October 2, 1997

Rough Cut Q&A's with Hope Davis (Myth of Fingerprints) excerpt

Tell me a little bit of the story line of Myth of Fingerprints.
It's kind of a movie that creeps up on you. Everyone says the family in America is in decline, and it's kind of a [study] of why it's in crisis. There have been no suicides or murders and nobody was raped or anything in this family, but the whole family is kind of unglued, and nobody can communicate, nobody really knows how to talk. So there's this pall over this group of people that really should know how to love and support one another, and it kind of has a very tragic effect on all of the characters' lives. And they're coming together now as adults and kind of trying to figure out why there no love there, why it's so cold in the house. You know, it shouldn't be -- Why are we all so tense, and why can't we talk to one another? Which is, I think, a trap that families fall into sometimes, you know? And it's what interested me about the film. I remember, when my family, you know, when we were younger, I remember saying to my parents, 'cause they had a hard time for a while, and I remember saying to them, you know, none of us have cancer, we're all here, you know, no one's dying, none of have cancer, why are we all so, why is everyone so upset, you know, why can't we love each other. And that's what, you know, kind of called to me about this film.

And you play the girlfriend, an outsider, basically, coming in for Thanksgiving, um, who says what she thinks.
Right.

Which is really the opposite of the character that you played in Daytrippers, in a way.
Yeah. She's also a bit sex-mad. Well, everybody says that, and I didn't think of her that way, you know? I mean, the fact that she likes to have sex a lot, you know, it's like, why not? You know? What's so shocking about that, you know? I mean, for her it's like, "let's do it," you know?

Well, what was it like doing those scenes? You've got a very handsome co-star, I must say.
Yes, I did.

Couldn't have been that bad.
Actually, I was really nervous about it before I got up to the shoot, because it was the first stuff we were gonna be doing and I felt like, 'Oh, God,' because it's not just a little, it was like sex from the beginning clear to the end, and I just thought it was gonna be so humiliating. But Michael Vartan, the actor who played my boyfriend was so much more nervous than I was, that I actually kind of relaxed and had to say, "Oh, it's gonna be fine," and truly when you do these things, it's so kind of terrifying that you just, you block it out afterwards, you don't remember, you know?

Like having a baby.
Yeah, you block the experience afterwards. You know, all of a sudden you get up and you stand up and you look at the crew and you realize what you just did in front of them and -- but I didn't have to be naked, so it wasn't too scary. The other thing about that relationship that I thought was interesting is that it's kind of about him growing up a little bit and being realistic about love. What I liked about it is he had never been able to tell her that he loved her, you know, and yet she didn't care. She was there and she loved him and was able to say it every day, you know, and just kept coming at him and saying, you know, "I'm here, and I love you and I'll wait till you're ready to come to me," you know?

Now, in your mind does that relationship continue, or...
Oh yeah, you mean of the characters? Yeah, yeah. I think they make a good pair.

They get married?
Oh sure. In Movieland, yeah.

Thanks to vartanetc.!

© TNT Rough Cut 1997

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