WHEN HEMANTH MET LAURA HARRIS, STAR OF SEVERANCE

25 June 2006

By Hemanth Kissoon

Hemanth: You have a real eye for cult projects, e.g. Suicide Kings, The Faculty, Dead Like Me, and Severance is likely to join them. What goes through your mind when picking a film/TV show?  

Laura: What goes through my mind is I’d really like to work, please hire me. That’s what goes through my mind [laughs]. I don’t know if I’ve planned my career as much as that but Severance was something I read that I really loved. The last few years I’ve been educating myself more and more about film, screenwriting and scripts and everything else. I never had that education before so I would essentially just audition and work or if I was lucky enough to be offered something do that as well. Now I read something I actually have a grasp on its value to me or in general, and that grasp grows of course as you learn more and more. So something like Severance is just a fucking kick-ass script, totally awesome and the role is awesome and the people involved are awesome – it’s win-win.
 
Hemanth: There are so many horror films being made at the moment especially in America and Japan, but what drew you to come to Britain to do one which is not renowned for horror movies?  
 
Laura: My first boyfriend at age 12 our relationship consisted of him on the phone doing hours of Monty Python bits just reciting them and I would laugh and laugh and laugh - funniest thing in the world, and Blackadder, and Kids in the Hall which is very Canadian – the irony that it’s very similar humour, which the movie obviously has in abundance. And my two best friends are English and my room-mate’s English, they are all from London, so I almost feel more comfortable here than I do anywhere in America. My history is mostly Scottish, and English, to be accurate. It just feels comfortable, and I’ve been lucky enough to come out here and work a couple of times.

Hemanth: What is it that you love about movies?  

Laura: I think they are just an absolutely incredible medium to impact people, whether it’s just for fun or for something really serious; and what I love about them is that they can do all of that, and you can even do all of that in one line, you can do of all that in one scene, or pick a topic and do it in a movie. So much can be accomplished, so many people come together to do this beautiful thing, and I love that teamwork part of it as well.

Hemanth: What with Hostel, and now Severance, Eastern European tourist boards must be up in arms at their portrayal as a haven for lawlessness and psychotic murderers. What was your experience of filming in Hungary?
 
Laura: We were in the middle of nowhere so just beautiful forests. I don’t think I would be able to give you a fair idea of what Hungary is like at any level, except there are incredible insects. There are these lush forests and insects the size of your hand everywhere. But that’s not telling you anything.
 
Hemanth: So Severance wasn’t like a documentary? No psychos running round the woods?
 
Laura: Not that I met. No more psychos than in Los Angeles.
 
Hemanth: Horror as a genre seems to be consistently doing well at the box-office. Why do you think it is really popular at the cinemas at the moment?
 
Laura: I don’t know how to answer that. I’m not enough of a film student to be able to give an accurate idea, however I’m learning and I’m interested. I love listening to Chris Smith [writer-director] talk about it because he is such a film geek and he really knows what he’s talking about. He’s actually answered that question and what he said was, we are dealing with different topics right now - Eastern Europe being broken open, and terrorism – there is something going in the atmosphere of the world that can maybe be expressed easily through these horror films. And it’s being expressed in every genre. People are discussing it. But it definitely lends itself to some interesting slasher stuff as well.

Hemanth: Yeah, Night of the Living Dead in the 60s was about racism and Dawn of the Dead in the 70s was about consumerism. Definitely post 9/11 people have different takes, that’s why I was interested in what you thought.
 
Laura: To me this isn’t a very gory movie. I can’t watch a lot of sheer violence because I take it on. I feel sick for days. I can’t reject it, I can’t watch it and say that’s fabulous blood, but I do love doing it, being covered in blood. I love being heavily physically pretend injured. It’s interesting, it’s so animal so it’s really fun to do.
 
Hemanth: Sometimes in horror films, especially in B movies, the leading ladies tend to be bimbos but this role is more close to Ridley Scott’s Alien with Ripley. Did you enjoy that aspect?
 
Laura: I watched that movie repetitively and also watched //Kill Bill// repetitively and also watched Working Girl. So a little bit of Melanie Griffiths but not from Jersey from Michigan, with the Alien construction – because she’s not really a big part of the initial part of that film. She’s making really great choices. You are introduced to her but you have no idea she’s the one that’s going to live which is very similar. And it’s not gory, there’s something different going on. These people are fighting for their lives and it’s a scenario that they were sort of gypped by essentially. They didn’t have responsibility and they didn’t know everything that was going on. What I liked about this scenario is that individuals do have responsibility for what they do in their lives and so potentially they’ve created a monster that’s coming back to bite them.

Hemanth: With most horror-comedies like Scream and recently Slither there’s a mixture of the two, but here there seems to be a clear delineation – first half is funny and the second half is scary. It’s an interesting structure. Did you notice that in the script or was that put together later? 

