Interview: Sarah Silverman on I Smile Back

In I Smile Back, Sarah Silverman plays Laney, a suburban wife and mother. She has everything; the perfect family, the perfect husband (Josh Charles), and a big house. But underneath, Laney is suffering from depression and addiction that sends her spiraling into a world of recklessness.
The film is based on the Amy Koppleman novel and Silverman was approached by Koppleman to play the lead character after hearing her on the Howard Stern Show.

In a departure from her comedy, Silverman took on the role. I sat down with her to talk about her latest role, and discussed the challenges of making the film during a bitter winter in New York.

Awards Daily: Happy New Year. Did you have a good one?

Sarah Silverman: I woke up a little sick and kind of jet lagged and I slept all day, woke up, had dinner and then went back to sleep. It’s kind of perfect. Then I woke up January 1st and my boyfriend and I watched all ten hours of Making a Murderer.

AD: It’s so addictive. It’s crazy. I think everybody did that this weekend. I’m glad we’re finally speaking, I know we’ve been trying to get this done for a long time. So, Amy Koppleman says she heard you on Howard Stern talking about depression and thought you were perfect for her book. You read it and said yes. What went through your head when you heard it was getting made?

SS: I was shocked. It was easy to attach myself to it. I didn’t really think twice because most movies don’t get made. It didn’t really occur to me what happened. I really loved the script but I was able to be fearless and be, “Yeah, I’ll do this,” because it didn’t occur to me it would happen. A few years later it did and I was so happy, but I also had a full body panic attack and was in a ball on my bathroom floor thinking, “What have I done? I can’t do this. What if I can’t do this?” Then it occurred to me, it’s kind of Laney’s entire state of mind, that state of anxiety and what if and terrorizing yourself. I thought maybe I could do this.

AD: And you did it so well. What was your first reaction when you first read the screenplay?

SS: I really loved it. What I love about it, is I don’t think there’s anyone who hasn’t been touched or hasn’t experienced one side or another of depression or addiction, and I thought it was cool that it was the kind of movie that didn’t really tell you how to feel, it just was objectively this story and whether you have total disdain or empathy, or sympathy, or hatred of Laney has entirely everything to do with the prism of your own experience that you’re watching this movie through.

I love that about art in general and this is really one of those things where how you feel about it is so entirely dependent on your life experience that you walk into the theater with.

AD: What additions did you bring to the character having suffered from depression yourself or was it there in the screenplay?

SS: I did have myself as resource to a degree of depression, the bare bones of it. I was able to use a handful of very good friends, comedians who have their own experiences with addiction and with depression, so I could get specifics. I don’t suffer from addiction but I’m embedded in it as a comedian. I was able to use a lot of wonderful open, honest friends.

I wasn’t bringing my usual bag of tricks to it, I had a lot of help from the director, Amy and Paige, the writers who were there every day, and they really helped restrain me from reaching into that bag of tricks that every comic has and most actors too. Not go with my instinct, but always go with the director’s take on the scene and not just rely on anything familiar to me.

AD: The one thing I notice is comedians make such great dramatic actors. Why is that?

SS: I think it’s because you could probably say 100% of comedians become funny as a means of surviving childhood. That’s what makes them everyman in the way that we are just trying to survive our childhood. The thing that comedians do is that they become funny, but it’s something everyone can relate to in terms of, Laney is just trying to survive her childhood.

We see what she went through, there are much worse childhoods, it’s not a competition. Life is hard for her. There are people with worse childhoods that survive them, but life is hard for her. She is living in a state of self-terror. What if I ruin my kids? What if I abandon them? What if? There’s no room for anything else. It becomes a self fulfilled prophecy.

There’s a point when we realize our parents are people, and if we’re lucky we realize they’re also just trying to survive their own childhoods.

As singular or rare or shitty the things that Laney does are, I don’t think there’s anyone who hasn’t been touched by what she’s going through on one side or another. That’s why I think it gets very strong reactions.

AD: How hard was it for you to shoot this in 20 days and during one of New York’s most brutal winters? You’re not in fur coats or puffy jackets!

SS: [laughs] It’s true and it’s funny because people say, “What was the hardest scene, was it the scene with the teddy bear?” For me, those things were exhilarating, it was hard and it was really heavy. For me, the hardest thing was having to be in freezing cold weather in clothes that are not warm.

AD: You could see that it was freezing cold, but then she’s not wearing anything warm.

SS: [laughs] That’s so funny that you noticed that because honesty I feel like such a douche that the thing for me was that I was so cold.

AD: How did you leave Laney behind once you wrapped and had to carry on with life?

SS: It was hard. It’s so funny, all the things I used to roll my eyes about that I’d hear actors say, “Oh, it was hard to come out of character.” or “So and so was so generous” I used to roll my eyes at these things, rolling your eyes is usually something you don’t understand. It was hard, I felt like I had a low grade flu for about three weeks afterwards. I wasn’t really myself.

It’s hard for me, my emotions are very compactly compartmentalized inside me. I don’t have easy access to them, and I needed to have access to them. She feels so much and covers it expertly.

I couldn’t just access them and put them back between scenes. I don’t have my 10,000 hours in of dramatic acting that I have that ease with my instruments or whatever you call it. [laughs]. It was real hard, and it took a while to feel like myself again. To a degree I’m a little bit forever changed, but in a good way.

AD: When you left her was the feeling different to how you started with her?

SS: I really tried to play her without judgment and objectively, as time goes on and I think about it, and I talk about it, and while promoting it, and deconstructing it, and there are things I don’t want to say, I judge about her, she’s sick, she’s fucked up, but where she blames herself for her son getting this nervous tic, if I were to be brutally honest, I think it is her fault.

When you’re a mother with a desperate, anxious love for your kids, even though it’s a big love, that energy is real, it’s science, it’s matter. It’s not science, hippy shit. Energy is something kids take on. It’s the ugly truth.

My opinions kind of change with the tide and it’s a very subjective movie.

AD: So, tell me, what’s harder, comedy, drama or this awards marketing campaign?

SS: This drama was particularly bleak and took a lot out of me emotionally. Comedy isn’t easy but I’ve been doing it so long. Press, the Q&A’s and interviews like this, I really like because it’s a subject that’s interesting to me. I’m interested in people and I like talking to people and it touches me.

Press junkets are soul killing. You’ve got 3 minutes with angry interviewers who are pissed they have only 3 minutes with you and you have no control over it, and you’re answering the same questions over and over 1000 times over the course of a ten-hour day. It’s not very attractive to complain as an actor over any aspect of it because you know, it’s not heavy lifting, but that said, not every thing that’s hard is heavy lifting. It’s a little soul killing but I do like this part of it, talking about it in longer form. [laughs].

AD: What’s next?

SS: I just did a movie with Naomi Watts. I’m working on a few things that are nothing to talk about but will come to fruition. In short-term, I’m trying to get my stand-up back. When I’m shooting stuff, I can’t do my stand-up because I would die from the hours. So it’s one step forward, three steps back. I’m constantly trying to get back to who I am a little.

AD: Well on that note, are you doing any stand-up soon? It’s been a while.

SS: I do local. I’m trying to get an hour together. I move slow. I work slow. I’m a slow honer. My two specials are ten years apart. [laughs].

AD: So, we’ll expect the other one soon?

SS: Much sooner than ten years.