Catherine Keener         Cameron Diaz  

stars of Being John Malkovich

Yes, well, if you had spent time bound and gagged and locked in a monkey cage you'd probably look as roughed up as Cameron Diaz does, as Being John Malkovich's Lottie Schwartz, wife of Craig Schwartz, a puppeteer who finds a way into actor John Malkovich's mind while he's doing a temp job. in her picture. The frizzy hair was her idea. It's about as far as Diaz could get from roles like There's Something About Mary

Catherine Keener's BJM character is Maxine, remarkably full of herself and industrious enough that she comes up with a way to make a mint from John Malkovich's mind. In real life Keener is married to actor Dermot Mulroney, and is known for her work in a number of indie films that I'll have to track down.

CrankyCritic: Being John Malkovich is an astounding thing to watch. The other actors told us there wasn't much in the script about what we see on the screen. How did you visualize it when you read it?
Catherine Keener: I didn't. I have a hard time visualizing anything, which is why I'm not a director [laughs] and which is why I try to work with ones I know have a strong idea in mind. The script was such an amazing thing to read. It was so novel, so sharply written. Mostly dialog. Very little character description -- Lottie's look wasn't described at all and Maxine was described as a "co-worker".
Cameron Diaz: Lottie was described as "Craig's wife". Craig was "a puppeteer."
Catherine Keener: It left so much to the imagination of the filmmaker. So all you see can be attributed to (director) Spike Jonze.

CrankyCritic: Does that include Lottie's look? 'cuz nobody I know recognized Cameron at first sight.
Cameron Diaz: It's funny 'cuz I didn't choose this role thinking "I found a role nobody will recognize me in." There were no descriptions and we didn't "find" Lottie until after I had already gotten the part. Spike had taken pictures of people he met on the street and brought them in saying "These are who I think the characters could be. And we found that look. [When you have a director and a script like this, it's like being in a safe environment] Here's an environment that I can play in. Here's a character I get to put on every day. It was an amazing experience because oftentimes scripts are written with not so strong characters and most directors don't have an imagination for those characters physically. Spike does and he allowed us to have fun with it. This was encouraging, to take the chance to do that, to have fun. I didn't realize that people weren't going to recognize me until I put the costume on and I stood around talking to people working the production. I just assumed they knew it was me, but they thought I was a stranger. It was kind of interesting
Catherine Keener: Most times when people pitch you as being perfect for a part, what they really mean is "how I perceive you is literally this role". They don't look at you as an actor who can transform. A lot of people are so literal that they wouldn't have imagined Cameron as being right for Lottie.
Cameron Diaz: People's looks definitely have something to do with the way that they treat you. I don't think Lottie was an unattractive person. There were guys on the set who, as a blonde, would never look at me and, as Lottie, they were more curious. There's me as Cameron and how people see me and what they think: Oh you're beautiful and glamorous. That's their thing, but it's not for everyone. Everybody has a different taste and desire for different types of people. I found that when I was Lottie I was having different kind of people engage me, which was a really enriching experience for me. Normally, those people don't look at me, as a blonde. It's "Cameron". It goes both ways, is what I'm trying to say.
Catherine Keener: I, conversely, had guys on the set who didn't like me. The camerapeople would say "Maxine's not my type" and I kept trying to "not Maxine" them [laughs] but they weren't interested in the cold character.

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