E-mail a friendRadha Mitchell
original airdate March 25, 2005
Radha Mitchell is one of Hollywood's newest leading ladies. She played Johnny Depp's wife in Finding Neverland and will next be seen as the title character in Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda. While still in high school, Mitchell began working in TV and movies in her native Australia. Her film credits include Pitch Black, High Art, the Independent Spirit Award-winning film Everything Put Together, Phone Booth and Man on Fire. She also starred in NBC's critically acclaimed mini-series Uprising.
Radha Mitchell
Tavis: Actress Radha Mitchell is on a roll. In just the past few years she scored plum roles opposite, get this, Colin Farrell in 'Phone Booth,' Denzel, as in Washington, in 'Man on Fire,' and Johnny Depp in 'Finding Neverland.' Not bad. Now she stars in Woody Allen's latest project, 'Melinda and Melinda.' The film opens this month in select cities and here now a scene from 'Melinda and Melinda.'
Melinda: I moved there for him. He was gorgeous. He was talented. He was sexy. He was a doctor. He was charming.
Hobie: Yes, but where's the attraction?
Melinda: He just knew how to touch me.
Hobie: You mean emotionally?
Melinda: No. With his hands.
Hobie: Oh.
Melinda: I'm a very passionate person, so sex is very important to me. You know, I need a lot of physical intimacy. Very often and creatively.
Hobie: Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. No, it's...yeah.
Melinda: Am I being too frank?
Hobie: No. No. No. No. I-- you're just, uh--I'll be OK. I just--I get hot flashes.
Tavis: Will Ferrell is funny. Radha, nice to meet you.
Radha Mitchell: Nice to meet you.
Tavis: Glad to have you on the program. So, who do you know in this town? Johnny Depp, Denzel...
Mitchell: Who do you know?
Tavis: I'm not in the movies.
Mitchell: They keep coming here, don't they?
Tavis: Yeah. That's great. I mean, these are--you got some--these are plum roles.
Mitchell: Yeah. I mean it's great to be able to work with good actors because so much of what you do is reliant on other people's work. It's always a team effort. And working with someone like Will is such a pleasure because he's so grounded even though he's so famous. He's not this cynical, twisted comedian that you might expect. He's just like a really nice guy.
Tavis: Yeah. I was in part joking about who you know here. And the backstory on that, of course, is for those--your fans certainly know this--you're from Australia. And we'll get to the invasion of the Australians into Hollywood in just a second here. But it is an interesting dynamic when you consider that so many Australians have really over the last few years, really started to make a name for themselves in Hollywood. So what are you guys drinking in Australia. Is it something in the water?
Mitchell: Maybe. Um, what is--
Tavis: I mean, you, Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Heath Ledger...I mean...
Mitchell: Yeah. Why is it? I don't know. When I first came here, I had to do all the meetings with an American accent. So I just pretend to be American. And then I got a movie called 'Pitch Black,' and they also thought I was American until they hired me, and then realized that the film was being shot in Australia. So it's kinda good that I was Australian. And recently, I don't think Australians have to disguise the fact that they're not American because we're so used to seeing American actors play English parts and English actors playing American parts. It's kind of a global community now in film.
Tavis: I guess, this may be one of my top 5 dumb questions of this season. But it always fascinates me when I hear a person speak of--this is my own bias and perhaps my own arrogance--but it's always funny to me when I hear persons who speak with an accent that is un-American, talk about speaking with an American dialect. I guess it's the same for you. When you speak a certain language, you don't hear the accent, I guess. That's just how you talk. That's how you were raised. So we hear Americans all the time imitate other accents, but how do you learn to sound like an American? How do you emulate our accent?
Mitchell: Well, I--
Tavis: Or lack thereof.
Mitchell: Yeah, well, I guess it's all sort of perversions of the Queen's English, right? And I have a dialogue coach, so there's a person that I see before I shoot a film and we'll go through the script. And there's certain words that stand out, like 'no-oo' is a very Australian word. And, you know, I have to try to make it sound a little more like 'no.' Certain words like that--that just always stay the same no matter how hard I work on them. And those are the sorts of things that you iron out. There's a much harder 'r' with the American accents, like 'ar.' Um, things like that.
Tavis: I gotta learn that.
Mitchell: I'd like to hear you say 'no-oo.'
Tavis: Yeah. No, I could--as you were saying it, I'm thinking to myself, I could never say it that way.
Mitchell: Just put your fingers on your nose and do it. No-oo. No.
Tavis: No-o.
Mitchell: That's pretty good.
Tavis: Pretty good?
Mitchell: Yeah. You've done it.
Tavis: That clip will go somewhere. And it shouldn't, but anyway, that said--
Mitchell: Next question.
Tavis: Yeah, next question, 'Melinda and Melinda', uh, the clip we saw a few minutes ago was--my phraseology, not yours--the happy Melinda, if you will. But you, obviously, as one can guess, in a movie called 'Melinda and Melinda' play 2 different Melindas. How would you best describe what the movie is?
