The Verge: Mary Elizabeth Winstead

That battle with Mae is actually my favorite evil ex battle, and it does feel like a dance.

It's like a musical, especially the way Edgar is so influenced by music and that's such a big part of all of his films. We knew that we would be fighting to a beat at certain points, so it definitely felt like dancing. Michael and I actually learned swing dancing to prepare for that puppeteering part of the fight. At one point, that was actually much more elaborate, and I was swinging Michael around me. [Laughs] I would swing him over my back and lift him up and carry him and all sorts of stuff. We actually rehearsed a lot more fighting for that segment, which was a lot of fun, but I think it turned out to be a bit much.

What was the process like of actually shooting that fight? It goes by in the blink of an eye, but I'm sure it took much, much longer.

It did. I think at least fight took at least a week or week and a half to shoot. It was pretty intense, long hours of physical stuff take after take. It's funny because it goes by so quickly on screen, but we spent months training for it and weeks shooting it. Still, it looks brilliant and I'm incredibly proud of it.

**What was it like to shoot so many of those tiny, blink-of-an-eye shots the movie is littered with? Anna Kendrick talked about learning the art of acting during a crash-zoom

It was challenging. There were a lot of days where it might be a sixteen-hour day, but all I'd be doing is a shot of me flipping my head to the right really fast, and something would go off in the background and the camera was going to zoom in on my face and it had to be the right focus at the right time. There were always so many elements to perfect that went beyond giving the right performance, and it was definitely a unique filmmaking experience because there was so much going on that the actors weren't doing. I think we all had to take one for the team and know that we were in good hands and that we'd be a part of something that would be amazing. We took a cue from Edgar and worked really hard for the finished product, because he works harder than anyone.

SPOILERS

Let's talk about the ending, because I heard that Scott ended up with Knives Chau in the original cut. When did Edgar have you go back and reshoot that, and what did you think of the change?

I think the main thing was wanting to be true to the books. When we originally shot it, the sixth book hadn't been written yet, and Bryan didn't know necessarily what he was going to do. So when the sixth book was finished and our ending was very different than the book's ending, I think it just felt kind of wrong to a lot of people for it to be so vastly different. Also, I think having some hindsight and seeing the film again after having been away from shooting for a while, I think that Edgar just felt that it was right to change it. I don't want to go into too much detail to give stuff away about the ending, although you obviously already already know it, but I think it was mainly about being true to the books.

END SPOILERS

Bruce Willis was recently quoted as saying that Die Hard 5 was imminent. Have they checked on your availability yet?

They have not. I don't know the validity of that, or if they have any interest in Lucy McClane, but I'm waiting. We'll see!

Can we please talk about the fact that once upon a time, you were on Passions? I think that aside from Scott Pilgrim, that may be the most out-there project on your resume.

I know! It's funny, I keep getting Passions questions lately, and I haven't in years. But yeah, that's gotta be more out-there than anything. Not only were there witches, and Hell was in my basement at one point, but I was also having to perform monologues to myself and ridiculously cheesy stuff. [Laughs] So yeah, I've been there, done that.

So if Edgar Wright asks you to pull a giant hammer out of thin air, you don't even flinch at this point.

"No big deal!" I've done far crazier stuff in my day.

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