Inside the Sundance Labs: Alia Shawkat On Recharging Her Acting Batteries

As Maeby on Arrested Development, Alia Shawkat had what's typically a luxury for an actor: the relative security of a stable television gig ("relative," since Fox infamously jerked the acclaimed comedy around on its schedule and made renewal a constant battle). Since the series ended, she's booked parts in Drew Barrymore's Whip It! and the Dakota Fanning/Kristen Stewart-toplined The Runaways, but as she tells Movieline, the industry's bottom line focus on box office was starting to wear her out. What changed things? The Sundance Labs process, where she got to workshop Elgin James's Goodnight Moon (in which she'll eventually be starring alongside Juno Temple).

So you were already involved with Goodnight Moon prior to the Sundance Labs, right?

Yeah, I was sent the script and met with Elgin and signed on, and he was talking about how he was doing the Sundance Labs and how he wanted me to do it, too. He's a first-time director and I've worked with those before, but you just never know how it's gonna work out. So it was a good opportunity to really work on the script. Still, though, even after I asked my manager, "What is this thing I'm gonna be at for twelve days," the way it was described was nowhere near how great it actually was.

What were you expecting, versus what you found?

It's kind of nice how they keep it...not necessarily mysterious, but there's no way to describe it without sounding sappy. When I got the email, it sounded kind of like a summer camp, and I was telling my agent, "I don't want to be somewhere and not be busy every day," you know what I mean? And they kind of actually didn't know. I was pretty much told we'd be working on two or three scenes, and you'd shoot them and the next day they'd edit them -- so it was still kind of vague.

And then I got there, and they tell you how beautiful it is, but there's really no words...it's like, in the middle of this forest and there's this little wooden pub and deli. It really is like a summer camp, like an actor's commune. There's a mess hall where you all meet up, and every day you wake up early and rehearse scenes without time pressure. It's about really focusing on the characters and getting that time you don't get on a normal set. Ed Harris and Alfre Woodard were there, all these amazing people who've been in the industry for years, and they'll sit there and be like, "This is a safe place for actors. It's time to put aside all the negative energy you have towards this industry."

And did you have some?

Again, it all sounds kind of sappy, but I was getting to the point where I was going on auditions and they just don't give a shit about you -- they just want to know how much money you bring in and that kind of thing. I'm at a stage where I don't bring in a good amount of money, and hopefully I'll get to that point, but I was getting discouraged because I was just like, "What is this about?" So [the Labs] were a place where you can put all that aside and it really is about the art. There were only eight of us in the crew, and you have all day from 8am to 5:30 to shoot this one scene, so you can try it all these different ways. As an actor, your opinion is really valid. It was nice, because sometimes on set you're with directors who don't give a shit or they have their own vision or they have producers screaming over their back.

Is there downtime for you as an actor?

After we're done shooting, the directors go and edit so they can eventually screen the scenes for everyone to watch, and while they're editing, me and the other actors will go on hikes or take naps in front of the lake and stuff. And you can work with other directors on their table reads -- one time, I played this Cockney British street girl, or this loose Alaskan tramp. My energy seemed so high there and I felt so artistically at peace that a lot of things seemed to come together, work-wise. Like, I booked two other jobs while I was there -- stuff I'd gone up for before I went [to the Labs] -- but your mind is just clearly protected from the business part of show business.

Elgin was telling me about this 360-degree shot he'd cooked up for one of your dramatic scenes -- against the advice of his advisers -- that ultimately didn't work.

Yeah, I remember when he was telling me the idea. It's this big confrontation between the teenage girls, and he was like, "The camera will be going around you guys," and I went, "Oh, that sounds awesome." And then we saw the scene, and I know the advisers didn't like the way it was shot -- it just happened way too quickly and the energy was way too high. It was beneficial to work through the scene with Elgin, but we ended up reshooting it in a much more classic, over-the-shoulder way, and in a hallway instead of outside. It was so cool to have that opportunity to be able to do it again and work on the pace and take our time, and I think Elgin was happy that he could try it that first way and realize his mistake.

Now, you're actually cast in Elgin's feature-length version of Goodnight Moon, but for the other Lab projects, is there just a repertory of actors they use?

I feel like I may have been the only one there who was actually doing the film. There are recognizable adult working actors and all of them are really talented, but for example, there's this one film On the Ice about these two Alaskan boys and I did the table read for it. And then they hired this kid from Alaska who'd done some theater but had never done any professional acting before. Really, only two of the projects there already knew they were going to get made and have distributors, so Goodnight Moon was in a good position because we were actually working toward something.

Elgin's backstory is, basically, insane: He founded a gang, he was homeless, he stole from drug dealers. What was it like when you met him?

I was kind of intimidated, actually. I met him at Fred 62, this hip coffeeshop he recommended in Los Feliz, and I'd been reading all this stuff about how he used to sew people up [after fights] and I was pretty scared. Like, I grew up in Palm Springs, I can't relate to that world! [Laughs] But when I met him, he was the softest, nicest guy. He's not against talking about [his past], but he doesn't really like to -- he told me other directors had met with him about his biopic project and they were all like, "Did you ever kill a guy?" He does have tattoos all over his body and he looks kind of tough, but he's just like, "I'm a screenwriter now."

How did you see him change during the Labs process?

It's a weird situation because they have these advisers on set watching you, and they'll whisper into his ear and give him ideas. It's a challenge for him, I think, because he had to decide what to take and what to leave. These people are seasoned professionals, but he also has to follow his instincts because when he actually makes the film, they're not gonna be there.

He's very open, and the problem I find with first-time directors is that they have a very specific view. Usually, a director's first film is the film they've been writing their whole life, you know? Like, "Her hair will be exactly this way!" And as an actor, you're like, "Okaaayyy...am I a part of this process or what?" At some points it's really frustrating because they're so dead-set and controlling, whereas Elgin was so open and the Sundance environment is so open.

I'm sure you went into this with a certain take on your character, but did that get to change?

Yeah. I felt like I was a lot more part of the process than I'd ever been because there was so much time allotted to it. There was a lot of taking risks that you just don't usually have time for on set. I want to do this again, and I'd recommend it to any actor. Hopefully you don't become a robot, but there can be this repetitive nature to being on set where you rush and do a scene and it's like, "All right, moving on!" And you're left there like, "Shit, I didn't get this" -- and that's your responsibility as an actor. So it's nice [at the Labs] to be able to really take my time with things and really give my input and talk about it until I turn blue.