There Will Be Oscars

Is it hard, when you get so deeply into the part, to leave it behind once you're done? How do you shake it off?
Cotillard: Before "La Vie en Rose," I thought that it was just a job and when it's finished you go back to your life. And I ­realized that it was not true when I finished playing her. First of all, I had that awful face. I had no eyebrows anymore. No hair. And when it grows back you really look like s--t. But when you carry someone around with you, and really have a relationship with that new person inside you-you give that person the emotions, and that character also gives the ­emotions—I think that sometimes it can be hard to just go back to your life.

Does Piaf still pop up in your behavior every now and then?
Cotillard: No, hopefully finis. But it really took a while. Everywhere I went just after we finished the movie I saw part of her. Like, I remember going to the … shrink? Right, shrink?
Clooney: Yes, shrink. [Laughter]
Cotillard: I went to a shrink right after the movie, and I saw Piaf everywhere. I arrived and the street was Marcel Cerdan Street, who was her lover. And there was this huge statue of Cerdan, and I was, like, "No way!" I'm quite a normal person, but it was getting weirder and weirder. I didn't go to the shrink because I couldn't get rid of Piaf, but in a way I kind of was.
McAvoy: Can I ask all of you, do you ever consider the effect on an audience of the decisions that you make as an actor? Or do you just consider truth?
Day-Lewis: As you're working, James, or in the decision to do the job in the first place?
McAvoy: In the decisions that you make on set as a character. Decisions about how to play the character.
Day-Lewis: When I'm working, it doesn't really occur to me that anyone is ever going to see the thing. It's a perversity, I suppose, but that appeals to me a lot. It kinds of harks back to the days when I felt like a bit of an outcast for doing the work that I did.
Clooney: But before you get to the set, do you have discussions about the character, in terms of how he will be perceived by the audience?
McAvoy: Yeah, my question was just, literally, "If I do this, will this have the effect on the audience that we want it to have at this point in the story?"
Clooney: You never can.
Day-Lewis: I think if I started a thing like that, I would crash the car.

Is it different for you, James?
McAvoy: It is different for me, yes. I'm fascinated by the way you work, Daniel, and I have worked with Forest Whitaker in "The Last King of Scotland"—he gave an exceptional performance, completely doing it that way. And I've never done it that way. I think I'm too scared to, and that's partly a controlling aspect with my personality, I suppose. But it is a way of working that I really admire, and I don't know if I have it in me.

Did you rehearse at all for "Atonement"?
McAvoy: Yeah, for three weeks, which is kind of unusual. I usually dread rehearsal for film because I've found that film people will never know what to do except sit in a room together and make you say your lines 5,000 times. But [director] Joe [Wright] galvanizes everyone. He literally gives direction.

Daniel, do you ever rehearse?
Day-Lewis: I prefer not to.
Clooney: They'll do stuff like put tape on the floor and go, "OK, now you're walking in and three vampires are going to come out over here." And you're pretending that there's vampires across from you and everybody is laughing at you. I don't find it helpful in any way.
McAvoy: It was great. It was such an amazing experience. I've never had it in film.
Clooney: I've never seen it. I think it's fantastic. I'm not putting it down at all.
McAvoy: Do you want to fight me? [Laughter]
Clooney: I do.
McAvoy: Let's do this.
Clooney: Unplug your microphone first. [More laughter]
Day-Lewis: It is so important to work the way you need to work, and you have probably found a way that works for you. Angelina, what you had to do in "A Mighty Heart" is a very, very particular thing—to have that responsibility of trying to play the part of a woman who you obviously got to know very well during that time. What was your experience of leaving that film?
Jolie: I was thinking about that when you were talking about letting go of a character. I looked face to face at the person I had been playing. And I continue to see her. Our kids still play together. So it was very odd. But she's just the most wonderful woman, and there was some kind of kinship that I felt with her. I really truly love her, and I can say that because I do know her. That actually made me terribly nervous. It was the first film where I didn't sleep the night before we started shooting. That night, she and her son came by to say hello to everybody, to say good luck before they left. Adam talked about his dad, and I realized that when this little boy grows up, this whole film—whatever the critics say, whatever anybody says—is going to be his re-enactment of how much his parents loved each other and how upset his mother was when this happened. So as an actor it certainly filled me with as many tools and emotions as I needed, because it was so real. But as her friend I was very, very scared. I was very relieved when she felt we had done it right.

Was Mariane on the set during the shoot?
Jolie: No, she never came on the set. She was going to come the first day, and she walked in on me in a costume fitting for her wedding dress. I think she just realized in that moment that she could not see any of it. She said it looked absolutely exact, and then we had dinner, and then she said she was going to leave the next morning.