‘Away We Go' follows a young expectant couple unsure where to settle down, the answer lies in a road-trip around America. Along the way they meet old friends and new ones, who all give their two cents on family life. Carmen Ejogo plays Grace, the younger sister of the mother-to-be.
Here, Carmen talks about working with Sam Mendes, Neil Jordan and her slow rise to fame.
You started off presenting children's TV in the UK, did you ever think you would be working with directors like Neil Jordan and Sam Mendes?
You are the first person that's asked me that!!! [laughs] Actually, me being a kids presenter was more the thing that wasn't supposed to happen! I always wanted to act and I always had a very lofty list of people that I wanted to work with since I was a teenager. Someone like Neil Jordan, from seeing Company of Wolves at the age of 10 or something was someone that I thought "I wanna work with him one day!" So these kind of people I had always aspired to work with and frankly, it was the falling into presenting that was the sidetrack experience. It's been rewarding that I have got to work with these people, not all of the time, so what you aspire to is not always what you should be aiming for I have discovered. I have to say, this experience is the sort of stuff that keeps me wanting to act. You need a lot of resilience in this business and you have a lot days that you're thinking that it's not the game for you anymore but a film like Away We Go is very reaffirming.
Can you tell us about new movie Away We Go?
The film is essentially a road movie, and it follows two charaters, Burt and Verona, played by Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski and they cross the country in search of what they think will be the best place to raise their new coming family - Maya's character, Verona, is pregnant. They are both in their early thirties and trying to figure out "Are we fuck ups?", that's one of the lines in the movie that she asks of herself. I think it really speaks to a certain generation of people, who weren't ambitious children of the Eighties, don't have everything set up for themselves and they don't have a lot of money coming in yet and they are living in a crappy house and now they have got a kid coming and it's like "Oh my god! Now we've got to get serious with our lives!" So they are really trying to figure out where to go from here and the first question is literally, "Where should we live?". They've got a lot of options, they could be where their family are, but they discover that Burt's parents have decided to leave and head to Belgium... It's a comedy, it all sounds very woeful and anxiety-riddled but it's all set in a comedic frame. They go on this adventure of self discovery to define themselves and their future family and they meet all kinds of outrageous, sometimes outrageously horrific families along the way - friends and people that they know, but everyone has their own parenting style, as is true to real life but some people have pretty ridiculous ways of raising kids and that's what they discover on this journey.
Can you tell us about your character, Grace?
I play the character that is the younger sister of Verona and she doesn't have kids yet, she's a little younger than Verona is, she's ambitious, she's carefree, she's in a relationship but she's not really committed... Completely different to Verona's life... She's making money and she seems to have her head on her shoulders in a very different way to Verona and she is one of the places that they come to visit, she is one of the first stops. They have this real connection that they have never really lost over the years, even though their lives have taken very different paths. They lost their parents when they were much younger and I think there is this bond that exists for that reason as well.
What attracted you to this movie?
Lots of things! To start with, Sam Mendes! I have to be really frank! I think that any actor that is given a chance to work with him is going to take it. He has such range in terms of the kind of work that he can produce and direct. It's always a piece of art, whatever he does and as an actor, that's what you want. His theatre background means that as an actor, you're going to be really respected. I have worked with directors who are great directors but they have no idea what to do with an actor, so that combination of things in a director is always very appealing. So that was the first obvious draw... And then the other thing was the script! Sam Mendes gets to direct this fantastic script, written by two prominent and highly regarded novelists, Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, who have turned out, with their first ever foray into script writing, to be excellent script writers as well. They were going to be having a baby when they decided to write this script. They were sitting around with all of this time to waste because they had to wait for the baby to come and they started writing the script and its really born out of that. The reason that it appealed to me was, I have two children and I really got what this was about, it really made sense. It was so honest, it was a truthful exploration of what it is like to be about to be a parent. I think the movie has this wonderful messiness about it, in terms of the emotions that we explore, which I think is really truthful as well. They go through being really elated and happy and excited about what's coming and then go to total despair and anxiety and freak out about the responsibility they're going to have to take on and it goes through the gamut of emotions that way. I thought it was a really, really great script and you don't get to see great scripts often and you have to recognise them when they come!
