Robin
Wright Penn says she jumped at the chance to work with director
Minghella |
Breaking
And Entering, in Toronto theatres Friday, is a love triangle about
three unhappy, displaced people in London.
It co-stars Jude Law as Wright Penn's estranged British landscape architect boyfriend and Juliette Binoche as the Bosnian mother of a boy who breaks into Wright Penn's office in the King's Cross neighbourhood. Wright Penn had met Law previously on the set of All The King's Men, which co-starred her husband, Sean Penn -- "loved him," she said of Law -- and was a fan of Binoche's work. "Best frickin' actress in the world," she summed up of her French actress co-star. So, ultimately, it was a no brainer. But Wright Penn did have some research to do never having spent any time with an autistic child. She and Penn have a 15-year-old daughter Dylan and a 13 year old son Hopper. "I read books. I met with psychiatrists and doctors that deal with this condition and actually met with a mother that was actually Swedish and had an autistic child that Anthony knew. This is where he came up with this idea. Spent a lot of time with her. There was a lot of time spent around a conference table, where it would be Anthony and myself, just talking, talking, talking. "Me and the mother of the austistic (child). Jude and Anthony and I talking. More than rehearsing the scenes, we talked. It was more like conferences and therapy and I love that kind of stuff. I love talking it to death so you can go home, let it assimilate and then it grows into some kind of flower the next day." The blond and beautiful Wright Penn, whose mainly of German and British descent, also travelled to Sweden. "I interviewed some people and they all said the same thing, 'You know we're very depressed. And there's a high rate of suicide here. And we all drink a lot.' But mostly, that they were all depressed because of the lack of light." And if working on this set doesn't exactly sound like a laff riot, Wright Penn said she appreciated working with Law once the film had wrapped. "It was a natural distance that we had and then we could go out socially at night, but I don't feel like it was conscious. It's funny it's like I feel closer to him now, now that it's over. But I was sort of wrapped up. And I remember thinking, 'I felt very insecure when I was making this movie.' And now I look in retrospect, it was right for the part. You know, I was really timid. I wasn't forthright. I wasn't me while I was making the movie. And I think that was just a reflection on the guardedness. The guardedness is fear. Insecurity is fear. And I was feeling that. It made me so comfortable in the moment. And it worked." Breaking And Entering sees Minghella casting Law as his leading man for the third time in a film, having previously worked together in Ripley and Cold Mountain. But the film is almost more of mother's tale with Wright-Penn and Binoche opposite sides of the same coin. "I think there is a parallel there," said Wright Penn. "What do you sacrifice for? And what does sacrifice represent? And what does it create? It represents a holiness and a wholiness where it's just you and that child and you sort of extricate yourself from those other connections. And then that's criminal in and of itself. Emotionally criminal." As it turned out, Wright-Penn only had one scene with Binoche in the movie but it was a memorable experience. "She's
so great," said Wright Penn. "I think all it took was
Anthony said, 'All you need to know is that you understand each
other. Let her know that you understand her.' |
