Emily Browning on Sleeping Beauty, Surviving Sucker Punch and the Pleasures of Torching Money

I was reading some background on the film where you mentioned having done several takes of the notorious scene with Man 2. I was like, "Several takes?" How do you do several takes of that?

I'd say it was in the teens -- 13, 14, something like that.

[Stunned silence]

It was a lot! But the thing is, I talk about a lot of takes and people think, "Oh, that's crazy." But because all of the scenes were really one shot, Julia didn't have the luxury of editing and cutting. So the take had to be perfect. That's why we did so many takes. When he burns my neck with the cigarette, I had prosthetic skin on my neck. But still, when a cigarette's coming toward your skin, you wince. And so for the first four takes I squirmed and moved a bit. It just took that many to get it down. But it was... [Laughs] By the end, I'd had enough. I wanted to go home: "This is too much for me; I've had enough."

I don't know if I've ever seen a cigarette in a film loaded with such portent.

Yeah! Yeah, exactly.

I've also always wondered if and how Australian currency burned -- that plastic stuff.

That's a good point. We did use real notes.

I was going to say: Please tell me that wasn't real.

No, those were real.

OK, so please tell me you only did one take of that.

I think we did four takes. We had to get it legally cleared so those four notes were replaced. It's illegal to burn currency because that money does not then exist in the economy anymore. So we had to tell the government, "We're taking these four $100 bills, so can you reprint four $100 bills in their place?" But you're right: We actually had a problem with that. To be honest, it was really satisfying to burn a $100 bill. It was an amazing feeling. But it is plastic, so it didn't really flame like we wanted it to. It just kind of curled up.

Not like the good old-fashioned American stuff! Ours really burns.

But yours is ridiculous! If you put an American note in your jeans and put it through the washing machine, it kind of disintegrates.

Enh, not really. It's like this paper/fiber kind of thing?

It is?

Yeah. It withstands moisture, but it's definitely weaker than yours. It tears, and it does disintegrate after a while.

The only problem I have with American money is that it's all kind of the same color, so I'm always having to look. Whereas with Australian money, you have purple, blue, yellow... We keep it nice and simple.

In discussing both this film and Sucker Punch, you've expressed your interest in the subject of female empowerment. But in both cases there's objectification and exploitation going on that threatens to bury the message. Surely there must be a clearer way for you to get it across?

I have to speak about the two films separately here. Sucker Punch... It's hard for me to be objective about that film, because I had the best time working on it. I love every single person I worked with; I love Zack [Snyder, the director]. And I loved the script -- how it was originally. But I think that message did get muddled a bit in terms of studio rewrites and having to go from an R to a PG-13. I can definitely see people's complaints about that being a little bit sexist. As I said, it's so hard to be objective, because I genuinely love that film, Sucker Punch, and being such a part of it. But I do get that.

Sleeping Beauty, on the other hand... I think Lucy's being objectified within the film, but she has what Julia calls a "radical passivity," which is to say, "I have this understanding of this world where I'm going to be objectified, so instead of raging against that, I am going to see where it takes me. I'm going to turn the other cheek. Do your worst." So I don't see the film itself as being sexist in any way. Also, for me personally, as a feminist, I'm pro-sex work. And I believe that a portrayal of that -- though she's not quite a prostitute, but someone who's in that line of work -- I don't think that's automatically going to be innately sexist. Does that make sense?

Yes.

And when I say I'm "pro-sex work," obviously there are some terrible conditions, and there are obviously horrible circumstances where people are forced into that line of work. But there are also people doing it because they want to do it, and their rights need to be acknowledged. I think that their rights need to be fought for, because that profession in itself -- when it's all done in a way that should be done, and everyone has rights and it's safe -- is a necessary and honorable profession.

Is it true that you want to write and direct down the line?

Well... yeah. I mean, I write, but I think it's going to take a while before I'm ready to show it to anyone. I've been acting since I was a kid, so I just feel confident in the fact that I can do it to some degree. I've never thought I was amazing; I've just thought, "I know this, I can do it." But the annoying thing about that I never had a point in my life where I was 17 and said, "What do I want to do? I want to try some things." Now I'm 22, and I think, "Can I do anything else?" So I write in my spare time, but it might take me a little while to build up the confidence to bring that to the world.

You haven't shared it with anyone? Maybe solicited counsel from Julia?

Oh God! Not with Julia! That would take a while. I've read a few of her books and the script, of course and she's just too brilliant. I can't.

Maybe she could help!

Maybe. That's true. My best friend is a writer; he writes and directs music videos and one day wants to work in film. So I share ideas with him. Not my actual writing, but I always go back and forth with him about ideas and that kind of thing. But I don't know, maybe one day I'll get confident enough.

What's next in the meantime?

I have a film I was meant to be doing this year, but I don't know if it's going to go until next year -- it's called Magic Magic, and it's filming in Chile. And then next year I'm doing an English film in New Zealand called Cassie and Jude. That's about identical twins, and I would be playing both twins. So that will be interesting.

Editor's note: This is an expanded version of an interview published during the Hamptons International Film Festival.

[Top photo: AFP/Getty Images]

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