that this movie was one of her most difficult projects to work on. Were you aware of that on set?
No, you know... I don't know if Jodie is saying that because it sort of turned in to something that she wasn't expecting, if it became hard for her. Because while we were shooting it was great, a great process. I'm pretty sure she's referring to everything after, the struggle of having to postpone it, not knowing if it was going to be released. The shoot itself was great, we had a great time, everyone was great to be with on set. When I came on it, we were going to do the best we could with these performances.

Do you feel like you had more time to work with the cast then you normally would?
Yeah, we did. We had a couple rehearsals with Mel and [Jennifer Lawrence], in Jodie's apartment in New York. We sat, had food, ran scenes, talked about the relationships and people. I was there for a week-and-a-half before filming and it was a huge, huge learning process. I mean, for all the work I had been doing, every day I was learning something new, a question came up that we then answered. It built and built and built and built, and a lot of that is because Jodie is just a really brilliant woman.

Jodie comes from the world of acting, she's been doing it since she was very young. Does that give her an advantage over other directors you've worked with?
I think all good directors are going to be interested in this process. I can't imagine you wouldn't want to answer an actor's questions! But I think Jodie, because she's an actress, she and I connected, because I like to ask a lot of questions before I can do the scenes. I just want to make sure why everything is happening. If for some reason things aren't aligned, we can change it or improve it, make it better. Or more accurate.

I actually sent her pages and pages of notes that I had -- not on the script, on the character -- the relationship between Porter and Walter, Walter's awful prison he had, a self-pitying world. She would answer every e-mail, answer every question.
The Beaver
Summit

Mel plays a very restrained character unlike many of his previous performances. Did his demeanor on set reflect that and what was it like working with him?
He was great. He doesn't really stay in character. We'd do these really intense scenes and then we'd break and he'd be Mel. Just really funny, intelligent, cool man to be around. But in the scenes...we talked about a lot of heavy, heavy things and it got dark. That's just what we were dealing with. I enjoyed working with him.

The movie does an amazing job of capturing real mental illness (or at least, making the audience think it does). Did you study any real life cases while preparing for the film?
I think I did reading about depression, clinical depression... I researched what Walter has, but I don't think Porter has a diagnosed depression that you would research the symptoms of. It was in the script, it made sense. All those emotions and thinking about the ideas, the self-pity, loathing -- he's so self-righteous and it's his guard.

"The Beaver" finds an amazing balance between the inherent, serious drama and lighter comedy -- how did you go about finding that tone?
It's funny, it was written like the first half was a comedy and then it got really dark, then it started elevating again. But when you approach it seriously, not just doing the "Little Miss Sunshine" thing of...that surface sort of approach, it gets really dark. I mean, if it gets funny -- wait, not to say I didn't like "Little Miss Sunshine!" -- it's different. There's a lot of serious s**t going on in that movie, but it's explored in that kind of, Wes Anderson-y way.

Identifying quirk as opposed to character?
Exactly. Alan Arkin in that movie is not a serious heroin addict and you don't explore...it's not a serious analysis on heroin addiction. But the more I think we explore this, I think because of Jodie's intelligence, it just became really trying to deal with these issues, really trying to see why these people are this way.

Inevitably it's funny. Mel is a really funny guy and the s**t he does is hilarious. Even though Jodie is in a lot of pain when she reads that first card, you laugh because it's ridiculous. It's interesting in the movie that the tone really sneaks up on you -- it's funny, it's funny, it's funny, then all of a sudden it's not really that funny anymore. It's just kind of awful. But then you laugh again! It's complex.

You're currently in training for a new movie right now, can you talk a little about that experience?
I'm doing this movie called "Odd Thomas" right now, that's based on a book by Dean Koontz. Stephen Sommers ["The Mummy," "G.I. Joe"] is doing it and he just wants me to bulk up. I'm eating a lot. I woke up today and had about five eggs, bacon, fruit plate...an hour and a half later I had a filet mignon...then I ate ribs, sausage and brisket a little bit ago. I'm eating, eating, eating.
http://www.nextmovie.com/blog/anton-yelchin-interview-the-beaver/