E-mail a friendAmy Ryan
original airdate January 31, 2008
Amy Ryan is making her presence felt on both the big and small screens. Her multi-layered performance in Gone Baby Gone earned supporting actress Oscar, Golden Globe and SAG Award nods. She's also been featured in HBO's acclaimed series, The Wire. A Queens, NY native, Ryan roots are in the theater. She attended the High School of the Performing Arts and, though accepted at NYU, opted to pursue a stage career. She's won two Best Actress Tony nods. Ryan is next up in the period thriller, The Changeling.
Amy Ryan
Tavis: Amy Ryan's role in the film "Gone Baby Gone" is one of the most talked-about performances of this awards season. Last week, in fact, she was nominated for an Oscar in the category of best supporting actress. Earlier this week she was up for a Screen Actors Guild award. Here now, a scene from "Gone Baby Gone."
[Clip]
Tavis: So first of all, congratulations.
Amy Ryan: Thank you so much.
Tavis: How does it feel?
Ryan: It's pretty - it's from A to Z in the book feelings, yeah.
Tavis: Sinking in yet?
Ryan: Yes, it is, and it's really exciting, but it's also exhausting and I think that is built in on purpose so you don't lose your mind.
Tavis: For those who have not seen the movie, tell me about the role you play.
Ryan: I play Helene McCready, who is a single mother who is addicted to drugs and alcohol, but also the main plot is her 4-year-old daughter gets kidnapped and she's not very helpful with the police in helping in their investigation. We learn why as the film ravels on.
Tavis: I've seen the movie twice, in fact. It's hard to talk about because it has so many twists and turns.
Ryan: I know, you don't want to give it away, yeah.
Tavis: Exactly. (Laughter)
Ryan: Because it's not just like a cop-detective who done it. It really is a character piece. This event that happens, it affects every single character in the story. And in Boston, too, which I believe is the main character of the film.
Tavis: I want to come back to Boston, because Boston is one of the main characters in this film. Before I do that, though, I'm trying to figure out in what ways are you challenged, in what ways are you turned on by a script like this? Because to your earlier point, there are so many twists and turns. This is one of those movies where if you leave the room for 10 minutes and you come back, you miss something.
Ryan: You miss something.
Tavis: So you really have to follow this thing from start to finish. As an actor, that's challenging, exciting in what ways?
Ryan: Well, it's to never play the end in the beginning, that's a big one. And also, just to get out of the character's way. There are moments that maybe - I don't condone Helene's behavior or her choices she makes, but it's just get out of the character's way and let the story run with it.
Tavis: How challenging - I'm trying to find the right word. How challenging, how interesting, provocative, whatever it might be, to be in a movie where again, there are so many moving parts? There are so many moving parts to this, and your part doesn't connect to every part in the film. When you read - can you see all of that when you read the script, even though you're not -
Ryan: No, I am truly only an actor, so I read stories very single-mindedly. (Laughter) Like oh, I get to do this, I get to do this.
Tavis: I've got this part right here, exactly.
Ryan: That's why I'm so taken with Ben Affleck, that he can see the bigger picture, the arc of the whole movie. But as an actor I always just ask the questions like all right, well, why is this scene in the movie? Like, what do I need to bring to the table for this? And I try to think just for that moment and then luckily, there are people who can do the whole arc there.
Tavis: Because I often wonder, and again, in a project like this that has so many moving parts to it, whether or not the actors really always understand their connectivity to the whole storyline, given that they're only one slice of a thing that's got 18 moving pieces to it.
Ryan: Well, especially when you do take-to-take. That's what we did. We kept mixing it up, and that woman, that character I play, really, nothing is wrong. You can do it any which way because she's so outrageous. So it was really kind of dealer's choice for Ben, like which way will he take it? Where will we show her moments of true vulnerability, and where will we show her acerbic, cornered rat defensive tactics that she takes?
Tavis: Again, to your point, Amy, because she is so out there, and because again, to your point, you could go so many different ways with it. So Ben's the director, he picks what he likes best in the end, of course. As an actor, how do you know when you have given all the complexity to that character, given, again, that she's so far-out to begin with?
Ryan: Well I think in anything, the body doesn't lie. So you throw out a choice and you do something and you feel you start to shrink or you doubt and you go, like, maybe that was off the mark. But when you do make a choice as an actor, you kind of get that rush of adrenalin. You're like, "Maybe they'll be able to use that;" that feels good.
Tavis: How does Helene rank among the characters you've played? Because she is, again, pretty far out there?
Ryan: Well, I feel like in some ways I've play lesser degrees of Helene, like two-dimensional versions of her in other episodics of a TV show where there isn't time to really see the human behind this stereotype in some ways. So I knew when I read the script that there was nothing really like anyplace I had gone before, and it's because she's not just a bad guy.
She is a very complicated person up against all the odds, and it's really about the cycle. I believe she was her daughter at one point, too, and she grew up in this environment, as her daughter is growing up in, and you start to go, well, at one point we had sympathy for Helene when she was four years old, I bet. So how do we fix the bigger problem? How do we take care of our children from the beginning? Because three doors down, chances are it's the same story - no health care, no education - the list goes on and on.
