Elizabeth Banks on The Next Three Days, Prison Panic and Sympathy for Demi Lovato

Elizabeth Banks is terrified of going to prison. The self described "goody two shoes" knows that anyone is just one little moment away from an event -- she cites Brandy's traffic accident as an example -- that can mutate into something far more sinister, changing the course of a person's life forever.

This is the way Banks approached the role of a woman who is sentenced to prison for murder in the new thriller, The Next Three Days. Paul Haggis's remake of the French hit Pour Elle features Banks as Lara Brennan, a Pittsburgh woman convicted of a murder that she may or may not have committed. Meanwhile, her professor husband, John (Russell Crowe), hatches a prison escape plan. Movieline spoke to the incredibly savvy Banks about her prison research before The Next Three Days, why she won't be held accountable for the departure of Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock, the fallout after her name change and why she's happy she does not have Demi Lovato's career.

[Minor spoilers follow]

I have five interviews today; I think I'm getting a taste of what you guys go through.

At least you get to talk about different movies every time. [Laughs]

That's true. You're pretty much regulated to The Next Three Days, I assume?

Yes, they make me just talk about this one. I mean, you can ask me whatever you want.

Is there anything in particular that you want to talk about?

No.

That would be a funny way to end the interview. "Well, thanks for your time."

[Laughs] "I was there to interview her about The Next Three Days, but we talked about genocide in Darfur."

That seems like an important topic.

Sure. Especially for the Movieline audience.

They are a very socially conscious group.

Yes, that's why they go to Movieline.

I'm being serious when I ask this: Are you the busiest person on Earth?

I do a lot. It's true. I really like working. You know, the 30 Rock thing, that just blossomed into something that I wasn't expecting. The writers, they came to me about doing it and at the time I was shooting The Next Three Days and I just said, "It's not going to happen because they're never going to let me out of this movie." We were in Pittsburgh and they were in New York. And then, somehow, everybody worked it out that I could leave the set for literally one day to come up here. And if we went over, past the last flight of the day, we would have to drive through the night to Pittsburgh so I could shoot the next day. The scheduling gods came together and I got to go and start shooting Avery Jessup. And now it's a year and a half later and I'm having a baby. [Laughs] But I had taken a lot of time off before The Next Three Days. I had taken almost a year off. I did W. and Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and then I didn't make a movie for like 11 months.

I saw The King's Speech and The Next Three Days back-to-back...

Yeah, a lot of people did.

I am terribly frightened of public speaking and wrongful imprisonment.

I know! Wrongfully imprisoned -- I have a strong sense about that all the time, anytime that I break the littlest rule. My husband calls me a goody two shoes, which I am. I'm a total goody two shoes. I won't run a yellow light. He's like, "Come on!" But this made perfect sense to me that bad things happen to good people all the time. And then you end up in prison for the rest of your life.

I'm always afraid that I'm going to make an innocent mistake on my taxes and the next thing I know I'm at Riker's Island.

Right! Totally! That's how I played this woman. We didn't answer the question, really, whether she did it or not. We weren't sure how we were going to end the movie; Paul wasn't sure whether the audience needed to know or not because it doesn't matter to Russell's character. So I played it as though it could have happened -- that we have a tendency toward violence as human beings. I mean, I've lashed out at people, for sure. That something little can accidentally become some big, huge thing with consequences. And that, to me, is the greatest fear: A little thing ends up being huge. You know the singer Brandy?

Yes.

She was sued for $50 million because she rear-ended someone who rear-ended someone who rear-ended someone and that car went into the other lane and was hit by a bus and the person died. That was the chain of events that I thought about. Someone died because she rear-ended someone accidentally. We all get in that moment. I love that you're not allowed to text in your car. I think it's totally dangerous, but at the same time you can eat, smoke, play with your baby. You know what I mean? There are a million distractions in a car and you could end up killing someone. That was the scenario that I imagined that this women got herself into.

Do you think people will be surprised not to see a happy Elizabeth Banks in this movie?

Have you been in a prison cell?

No.

Because I have. And you would not be happy. [Laughs] It is extremely sobering, let me put it that way.

Were you in a prison cell for research?

Yes. I was also really lucky that I got to sit with inmates. Allegheny County Jail, where we shot the movie, was extremely welcoming to us. And they allowed us to go right into the cell block. I went by myself one day -- no Russell, no Paul -- and go to the cell block and sit with inmates and just talk to them about their daily life. And I asked how many of them had children on the outside and every hand went up. And I asked them if they cried the first night, and they all said yes. You want to be strong, but it is that terrible.

When I was little, my mom, who apparently thought I was going to be a criminal, would tell me never to run: "An American prison is better than living in a third world country." I think I'd prefer the third world country. What do you think about that?

Yes, you would. Prison is about fighting for little tiny freedoms that I guarantee you're taking fully for granted. Like having a pen and a piece of paper to write on. Because if they wanted to take that pen and paper away from you, you don't have a choice in the matter. So all of your choices, someone else makes them for you.

Was the fact that nothing was too far over-the-top during the escape scenes a conscious decision?

Paul was very intent on that. And I think it's true of the original movie. This is a regular person, John, he's a regular Joe. And this bad thing happens and what would you do? Would you take it or would you stand up and try to change it? So when Paul sat down to write this script, he Googled "how to break out of prison" and 400,000 search results come up. I'm not advocating anybody break out of prison...

Movieline does have a large prison readership...

[Laughs] Right. But the fact is, people break out of prison all of the time. These things happen. And Paul took all of that from real life. And it's not like John all of the sudden knows how to pilot a helicopter. He could have if that's what he wanted to do, but he would have had to take the time and learn how to pilot a helicopter and then hire a helicopter.

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