Ari Graynor on Holy Rollers, Love Interest Roles, and Her 'Quirky Jewishness'

Here at Movieline, we try to be cool and impartial, but when it comes to Ari Graynor, I'm just a full-blown advocate. Give this woman more roles! She can do scene-stealing supporting turns (like her perpetually wasted Caroline in Peter Sollett's Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist), tempting sexpots (Whip It, Youth in Revolt), and network TV arcs (Fringe) in equal measure, and she adds her own unique spin to the noir moll in Kevin Asch's Holy Rollers, where she plays Rachel, a drug dealer's girlfriend who entices Hasidic Sam (Jesse Eisenberg) further into a life of crime.

Graynor called up Movieline last week to discuss what made the part an unlikely fit for her, what she was supposed to be doing in one recent Fringe appearance, and the comic book role she's begging to play.

Your character has a lot of fun toying with Jesse's, and that's a common motif in his movies -- there's always some confident girl who reduces him to a stammering mess. Is there just something about Jesse Eisenberg that makes him fun for women to tease?

[Laughs] Yes! Look at his sweet face! You can't help it.

The last time I talked to you was before Whip It came out, and you were already telling me about Holy Rollers and how it was a very different role for you. Is there something about this character that you'd never gotten to play onscreen before?

You know, the year preceding Holy Rollers was very comedy-heavy, which I love -- I love doing comedy. Still, I'd spent much of my life doing dramatic stuff as well, so I was really excited to get to do a more dramatic piece of work. Also, we all did a lot of work on the script for Holy Rollers together, which was a really exciting experience. Jesse and Justin [Bartha] had been involved with the project for a long time, and then I came on about a month before we started shooting, and I spent a lot of time in Kevin's mom's apartment with Justin and Jesse retooling some things and really defining who Rachel was. We wanted to be clear about her own questions of faith and her own journey in a way that was more specific. I wanted her to represent more than just Jesse's sexual awakening. It was a really fulfilling and exciting collaborative process.

Have you ever had that much collaboration and rehearsal and prep on a film before?

Nick and Norah was structured in a very different way -- our rehearsals weren't as defined, and they were more about spending time with each other before shooting started so we'd be more comfortable with each other. At the same time, Peter Sollett gave me a lot of room to play around and come up with my own stuff. It was amazing that anyone trusted me enough to do that, never mind on a studio film. Holy Rollers was the first time, though, that I got to sit down and go through the intentions scene by scene and say, "OK, I know this is how the scene is written, but I think that point comes across in a previous scene. What can we get to that's deeper and more complicated than maybe what was first there?"

You say that you didn't want to play Rachel as just "the love interest." Is that how roles often are when they're first sent to you?

Well, I have to say that for me -- and to be honest, this was part of the appeal of Holy Rollers -- I'm not you're typical, go-to girl for the arm candy roles or the love interests. I'm a little quirky, a little offbeat, and I'm certainly not a classic beauty.

You shut up now, Ari Graynor.

This was actually the first time that this kind of role had come around to me! I was excited to have that opportunity, but I wanted to infuse it with my own sense of character and presence. I couldn't relate to just being [the character as written]...the last thing I see myself is as some drug dealer's attractive party girlfriend. [Laughs] I just see myself in such a different way, so I had to come to terms with what was on the page as far as who she was physically, and then bring my own sense of quirky Jewishness to the role.

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