Laura Linney is best known for her dramatic roles in films like The Squid and the Whale, Mystic River, and The Savages. Now the Oscar and Tony nominated actress is taking her talents to the sewers, as she joins the cast of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. We had a chance to sit down with her on the set of the Turtles sequel to talk about her experience working on the film.*
What can you tell us about your character?
I am a bureau chief of organized crime for New York City, and events are happening within the city that are of course wild and unprecedented and I have these people coming to me telling me about turtles which seems a little farfetched. It takes me a while to grasp the situation, to understand what these creatures are, to value their assistance and what they have to offer, and then I become an ally.
I think she’s just a skeptical New Yorker and there are these things, and what are they, and she has some wisdom to her, she has some instinct that there’s goodness there, so she has a heart. Through the course of the movie, without being this great portrayal of a woman who’s a police chief, she does change through the movie. You see her be hardened and stereotypical towards the beginning, and then the more time she spends with the and she sees not only what they’re capable of, but their different personalities. She’s not a fool.
Given the tone and type of movie this is, were you given any direction as far as how to approach the character?
No one told me how to play it. The writing is very clear when there’s moments of this and there’s moments of that, but I think it has a sort of tenner on its own, as it has to be when there are giant turtles on the screen with you, so I think there is sort of a fine line. There’s stuff that happens, there are things at stake in this movie, so you can’t play it too comedically, and at the same time you can’t play it too seriously otherwise it just becomes melodramatic and ridiculous, so it’s kind of, even know this is a big movie, acting-wise there is a sort of a….you do have to consider it, you can’t just wing it, you do think how do you do this so that it’s just right where it doesn’t take itself too seriously or you’re not too heavy or too light. We’ll see how it all comes together, there’s so much that you have no control over, you know with big movies like this, editing is such an enormous part of it, special effects are things you can barely comprehend at the time, so you just sort of throw it up in the air and see how they put it all together.
There seems to be a trend now to bring acclaimed actors and actresses into big summer blockbuster movies like this because it tends to add some credibility to the films. Was this type of film something you were seeking out?
I didn’t seek it out, it came to me and it took me a minute to sort of think about it and then I watched the first one and those turtles are just fantastic and it was filming here in the city and I now have a little boy and it all just sort of fell into place and I just thought why not. I was a little skeptical and didn’t quite know, and these sets can be difficult. They’re high powered, people under a lot of pressure, they’re very expensive, and some of these sets are not very pleasant, so I was a little concerned about that because I’m just at an age now where I just don’t want to be around that. I met these guys and they were so nice. Andre and Drew and everybody involved are really lovely, and the turtles, I think you’ve spoken to those guys, they’re just adorable. They’re just lovely young men and they enjoy each other and their attitude and their fun really does permeate the whole set. It’s just a joy to be around, and it’s funny, it’s kind of a kick to be in a movie with giant turtles [laughs].
Is there a learning curve when you’re acting opposite the Turtles?
There is. There are ping pong balls on the top of their heads, so you have to look at the ping pong balls and not look at them, which is tricky because they’re really talented guys, and you want to look at them. They’re really lucky to have these four guys, they really are. I don’t know if they get enough credit for what they bring to it, because even though they’re encased in special effects, any emotion that comes through or anything that works from those turtles is a total marriage between what they have and what special effects does. The special effects just wouldn’t be as good without them, it just wouldn’t. There’s a lot special effects can do, but spirit has to be provided by a human, and these guys are great. So what’s tricky is looking above their heads as opposed to looking into their eyes, and it’s kind of just amazing, you know there they are in these funny suits, these big turtle shells. I love how their personalities ping off each other. I didn’t understand turtle fever before I started working on this, and I’m like “Oh well of course they’re so popular.” So it’s fun.
You know, with Congo, they were little girls in suits [laughs]. So parts of that movie worked, and some of it didn’t, but this is a completely different type of experience because you actually get to be on set, talking to flesh. Flesh and blood.
Has working with the Turtles made you want to try motion capture yourself?
Yeah, it has actually. Absolutely. And what [Andy] Serkis is doing, it’s a whole other art form now. I think it was something that I was even, fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, skeptical of because it wasn’t very good at that time, but now it really is so good in a way that I never thought it would be. I don’t think anyone ever imagined it could be, and also that there is a place for acting with it. I think there was a fear that it would just wipe out what actors had to offer and the nice surprise is to see how there is a wonderful marriage between what the actors have to offer and how the special effects use that as a resource and combine the two. That’s a big surprise and it is really nice to see
Any chance we’ll see you in future Turtle films?
I could potentially come back.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows also stars Megan Fox, Will Arnett, Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, Pete Ploszek, Jeremy Howard, Stephen Amell, Tyler Perry, Brian Tee, Sheamus, and Gary Anthony Williams, and is scheduled for a June 3, 2016 release date.
*Portions of this interview were used in our on-set coverage of the film.