Laura: That was definitely in the script. It is like a political-comedy-slasher. To me it was not horrific. The comedy really spoke to me, and the politics really spoke to me, and the horror was a great way to show it.

Hemanth: You are only young but you have been in the industry for at least 20 years, how has your opinion of the film and television business changed in that time?

Laura: Wow, well, my opinion, actually I wrote an essay [laughs]. Briefly, in Canada it’s very different working there. There’s no star structure. I never saw anything I did from the age of 5 to the age of 15. I did American series but never saw them. So it was all about the experience of working. I wasn’t watching what I was doing or seeing the commercials and understanding the business side of it at any level. At 19 I went to America and still didn’t really watch TV and just never really involved myself with that side of it. Recently I’ve been trying to be really an adult about the whole thing and understand about it. The only thing I’ve noticed since I started paying attention is this awesome shift that film actors can now do television. Meryl Streep is on HBO, Al Pacino is on HBO, that’s awesome. Not great for people trying to get into the business, because essentially if movie stars can do television then a lot of television actors aren’t going to be working. But what is really cool about it is that you can just do whatever work you want to as long as it’s good. That is really exciting to me, and the internet – the content. Having as many mediums as possible is incredibly exciting.
 
Hemanth: Have you found it easier to get the work that you want to get as you’ve progressed or is it still as challenging to break down the barriers to the best work?

Laura: I think the more I’ve paid attention the better my career has become, because I now have a clearer idea when I read something the value of it.
 
Hemanth: Pay attention in what sense?
 
Laura: Pay attention to understanding if a script is good, whether television or film. Understanding what makes something good and what gives it value, and having reference points to cinema and television and good work. To be able to understand why it’s good what makes it good, essentially like any kind of film study. I never had any of that. So having done that my career has gotten better since I have been paying attention to that stuff. And it makes sense. I read American Beauty. This is horrible. I can’t believe I’m going to say this but I read the script to audition for it, ‘Oh yeah I don’t want to do nudity – for Mena Suvari’s role – I can’t do nudity, I’m sick of doing nudity, I can’t do nudity anymore’. That movie is so not about her being naked. It is so stupid. When I watch the movie I go ‘Oh shit I need to understand what a good script is’, because if I’m turning down that audition I’m an absolute moron. It was a great revelatory moment of ‘Now like you’ve got to get down and do some studying’.
 
Hemanth: Arguably your highest profile success is 24 season 2. You were a kick-ass bad guy. One of the reasons is that it comes out of nowhere. What do you think about that role?
 
Laura: I loved it, it was such a privilege. I had two lines and was hired to do one or two episodes and they just run with it. It’s pure creativity happening there and it’s really informed with facts. The writers’ room is just really fucking intelligent people, scientists and all sorts of interesting people. So it’s not just a Hollywood fuck-fest [laughs]. They’re really trying to do something interesting. So to be involved with something that creative there is nothing better. And the excitement of getting each new script, not knowing what’s going to happen is thrilling, because you never know what you’ll be doing in the next episode.
 
Hemanth: Did you know that you were going to be bad?
 
Laura: No, I had no idea. I read it I was totally shocked. It was completely so exciting it’s ridiculous. So cool.
 
Hemanth: How’s it feel to be tortured by Jack Bauer?

Laura: It was so hot, so sexy. There’s just something kinky about it, that whole scene. I don’t know what it was. It was dramatic and painful and everything else but what was really happening for me every time he was this close to my face I was like ‘Oh my god you are the most fucking gorgeous creature I have ever seen’. His voice is like melted butter and it’s just like soaking all over your face. That’s how I felt.
 
Hemanth: Great answer. It’s huge, as such has there been a tangible impact to your career?
 
Laura: 2, definitely. That kind of visibility really helps. I immediately went into another series – Dead Like Me. After Dead Like Me I pretty much had to take a year off, I just took offers. I did this [Severance] that year, that was last year. So being able to work that way is a privilege and that definitely stems from 24.

Hemanth: Probably a lot of fan boys have a crush on you because you do a lot of horror [Stephen King’s IT, Habitat, The Faculty] and sci-fi [The X-Files, Sliders, The Outer Limits]. What draws you to those genres?

Laura: They shoot all that stuff in Vancouver so I grew up doing it, that’s just what you do. Now I’m really fascinated by the mythology of sci-fi, and I’ve actually met a lot of comic-con-geek-cinephile guys and I fucking love those dudes. I feel like I am like them in a girl’s body and just want to soak up the information so badly. It’s interesting there’s just a huge body in me that lives as them [laughs]. When I hear Chris go off or anyone who’s a cinephile they’re just shaking with the joy at just how much they love every tiny detail there’s nothing I love more. I think it’s so cool.

Hemanth: You were also in A Mighty Wind. Christopher Guest is a legendary satirist. What was your experience on that film?
 
