Interviews With The Girl on the Train Cast and Director
One of the most hotly anticipated movies this fall stars Emily Blunt, Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Allison Janney, Edgar Ramirez, Lisa Kudrow and Laura Prepon in DreamWorks Pictures’ The Girl on the Train, from director Tate Taylor (The Help, Get on Up) based on Paula Hawkins’ bestselling currently, number one on the paperback best seller list novel.
Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing many of the key cast members including Hayley Bennett (Megan Hipwell); Edgar Ramirez (Dr. Kamal Abdic); Justin Theroux (Tom Watson); Luke Evans (Scott Hipwell); Emily Blunt (Rachel Watson) and Director Tate Taylor.
Laughter on Set?
With an intense drama like The Girl on the Train, you would think that the cast would be very method but you would be mistaken. Justin Theroux said there was lots of laughs in between takes and the long set ups during filming. He specifically called out how funny Emily Blunt. I can testify to his comment. This is the second interview I have done with Ms. Blunt, “In to the Woods” was the first junket I interviewed her, she is terribly hilarious and does not miss a chance to joke around.
The flip side to the laughs on set and keeping it light between the very serious scenes was Hayley Bennett who plays Megan Hipwell comment that she had to “scrub her character” off each night.
Getting Into Character
I don’t think it’s a spoiler to mention that Emily Blunt’s character is not reacting well to her divorce from Tom (Justin Theroux) and drinks a lot. So how did Emily get into character to playing a drunk. She was very serious about not playing it for laughs but wanted to “be as authentic, raw and ugly as possible. It is an ugly disease.”
Rather than watch other performances by actors playing alcoholics she watched a lot of documentaries to watch the reality of the disease. She specifically mentioned “Intervention” and Louis Theroux’s documentary “Drinking To Oblivion” as source material for her research. At the end of the day, she reminded us, it not just the portrait of an alcoholic, it’s a thriller.
Make no mistake Emily Blunt does not look good in this movie. Emily gave credit to how phenomenal make up artist Kyra Panchenko was in studying alcoholics, pulling together various mugshots of people, including celebrities who’ve been arrested for drunk driving and used special effects products to dirty Emily up for the shoot.
So you have Emily Blunt doing tons of research for her role while Edgar Ramirez did absolutely no research for his role as the psychiatrist Dr. Kamal Abdic. The self-described “nerd” told us that he was finishing up “Gold” when Director Tate Taylor called and asked him to read the script. After reading the script, he met with Taylor and boom, boom, the next day he was rehearsing and two days later they were filming.
Hayley Bennett as Megan Hipwell, probably has the most difficult role in my opinion is that she is the pretty girl from her appearance and therefore she is not going to be liked. Hayley mentioned that she wanted to approach her character in a way that she would be both relatable and likeable. Not an easy task.
Filming in Westchester
Much of the movie takes place on Metro North which are the train lines that go north from New York City to the Westchester suburbs. The most scenic route goes along the Hudson River and is the train Rachel takes every day where she peers into the homes along the way. Tate Taylor had a rude awakening the first day he took Metro North. “I went all the way to Poughkeepsie to pick out my three houses, and they don’t exist. Oops.” That’s right there are no houses on the train route. This is Hollywood so the production team had to improvise. Behind the scenes fun fact is that the houses from the film sit on an abandoned golf course in Westchester.
A “R” Rated Movie for Adults
What sets this movie apart is that it is a movie for grown ups, period. From the get go, the movie was an “R.” Taylor was pretty frank, “this is dirty, sexual, painful, violent” mentioning that movies like Bridesmaid and Deadpool laid the groundwork for the “R” rating.
About The Girl on the Train
Emily Blunt stars as Rachel Watson, a woman devastated by her recent divorce from Tom Watson (Justin Theroux) now married to Anna (Rebecca Ferguson) spends her daily commute fantasizing about the seemingly perfect couple (Megan and Scott Hipwell) who live in a house that her train passes every day, until one morning she sees something shocking happen there and becomes entangled in the mystery that unfolds.
Want to know what I think about the movie, read my full review.
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THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN – in theaters October 7
Disclosure: NYC Single Mom attended The Girl on the Train cast interviews courtesy of Universal Pictures.