Had you read any of Dave Eggers or Vendela Vida's books before you got the script?
I hadn't actually! It's funny because people were saying "Oh my god! You're doing a film with Dave Eggers!" and I was like "Yeah and.... What?". I knew that they were great script writers because I had read the script, but I really had no idea as to how established they were as novelists and they really are highly regarded. To be honest though, it's sometimes better that way when you don't know who people are. You start the relationship in the place that you're at, with the project at hand. They were very much involved in the process, which is very rare as well. Sam, and this is his theatre background coming into play again, he has absolute respect for the material that he's working with. He wouldn't mess with Shakespeare's words and he didn't do it with Vendela and Dave's work either. He would speak to them about everything that was an idea for changing anything and not a lot was changed. As writers, they were always in the room for us as actors to speak to while we were rehearsing, so that we could really understand what they had written and why they had written it, so it was just the perfect experience for me!
How much could you identify with Grace?
Oh completely! Grace is who I was before I had kids and Verona is more like who I am now that I have kids! [laughs] it's that free-spirited energy that you do your best to hang on to once you have a family, but it's very difficult because you put all of your energy and attention to the kids and that's how it should be, but it does mean that you are so less self absorbed and I think Grace has the luxury of being a little bit more self absorbed than her big sister.
Was it challenging working with actors like John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph who are known best as comedians?
There are a lot of actors in this movie who aren't really comedic actors. Maggie Gyllenhaal is not really known for her comedy, but she was so committed to the way her character was written, and it was written so funny, that as long as she was being truthful, it was still going to be funny because it was just written that way. I didn't feel as much pressure for the same reason, because if I was just doing my job, which was to be truthful to my character, then I could leave the funnies to the funny people! I wasn't hired to be the professional comedian on this... Thank God! I would have been pathetic next to Maya and John because they are so funny. There is one scene where I have to hold my own against John , but I end up being his foil, he completely steals the scene in terms of getting the laughs, but that's alright, he's allowed, he was paid to be funny!
The cast have a great rapport on screen, did you spend much time together before filming, or did that just happen on set?
We did spend more time before filming than any of us got to spend during filing because it's an ensemble piece and a road movie, they go from place to place, so we all stepped in for a week of filming and then stepped out, other than the two leads You're still working on a movie set, so you're busy and there's some down time, but you're probably getting your make up done, so you're not getting to know each other that well whilst you're actually making the movie, but I think Sam just knew the kind of people he wanted to work with and there wasn't a single Prima Donna on this film from what I understand, but that's because he isn't. So I think it starts at the top and he just chose wisely and we were all in it for the same reasons - to make a relatively small film. I think because there was such enthusiasm and commitment from John and Maya, this is their first major film as leads and I think their energy and their enthusiasm just rubbed off on everybody so it was a very happy set to be on.
The movie is about finding where you belong, have you found where you belong?
I don't know that I have! Living in New York has been a very curious experience for me. I was eight months pregnant when September 11th happened and I had only been in the States permanently for a few months and it was really a testing time for me to decide to make that my home and I still question whether it really suits me. I have a lot more hope now that we have a new Administration over there. Eight years of Bush was a really really trying time for anyone, especially for someone who doesn't even come from the place, that doesn't even have to be there. I don't know that I have found where home should be. Every time I come back to the UK I feel very nostalgic for England and particularly for London, but its nostalgia for a UK and a London that I don't think really exists any more. Frankly, the things that worry me about the UK seem to be the things that I most dislike about being in America, so I don't know if I can call either place home, it's an ongoing question.
Words : Brogen Haye
Away We Go is now showing at Irish cinemas