Michelle Williams on Meek's Cutoff, Goodbyes and Getting Lost At the Movies

How physically and emotionally lost does the cast and crew themselves have to be to pull something like this off?

That happened to us, but we didn't know it at the time. Sometimes the movie itself exerts its own power over everyone involved in it. Sometimes I think it casts a spell -- or maybe I'm just a little crazy. Maybe it's my own craziness. But we all felt that way, and at the time, it feels real. You don't think, "Oh, this is the movie working its voodoo on me to get me to the place I need to be." We were coming apart at the seams.

What happened?

Well, first of all, the desert. I don't know where you're from or where you were raised; is the desert your natural environment?

Sacramento, California. No desert. And you're from Montana, so I guess...

Kalispell, Montana. No desert.

Right.

When I first got there, I thought, "I... I... I can't stay here. I have to turn around and go home. I can't live here." I think it was something about the climate; I don't naturally love the desert. I think it was something about the landscape where everything looks the same -- one patch of desert is completely unrecognizable next to another patch of desert. It's just not my natural environment. So from the moment I got there, it unsettled me. But I've come to love it. If you look hard enough, you can see variation in the landscape where you think it's actually completely barren and nothing lives out there. You spend a little time, you look a little closer, and you see what's actually inherent to the land. But at first it felt like we'd been sent to Mars. You know! The desert does crazy things to people's minds! Mirages! Carlos Castaneda! Peyote! It's the desert!

What effect does that process have on performance? I mean, acting's hard enough, right?

You find ways to make it through; you find things to cling on to. Friendships, kindnesses, meals, jokes... But all the while there's this sense of foreboding. But like I said, I think that was more imagined than real. Look, I'm using the words "spell" and "magic," so it's someth
ing that I can't completely comprehend. I just know that something is at work in me. Whether I'm creating it or it's coming from an outside force, I don't know.

Got it. So what was your favorite joke?

[Laughs] I was actually reading in the women's journals, and I came across a joke. I showed it to Kelly, and I said, "Can I say this? Look at this! It's amazing!" And she goes, "Whoa, yeah, Michelle, that's incredible." And she puts it in the movie -- and she gives it to another character.

Weak!

[Laughs] It's this line where this woman suddenly finds herself crying because she's thinking about her father's pigs back home and how well taken care of they are -- that she would rather be a pig than a person when it comes to this trail. She was thinking about how they were safe and warm in their pens and being fed twice a day.

We should all be so lucky. Without giving anything away about the movie, did you think -- or do you continue to think -- about how these people lived the rest of their lives?

I don't any more. But in the weeks immediately following when you wrap shooting, I think about them. It's such a strange business: this kind of real/unreal, feeling like you're living someone's story. And then they call, "Wrap!", and there's no story to tell anymore. So the first couple of weeks, I do find myself imagining or wondering or, for my sake -- which is somehow invested in Emily's sake, which is somehow invested in my sake -- I hope she was right. I hope that her intuition to follow the Indian and put her faith in him was going to lead them to a better place. But who's to say?

How does that phenomenon apply to playing Marilyn Monroe? Considering all the history and mythology and everything we know or think we know, did some unknown, intuitive part of her stick with you?

I think with anybody you play, there's a sort of comedown process where you have to let them go. There are parts of that you're excited to shake it off, and there are parts of that you grieve because it's allowed other parts of you to live. There's a lot of goodbyes in this business -- that's what I've learned. Goodbye to the people you met in the place you'll never return to. Goodbye to the character you played. Goodbye to the actor you pretended to be in love with... There is a lot of letting go.

Goodbye to the journalist who's about to get thrown out of the room.

Goodbye to the journalist who's about to get thrown out of the room. A lot of goodbyes.

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