Tavis: You may be just now starting to answer this question but let me just let you unpack it a little bit more, though. I assume - maybe I shouldn't; let me not assume. Do you learn things, do you learn lessons, do you have takeaways from the characters that you play, and if so, what's the takeaway from this character?
Ryan: I took away from this never judge a book by its cover with Helene. It's easy to dismiss someone that callous. Maybe they're just dumb or they're too abrasive. But I think in all of us, there is a human there. There's someone who needs a better chance, and that's what I learned from her.
Tavis: Before I go to Boston, the main character, I think, in this film, the obligatory question. So, where were you when you heard the news about the Academy, how did you find out, what was the reaction, initially?
Ryan: I was back home in New York. Yeah, the reaction initially was just this slow, spreading smile across my face as the day wore on. And I watched it on TV, so I didn't let out any whoops or screams because I was holding on with baited breath too to see if Casey's name was going to be called for "Jesse James." And then I let out a huge scream. I was so excited for him. He's a remarkable actor.
Tavis: There are two Affleck brothers on that project.
Ryan: That is a nice sandwich to be a part of.
Tavis: I was about to ask. (Laughter)
Ryan: I recommend it to anybody.
Tavis: What am I, meat? Absolutely. Between these two Affleck pieces of break, exactly.
Ryan: It is pure talent. They are remarkable, remarkable men.
Tavis: So speaking of the Affleck brothers, then, Boston. What do you make of the role that Boston plays, literally, in this project?
Ryan: Well, I think it's like many of our towns in America. But what strikes me, I come from New York where it is just a big mix of everything and we all meet in the center, be it in the subway system or Times Square. But Boston is still really compartmentalized. It still feels like this is the neighborhood you grew up in and your mother grew up in and your grandparents.
And so there was a real tight-knit community in each of these neighborhoods. But yeah, it's tough; some of it can be pretty tough. But I think I love that Ben showed a side of Boston that we rarely see in movies. Usually we see Fenway Park and the Commons and all those beautiful New England idyllic situations. But there's other, harsher truths out there which I find more beautiful.
Tavis: And besides the Afflecks, this is a project that's got some heavyweight talent on it. Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris.
Ryan: Yeah.
Tavis: Pretty cool.
Ryan: Yeah, I remember getting the job and as I was learning afterwards, like, who else was in the cast, I was like this is incredible. When I met Ed Harris that first day of rehearsal, I said, "Oh, hi, nice to meet you." And he looked at me, he's like, "That's some part you got there." And I thought, "Oh, boy," like, the line was drawn in the sand. It was, like, "Keep up."
Tavis: Yeah, don't drop the ball.
Ryan: And he was phenomenal to work with. He is such a giving and extraordinary actor, and he demands that you keep up and therefore, he makes you better just by being next to him.
Tavis: So you don't get intimidated in that kind of company?
Ryan: Oh, absolutely. (Laughter) I'm a good poker player, though. Yeah, okay.
Tavis: Yeah, you're cool.
Ryan: Yeah, we'll do it again, yeah. (Laughter) We had one day, it was a rehearsal and Ed did this moment where he came rushing up and he screams down my ear to demand the information. And Ben's like, "Okay, that's great, let's do it again. Amy, can you - come here, I want to tell you something." And he took me behind one of those scenery walls.
He's like, "Oh my God, Ed Harris just yelled at you, that was so cool, that's so cool." (Laughter) He's like, "Are you okay?" I was, like, "I'm okay." He's like, "Okay, get back in there." (Laughter) So there is, like - I appreciate that too in Ben because there is this moment - your heroes can become your peers in this business.
But I need that moment to catch my breath to be with talent like that, and I'm glad that Ben doesn't have to pretend he's cool enough to pretend that that's every day. But it is really -
Tavis: As I sit and watch you, and we just met for the first time literally, what, 12 minutes ago when you walked in the studio, but I get the sense - and I don't mean to cast aspersion on anybody else, but there are some folk who have been nominated a number of times, they're in this business like you are, they're A-list actors. But it's really refreshing to see somebody who I think is really turned on by what all this means. This is really exciting for you.
Ryan: Well, it's not lost on me. It is - there are gifts. And my family, I feel like they've been so supportive throughout 20 years that I've been doing this, and I feel like this is their moment. They're celebrating with their friends and they're having little parties, watching all of these shows - well, the one that was on TV. So it's nice to give that to them.
Tavis: Hopefully this one.
Ryan: Hopefully the Oscars, yeah. And also the doors that it has opened up. I've only ever just wanted to tell bigger and better stories as an actor. That's really my main hope. And this has done that. This has opened up those doors for me.
Tavis: Well, congratulations again.
Ryan: Oh, thank you so much.
Tavis: Her name, of course, Amy Ryan, now nominated for - the rest of your life, they'll be saying that.
Ryan: (Laughs) Yeah.
Tavis: Academy Award maybe winner, but certainly Academy Award nominee, starring Amy Ryan. So nice to have you on the program.
Ryan: Thank you so much for having me.
Tavis: The project, of course, "Gone Baby Gone."
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