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Written by Gregg Shapiro, Staff writer
May 6, 2010
“Please Give”
Acclaimed filmmaker Nicole Holofcener has made movies with strong and compelling female characters beginning in 1996 with “Walking and Talking.” “Lovely & Amazing” (2001) and “Friends With Money” (2006) followed. Her latest, “Please Give,” continues the trend. Sisters Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) and Mary (Amanda Peet), have a complex relationship, made even more so by the presence of their grandmother Audra (Ann Morgan Guilbert), who raised them following their mother’s suicide. Living next door to Audra are Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt). Kate, who runs a vintage collectibles store with Alex, is having a multi-faceted personal crisis.
Gregg Shapiro: Nicole, Catherine Keener has been in all of your feature-length movies. What is it about Catherine that makes for such chemistry?
Nicole Holofcener: Chemistry — it’s hard to define why you have chemistry with someone. We just hit it off right away. We have the same sense of humor. Make each other laugh. Feel safe with one another, emotionally safe...
GS: Something else that recurs in your work is that you work with British actors.
NH: Yeah, they’re better (laughs).
GS: You’re kidding, right?
NH: I’m kidding, but for some reason I’m really drawn to whatever they’re doing. I guess it doesn’t matter; I don’t pay attention to where they’re from. A good actor is a good actor and if they can do an accent, great.
GS: Sisters also figure prominently in “Please Give” and “Lovely & Amazing.” Do you have a sister?
NH: My sister and I have a really interesting and complicated relationship, and I guess it shows up whether I want it to or not, very often. Whether she wants it to or not, too.
GS: Was Ann Guilbert, from “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “The Nanny,” who you had in mind for Audra in “Please Give”?
NH: No, not at all. She was just put on tape because I was in New York at the time, and her agent sent it in. I auditioned a lot of women for the part, but she was truly the best.
GS: You also deal with unfaithful husbands in “Please Give” and “Lovely & Amazing.”
NH: I didn’t have an unfaithful husband (laughs).
GS: But it seems like a topic that’s always going to be rich for mining.
NH: Yeah, well, all of our fuck-ups, right? I was considering Keener’s character to have an affair, and I wrote it that way for a while, but it just didn’t seem right.
GS: So, there’s the shop in “Please Give” and the house in “Friends With Money” with the mid-century modern look and some of the interiors, too.
NH: ...It’s just really trendy and I am poking fun at it and poking fun at myself because I love that stuff. It seemed like exactly what they would be selling, right?
GS: Definitely! There is a transgendered homeless person in “Please Give” and, of course, the gay thread in “Friends With Money.”
NH: I have gay female friends. I mean, I know tons of people, so some of them are gay. I have more lesbian friends, and maybe they will show up in a movie at some point. Except their issues are so similar to mine, I don’t know if I would need to separate them out in that way. The transgender (character), she just kind of broke my heart. … There was a woman who was always outside my friend’s apartment. That’s what it was based on, and I completely forgot. … I didn’t remember that until right now. In New York, in Chelsea, and that’s where I got that idea.