Mitchell: Um, well, the movie kind of explores the life of this same character in 2 different scenarios, and one's a comedy and one's a tragedy. And I would say the movie's kind of an exploration of what your attitude, the effect that your attitude has on your life. And Woody's movies are generally kind of intellectual and you sort of watch them and go home and think about them. Is life a comedy or a tragedy? I don't know.
Tavis: A little bit of both.
Mitchell: Yeah.
Tavis: How did you hook up with Woody? How did this happen? I've heard the strangest and most interesting stories about how Woody casts, how people meet him, how they work with him, so tell me your Woody Allen story.
Mitchell: Um, it's pretty weird. I'd never met him at all, actually.
Tavis: Had you found his work?
Mitchell: Yeah, I was aware of him as a director, a fan, actually. And I got a phone call one day. I'd just come back from Australia, and my cell phone was calling and it was Woody Allen, ringing to see if I wanted to be in this movie. And I kind of was a bit suspicious. It just seemed a little odd. It was so out of the blue. I thought it must be one of my friends, but--
Tavis: So you didn't hang up on him.
Mitchell: No. I didn't hang up on him. I just sort of went through the conversation going, 'Yeah, yeah, sure. OK. Yeah. Love to.' And then I rang my agent, and I was, like, 'Woody Allen just called me.' They're like, 'Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great.' And so then I had one hour to read the script, which is--and sort of had to return it, so there was someone that came--
Tavis: Wait. Wait. He actually gave you the whole script?
Mitchell: Yeah. Not many peopl--
Tavis: He's--exactly. He's famous for, like, giving people their parts, but he's very clandestine. He didn't like putting the whole thing out.
Mitchell: No. Well, this one I think he realized that the actor had to read it, 'cause there was a lot to it. So I had the script for one hour and then I wasn't allowed to tell anybody what it was about, and, you know, obviously I wanted to be involved. So I rang him and said yeah, please, love to. And then they sent it back to me, so I had a script to work with. But a lot of the actors that were working on the film didn't know whether they were the hero or the villain or who they were.
Tavis: So let me ask you, how does one go about making a decision. I mean never mind the fact that it's a Woody Allen film. With all respect to Mr. Allen, you know, the critics have kind of panned his last few films. So you get this script. You get a phone call from Woody Allen. You determine that it is in fact Woody Allen. He lets you see a script. You have an hour to read it. And you have to return it. Save the fact that it's a Woody Allen project, how does one decide in an hour that this is a project that I want to do?
Mitchell: I think, you know, you have a sort of instinct with things, and if it--I mean, especially a movie like this and the part was so interesting. It was an easy choice to make. Normally there's some sort of deliberation and there's group discussions about whether you should or shouldn't, but this was sort of an easy decision for me to make.
Tavis: What made it easier? What made it so easy to make a decision? I mean there are folk in this town as you know, and I suspect there are other projects you looked at that it took you a while to decide whether you want to do it. How did you make that decision in one hour?
Mitchell: Well, there was the Woody Allen factor.
Tavis: OK. That small piece. Small but important piece.
Mitchell: And then there was the, you know, jewel part in a movie. What a great opportunity. Um, so it really didn't require a lot of sort of deliberation.
Tavis: Were there days where you played both parts, the happy and the tragic Melinda? The two shot in the same day?
Mitchell: Yeah, well, the first--I don't know if I told you, but there was no sort of rehearsal for this. So I had the script. And as much as the other actors hadn't read the script, we didn't rehearse anything. So I arrived on the first day and I had one Melinda in the morning and the other Melinda in the afternoon. And I think I met Woody the day before it, the wardrobe-like fitting session where everybody was walking along in their costumes. And he was like, 'Hello, how are you? Thanks for being in the movie.' So, I go, 'OK.' So that was that. And so then the next day I was on set, and I had one character in the morning and the other character in the afternoon. I went home that night thinking, 'My God, I'm fired,' 'cause he didn't say a word. He just sort of sat behind and said, 'OK, take one, take 2.' But as the movie went on, we did sort of talk about what we were doing and we developed a friendship. But at first, it was very, kind of hands-off approach to directing.
Tavis: Well, you pulled it off, and particularly when you're shooting 2 characters who are so diametrically different in the same day. It's a great piece.
Mitchell: All right.
Tavis: You did a great job with it. It was nice to have you on the program.
Mitchell: Thank you.
Tavis: Watertreaty.org. As you know we always ask our guests for a website they suggest that you check out to be enlightened and empowered, so watertreaty.org. You can guess it has something to do with how we better treat our water resources. Radha, nice to have you on our program.
Mitchell: Thank you.
Tavis: That's our show for tonight. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Until then, thanks for watching. Good night from Los Angeles. And as always keep the faith.
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