Going to Extremes: Judy Davis on 'The Dressmaker'

If there's a list of great living film actresses, you would likely find Judy Davis near the top. From her debut in "My Brilliant Career" in in 1979, the Australian-born Davis has astounded audiences with her sharply-etched performances, which include her Oscar-nominated turns in David Lean's "A Passage to India" and Woody Allen's "Husband and Wives" to her Emmy-winning portrayal of Judy Garland in the biopic "Me and My Shadows." She won her first Emmy for playing Glenn Close's romantic interest in "Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story" and her third for the icy alcoholic socialite in "The Starter Wife."

She is currently on screens in another role that has already won her awards: as Molly, Kate Winslet's headstrong mother, in the new dark comedy "The Dressmaker." The film, which was released in Australia last year, won Davis the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (the Australian equivalent of the Oscar) for Best Supporting Actress.

Set in the early 1950s, the film (directed by Jocelyn Moore) follows what happens when Winslet returns to the small Australian town that expelled her decades ago for what happened when she was a little girl. At the onset Molly, Davis's character, has no idea who she is; but, slowly, Winslet brings her back to the world. She also uses the skills she learned in Parisian couterie houses to outfit the women in the town. By mid-film, they're running through their chores wearing Dior-styled gowns. The retro, high fashion designs are by Marion Boyce and Margot Wilson.

While Winslet has a romantic interest in her neighbor, hunky Liam Helmsworth, the film's key relationship is between her and Davis, and their chemistry together makes this dark comedy well worth watching. Davis spoke to EDGE last week from Sydney (where she is currently directing a play) about Molly, working with Winslet and what Woody Allen has taught her about comedy.

Making her comic and real

EDGE: What did you think of Molly when you read the script?

Judy Davis: Molly was a character that was very, very strong on the page. All I really had to do was play her, make her honest and comic. The delicate thing, if one can use that word in reference to Molly, and perhaps one shouldn't, was to strike the savage Molly in a wild, comic note, yet trying to keep it real. Otherwise Kate Winslet's job would have been impossible. Molly's darkly comic in a way, but sad too. At the beginning of the film she doesn't know what's going on, but she starts to heal; so that was my arc I guess.

EDGE: Molly is one wild woman. I think at one point you call yourself 'crazy' and another 'a hag.' At first, she's living in squalor and has no idea where she is or that Kate is her daughter. But over the course of the film, she finds herself. I guess that is what you mean by her arc. How did you approach playing her extremes?

Judy Davis: She was really extreme. She starts out drunk and unaware of where she is and what she is doing. She has no idea of how old she is. When she flirts with Liam she thinks she's kind of young and is literally jealous of her daughter. Then she began to heal in part because the daughter is looking after her. So it was tricky to find that balance. It is easy to go over the top, and perhaps I did. I remember when we were making it I think I went over-the-top once and I became scared. But it was what Jocelyn (Moorehouse, the film's director) wanted. In fact I didn't go as far as she wanted me. She kept suggesting I be cranky. And I said I just can't be cranky. I don't know. I can't obviously ever see anything I am involved in objectively. I just can't. Maybe in 10 years I will look at this performance and weep profusely with regret; but for now I just did my job as the director and script required, but I guess it was out there.

EDGE: What was working so closely with Kate Winslet like?

Judy Davis: I have always loved Kate Winslet's work as an actress. She's very honest and I was thrilled about working with her. She was the main reason why I thought this would be really interesting to work with, that and working with Jocelyn. 99 percent of my role was with Kate so working with her was important. And when we had that fight, she actually picked me up and was wearing high heel shoes. She is very brave, a real trouper.

EDGE: And to flirt so aggressively with Liam Hemsworth?

Judy Davis: Oh, dear. There's a touch of my mother in that. My mother was a shocking flirt. I always thought she would flirt with my husband. When she was old lady and was struggling with dementia, she flirted with him outrageously and was terribly irritated by me being there. There is a bit of my mother in Molly, and who wouldn't flirt with Liam anyway. I would have preferred being a bit more done-up in those scenes.

A liberating experience

EDGE: I read when you saw the film for the first time, you saw your mother in your performance. Was that the case?

Judy Davis: It was My mother use to make dresses. A lot of her generation in my country in the 1950s, there wasn't much money, would make dresses; but she was good at it. I remember standing in the kitchen and my mother was fitting me for a pant-suit, you know the ones that you had to button up the back, and I would think, 'How am I going to get in and out of this thing?' A lot of my teenage years had me dreaming of buying a dress or jeans, which she wouldn't let me wear; and escaping the reality of standing in the kitchen with my mother with pins in her mouth. I was a bit horrified when I saw the film because I saw her up on the screen through me. I mean, it's exaggerated and a bit nightmarish vision of my mother, but she was definitely there. She died before I made it and I am not quite sure how she would have taken it. Maybe she would have thought it funny, but she might have been offended.

EDGE: When you got on the set dressed as Molly were you envious of the other actresses that got to wear those quite amazing frocks?

Judy Davis: I did think when I saw them that I made an error. But not really, in my case there was something liberating about going to work and not really having to wear costumes. I was very, very comfortable and didn't feel self-conscious. I mean in a lot of films you have to spend hours getting ready, but clearly that never was going to be an issue with Molly. So it was liberating.

Channeling Hedda Hopper

EDGE: You have been cast in the upcoming FX's anthology series 'Feud,' which deals with the animosity between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on the set of 'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane.' You will be playing Hedda Hopper, who was one of the most influential Hollywood columnists of her time. Are you looking into her life in preparation for your performance?

