Actresses bond over playing dress up, tattoos and aging on screen

Chemistry is one of the most essential but hard-to-describe parts of the filmmaking process. Actors need to get in tune with their costars, just as directors need to find the right way to communicate with their actors. You cant really force it. It just happens or it doesnt.

Good chemistry broke out in a big way at this years Envelope Roundtable of supporting actresses. Participants Laura Dern (Wild) and Patricia Arquette (Boyhood) have moved in similar circles for years, while Tilda Swinton (Snowpiercer) and Emma Stone (Birdman) met and bonded for the first time.

It all made for a conversation filled with genuine curiosity and discovery on such topics as impromptu costume design, adapting to unusual shooting methods, growing up in a household of actors and what the future holds for the next generation.

Here are excerpts from that conversation.

Olsen: Emma, with Birdman, the style of that movie is such a big kind of part of the movie itself, the way its shot so that it seems like its one long, continuous take. How aware were you going into the project that that was going to be so much a part of it?

Stone: You're pretty aware. Alejandro [Inarritu], the director, explained that pretty early on but it wasnt in the script or anything. Once we got into rehearsalswe had a three week rehearsal period before we started shooting and everything kind of needed to be exact.

Olsen: And so did that create a lot of pressure or anxiety that you could be the one to screw it up?

Stone: If you were coming in at the end of a long take, it was a terrible feeling. But I did screw it up many times and by many I mean seven. It does increase the pressure, but then the feeling of it all working fluidly is the greatest feeling I've ever had on a set.

Olsen: Patricia, with Boyhood, the style of that movie is unusual as well, a movie that took 12 years to make. How was the film first presented to you?

Arquette: Well Richard Linklater, the director, just called me and said, What are you going to be doing the next 12 years? And I said Ill probably be trying to get a job. And he said, I have this idea of shooting a week a year for 12 years, and I was like, Yeah, lets do that. Sounds incredible. And so we would show up a week a year and he would call us a few months before and talk about those specific scenes and he would write some dialogue and then we would improvise it and he would rewrite it.

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Actresses bond over playing dress up, tattoos and aging on screen