I was sufficiently impressed with Scott McGehee and David Siegel‘s What Maisie Knew to want to attend yesterday’s junket gathering at the Tribeca Grand hotel. I spoke to the directors plus Julianne Moore (who gives a brave but dislikable performance as a sociopathic ego-monster Mother From Hell), Alexander Skarsgård (who plays a good guy — a low-key, zero-ambition bartender whose parenting skills for outshine Moore’s or those of her estranged husband, played by Steve Coogan), young Onata Aprile (strikingly low-key but magnetic as the film’s titular character) and Joanna Vanderham.
Alexander Skarsgard, Onata Aprile during yesterday’s What Maisie Knew round=table discussion.
I told Onata that I once saw another actress draw on a pad during a round-table interview — Cate Blanchett. It was for The Good German. I was drawn to Blanchett’s method of concentratig or hiding or whatever, but it was touching.
