Interview: Sarah Paulson on the Simplicity of Blue Jay

Sarah Paulson recently earned her first Emmy for her portrayal of Marcia Clark in The People vs OJ Simpson. She’s currently starring on FX’s American Horror Story. She’s also appearing alongside writer and co-star Mark Duplass in the critically acclaimed Blue Jay. Shot in seven days, the film allowed Paulson to explore a more traditional character in a quieter stetting.

Blue Jay is about former high school sweethearts, Amanda (Paulson) and Jim (Duplass) who bump into each other one day at a small town grocery store. It’s been over twenty years since they last saw each other. Jim is in Crestline to sell his mother’s home, and Amanda is visiting her pregnant sister. The two reconnect, reminiscing, but as they spend more time with each other the two realize that walking the road of nostalgia together may lead to heartbreak.

I caught up with Paulson earlier this week to talk about working on Blue Jay and the experience of shooting the film in seven days.

Awards Daily: Congratulations on the Emmy win.

Sarah Paulson: Thank you so much.

AwardsDaily: I have to ask, did you take it to New York with you?

Sarah Paulson: [laughs] I’d like to take her with me everywhere, but no, I left her in Los Angeles and I came here on my very own.

AD: This film, did you create a back story for Amanda before you started filming?

SP: Yes, that was part of the process that was so interesting and exciting, and something I’d never done before. Mark had emailed me in the middle of the night, he said, “Do you feel up for doing this? Do you have any time right now? I think we can do it in seven days.” I talked to him on the phone, he pitched me this idea that we would go up to Crestvine, Ca, shoot for seven days, and we’d be done. I thought that it sounded so terrifying, but then I said to him, “Count me in.”

He had this idea, and in fleshing it out he wanted all of us involved, we sat around this room. It was basically Mark Duplass and Alex [Alexandre Lehmann], our director, his producers and I. We sat around, there was a bean bag chair involved where it felt like a giant group therapy session. and we threw all our shit up against the wall, and we told each other things that we hadn’t really told anyone except for our very closest friends or our shrink which made us all instantly very close. Mark went away, he hashed some things out, and he came up with this outline of all the beats in this story and the backstory based on which we had come up for each of our characters, in the room. There was a real mush pot of both of our experiences, and other people’s experiences in the room. We came up with all of that together. I had also expressed fear to Mark that I had never done this format before of largely improvising something, and shooting so quickly.

The good news is that we shot it sequentially so we started in the grocery store, that was the first day we shot, which helped infused all of the awkwardness and stilted feeling between two people who have a big history but haven’t seen each other in many many years. So, that was really helpful, and we came up with a lot of backstory, and a lot of material, and we showed up to work. I would say, What needs to happen in this scene in order to propel this story forward? I was going to get lost if I didn’t know where we were headed. I’m so used to having a script where I say, This is at least I know where we’re going.

Not having had that, it was scary. So, Mark would write down a few pages of things he thought were happening in the scene, and what he thought he needed to have the story go forward. He and Alex would sit around, figure it out, and we would just play it. We’d do it again and again, a million different ways, and Alex and Mark would weigh it up by saying what they thought would work about this, here’s what we think doesn’t, here’s where we can mine some more stuff, here’s where we think we should let this go. We did it in seven days, and it was incredible.

AD: I was going to ask, each time I speak to you, you’re doing multiple projects. You’ve got to be the hardest work actress in Hollywood.

SP: It’s just a testament to how much I love to do it, and how lucky I feel that I can’t believe that I get to. I’m still waiting for someone to say, “Hey, hey ,hey , we did not mean to let you in here for this long. Get out.” Mark just asked if I had time. It was around the time of the Spirit Awards. We both had to go to them, and we took a four-day break so we could get back and both do our movie stuff. I was promoting Carol at the time. And then we went back for three days to finish. It was crazy.

AD: Was there one scene that stood out for you? Because for me, it was the scene that featured the Annie Lennox song, No More I Love You’s. I went off to Spotify to listen to the song.

SP: Yes. We had to buy the song. [laughs] It the perfect song, that when it comes on, you think, “Oh my god, I remember how much I loved this song.” that’s the movie in essence for me where you’re bobbing along, and your life is so busy, and so full of its current tasks and responsibilities that you have left who you were by the side of the road. It doesn’t have to be a painful thing, and you don’t even need to know that you’ve done it. Then, you reconnect with the person that triggers, and it starts firing. It’s like meeting yourself back then, only now. It’s a very powerful thing, it’s got a lot of propulsion. It can be very good to revisit old things, even if it’s to shut it and say, that’s not for me anymore. Or, wow, look what I was capable of having at a such a young age, a big romance where I was really there for someone, and they were there for me, and I am capable of that now as a grown up, even though somehow I’ve convinced myself that I’m not, and that I’ve never really been able to have one since then. There’s all that wonderful stuff that can come out of having been stirred up again.

AD: Was there anything that you learned about yourself that you took away from that experience?

SP: I really liked working in that format of having backstory, a history, having something fleshed out really well, and then letting the camera roll. I think you can only really do it with someone like Mark who really knows what works and what doesn’t. I think that would be hard to do with just anyone because you could probably go off the rails pretty quickly, but when you have someone like that who you trust, it’s a very empowering thing.
I do think there’s a component of vulnerability by working in that way because you don’t have the security or safety of a script and the character ticks. This is the first part I’ve played in a long time where I don’t have a wig or I’m not speaking with a southern accent, or I don’t have a heroin problem or I don’t have a weird perm. It’s the first time you see my hair, that’s my dress, there’s all my own clothes, and it was an interesting thing to not have anywhere to hide, and I hadn’t worked that way in a long time and it was both terrifying and exhilarating. I realized that I would like to work that way in the future and soon.

AD: That’s another thing I loved about it. I loved the naturalness of seeing you like that, and also the black and white.

SP: Thank you.

AD: How do you perceive that relationship between your character Amanda and Mark’s character, Jim?

SP : I don’t know what the end result is, as I haven’t seen the film yet. I can’t speak from what it’s like to watch, but I know what it was like to shoot. It was very liberating and scary. I trusted Mark. He had co-created Togetherness which co-starred my best friend in the world, Amanda Peet. I happened to think her work on that show was extraordinary. She would always talk about how incredible working with them was like, and how fun it was, and how she almost didn’t want to do anything else ever, and that’s how great it was. She and I have similar sensibilities, so I thought I was just going to trust it and dive in here. I think it takes trust in the person you’re playing opposite because you really have no net underneath you. It’s either going to work, or it’s not, and you just don’t know until it’s over. It was really a labor of love and an act of faith.

AD: It’s truly beautiful. Cinema needs more stories like this, the beauty and simpleness. OK. I’m going to ask one AHS question, you’re working alongside great actors, is there any one person you’d love to get on the show?

SP: Emma Thompson. Emma Thompson or Cher. You’ve got to be very game to be on the show. There are so many wonderful actors on the show, and that’s really the most exciting part about it. Everybody who shows up and says yes to it, there’s just one thing, you have to be game. To me, Cher and Emma Thompson fit that bill to a tee.

Also, I would just sit next to Emma and say, “Tell me about life and what it means to be a person, and how to act, and what to think and do please.” That’s what I’d do.

I would beg Ryan to put her on, and then I’d beg her to have scenes with only me. I wouldn’t want to share her with anyone.

AD: No killing. There can’t be any killing.

SP: She can’t kill me, and I can’t kill her. What I’d like is if we did conjoined twins season 7 with me and Emma Thompson as the sisters conjoined.

AD: Sarah, thank you so much. It’s always a delight to speak to you.

SP: Thank you.