Judy Davis: Oh my God. What a woman she was! What an incredibly powerful women, so sure of things. I am afraid of people who are so very sure of things. And I think in her time she was quite dangerous. I think she was utterly convinced that she had the high moral ground. She was very convinced that her ideas of what it was like to be an American. She was a product of her times. And some people actually loved her and spoke very kindly of her. She was so full of life, I think. What comes across most strongly about her is her energy and so full of life. It was staggering and I do admire that.

EDGE: You are currently directing a production of Brian Friel's play 'Faith Healer' in Sydney that stars your husband. Have you thought of film directing?

Judy Davis: I really love it directing for the stage. Love it. But films? I don't know. The thing about cinema from my perspective is that it takes so much money to make a film, you have to have something so strong to say, don't you, to make it worthwhile because there are so many films made. You just don't want to add to the din.

Working with Woody

EDGE: You have made five films with Woody Allen. What have you learned from working with him so closely?

Judy Davis: He has said a couple of things about comedy that have really stuck with me. I was doing a scene in 'Husband and Wives' when I thought I was going to far, which is a real fear for actors. And he said, 'You can't go too far.' And I thought that's a great comic giving a great piece of advice. But it has to be true. It has be authentic. That's the trick I suppose. For an example of that, there's a scene in 'Husband and Wives' in which my character is running for a taxi and she's extremely upset and I scream for the taxi to stop. When it did, he told me to drop the bag I am carrying. So I drop my bag, pick it up and get into the cab. He then told me to drop the bag and let its contents spill out. I did, but then went to stuff the contents back in the bag. He told me no. Just throw the things into the seat of the cab. It would never have occurred to me to be that audacious. But that's the thing about comedy.

EDGE: Did Jocelyn push you in this role?

Judy Davis: You know the thing about the character of Molly is that she's so strongly written on the page. I know at times Jocelyn wanted me to be crankier, and I thought I need to be careful with that because I thought it might become puzzling for the audience, and not in a good way. Jocelyn had a big job on her hand. It was a big, dense script with a lot of set-ups. She had a great cinematographer -- Donald McAlpine -- who is 80 and I never saw him sit down. I have never seen a cinematographer work so fast with such good effect, because it is quite a beautifully shot film. My role was so strongly written that she just let me do what I wanted. There was so much going on just to get through this dense script. I think if she had her way, she would have preferred a few more weeks.

Playing strong women

EDGE: Molly is a very strong woman. In choosing roles do you gravitate to strong women?

Judy Davis: Well, if you look back, that's maybe not so true. Take 'A Passage to India,' Adela Quested isn't a really strong woman. But it may depend on what you call strong. Or the role I play in 'Naked Lunch,' she's not very strong.

EDGE: But what of George Sand in 'Impromptu?'?

Judy Davis: Yes. She was strong. She was George Sand. You have to be. But I think they wanted someone else for that role. I think they wanted to cast Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, but she fell out. Then they wanted me to have brown eyes and olive skin, and I said, 'look at me! I have pale skin and these blue eyes!' I tried very hard to wear those contact lenses, but I was terrified of them, and they had to settle for my blue eyes. I eventually had to wear brown contact lenses for Judy Garland, but I wasn't ready for the challenge for George Sand. Then they put this dark make-up on me and that was so traumatic. It's very hard to change the basic coloring of person. And I did think while making the film that Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio had taken the role. They would have been happier and I would have been happier.

A balancing act

EDGE: You won an Emmy for your performance of Judy Garland in 'Me and My Shadows.' How did you channel Judy Garland?

Judy Davis: There is so much -- frighteningly large amounts -- of first hand material of Judy Garland. There are these tapes she recorded when planning to write her autobiography in which she rambled about her life and her grief. Very, very intimate, so that helped tremendously. Her daughter Lorna Luft was a producer on it and she offered help, but I felt I had to find my own way into the role. And I felt that Lorna's take on her mother would necessarily be for me the most accurate because she was her daughter and that dominated her view, and she was young too. I needed to find my own way into her. It was terrifying, but it wasn't as difficult as you might think because Judy Garland lived such a generous life in a way. All you need to do is watch one of her performances and you learned a tremendous amount about her. She was in this one film where she worked in a shop with Van Johnson and they were pen-pals. She was wonderful and vulnerable in that film, and I learned so much about her when watching it. It wasn't that difficult to research, just scary to play.

EDGE: How do you balance your career and your personal life?

Judy Davis: That's difficult for anyone. It is probably difficult for stockbrokers too. But for actors who are often called away for months on end, it is very, very difficult. And once you have children, decisions must be made. I never went from job-to-job-to-job when my children were young. I had to earn money to look after them, but I got to say my children were my top priority. It's really hard. And you can see the cost of it everywhere. You have to be careful what you're ambitious for. I tell that to my daughter, my son is an alpha male, so I can't tell him anything. It's a hard thing to work out -- what are you ambitious for? You have to know what you want in life. Do you want to be famous? Do you want to be a good person? But no judgment. If fame and money is what you want, that's fine.

EDGE: Have you thought of any classic stage roles you would love to play?

Judy Davis: I don't think like that. I wish I did, because I would do more. I don't scour western literature for roles to lust after. I have never been ambitious like that. It is something I lack. Maybe I am bit lazy, I don't know.

"The Dressmaker" is in theaters.

Watch the trailer to "The Dressmaker":