Laura: My experience was that he wasn’t hiring actors; but I’m such a huge Christopher Guest fan and a friend (I can’t say who it is) they were looking for this girl who they couldn’t find to play the tambourine girl, and they put a regular photo, no head shot, on his desk and he was like fine hire her essentially. I was like ‘Oh my god!’ That was like one of the best moments for me. So for a couple of days we did photo shoots and learned a couple of songs and got up there and did it. I had no real contact, I mean he was there and directing us but it was very much just sit and row, simple stuff.
 
Hemanth: Robert Rodriguez has done some patchy films but after Desperado and Sin City he has become a legend. What was it like on The Faculty? You had a lot of people building their careers on that film Josh Hartnett, Usher and yourself to a certain extent.
 
Laura: He’s like the coolest guy in the world. He was truly the first auteur I ever worked with. Chris I would say is the second. To work with one at all in a lifetime is real a gift. I didn’t know horror at all back then, I didn’t appreciate it like I do now. I kind of wished that I had because that movie had so many odes to like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing, etc. etc. but I didn’t know it. But even not knowing that, even not understanding how cool it was to be there I loved him deeply and his wife. They are just a dynamic force. And he’s another uber-cinephile-geek, so that energy is very similar to Chris’s energy actually. He’s a little calmer, he like plays the guitar and is a fucking cool guy, and handsome as shit – and everything he tells you to do you’re like ‘Ok, tell me again’ [mock-swoon].
 
Hemanth: Another cult thing of yours I liked was Suicide Kings. We didn’t get a proper release but when I was in New York a long time ago I rented it out. I saw on the cover all these guys I recognized – Christopher Walken, Jay Mohr and a grown up Henry Thomas, etc.
 
Laura: That was my first job in LA. I moved down there and after a month and a half I booked that and I was like ‘This is the coolest thing, I can’t believe I’m working here!’ I think it actually cost me money. I had to get a work permit to do it, I didn’t have a Green Card which cost like $1600. It was a really low budget movie. I was like ‘I’ll pay for my work permit’. They were amazing. It was a small part but it’s kinda real neat introduction to LA as your first gig. I couldn’t do TV for years, I had to do only movies in order to get the work permit because you need the time to get the work permit.
 
Hemanth: The UK is pretty fashionable for filming at the moment e.g. Woody Allen, Batman Begins, Basic Instinct 2, plus the theatre too. Have you any plans to come back again to work?
 
Laura: I would love to work here non-stop. If I could live and work here I would be the happiest person alive. I love it here, my soul thrives here. I just want to like move into the Tate Modern and have a little corner in the top floor [laughs]; go to work every day with English crews.
 
Hemanth: I know it’s tough, but have you thought about branching into theatre? It seems to be a rite of passage almost for many actors.

Laura: I haven’t thought about it but I love going to the theatre. I watch tons of theatre and I enjoy it immensely. I have so much respect, like for good screenwriters, that you’re doing so well why would I come along and fuck it up [laughs]. If it was to happen I would never reject the idea of it essentially to reject the idea of it. I have so much to learn right now even in the film medium, so much to learn and to accomplish, and maybe if I feel if I had got to a point there and it made sense to make a turn in that way I would definitely do it.
 
Hemanth: You’re doing some interesting work, you have got a TV film with Callie Khouri [Thelma & Louise] coming up, have you got anything else in the pipeline that you can talk about?
 
Laura: That’s it, no, there are just those two things that we’ve already finished. So when I get back I sort of have to hit the ground running, I’ve been told [laughs]. I actually did three films in a row but I didn’t have to audition. The hardest work I think is auditioning; putting yourself out there in that climate of rejection, and doing the monkey dance is very hard, for me anyway. I have to go at it full force now.
 
Hemanth: You have a production company and produced Come Together.
 
Laura: It wasn’t released. We went to a bunch of festivals. That company doesn’t exist anymore, and that was however many years ago. I just really believed in that film-maker so essentially I gave him money to make a movie, but didn’t even want to produce it, it just happened that way.
 
Hemanth: That was five years ago, when you were only 24, I wondered if you had caught the bug to produce, write or direct?
 
Laura: No, I caught the bug to act [laughs]. I was like oh what a privilege what it is we do. I kinda realized the beautiful value of an actor, because until that point coming from a socialist place I was like ‘Why don’t they pitch in more? Why are actors are so protected and left in their trailer, and put in their trailer essentially?’ And I came to understand there is a value that everyone has and I began to really truely understand from every perspective which is the great gift of it.
 
Hemanth: If your fairy godmother came down and waved a wand over you and you could work with three directors on film or TV who would you choose?
 
Laura: Steven Soderbergh, Ang Lee – who I dig every single film and I am just crazy for, and Alfonso Cuarón.
 
Hemanth: Fingers crossed!

Laura: 2007 here I come [laughs]!