THC: In recent interviews, you've talked about the importance of "heightened naturalism" in making a film such as A Map of the World. What does "heightened naturalism" mean in terms of film aesthetics?

SE: I say "heightened naturalism," but it's really my version of naturalism. I say "heightened" because I've found in front of the camera that stillness passes for naturalism, that there doesn't have to be any kind of behavior, that there has to be this sort of tightness, which is a myth in my opinion. When actors open their mouths and speak and are expressive, when they use their bodies, use their faces, that is natural to me. In films, actors are often very, very still because they're afraid of moving outside the camera, or the camera has to move around them.

SW: I think they're also afraid of getting out there because usually you don't get along with the director. They [directors] are often busy with other aspects of the film. So I think part of it is that so many actors don't get enough rehearsal time, so that they're kind of afraid to make a huge role choice because they don't want to be totally wrong.

SE: We rehearsed a lot. We only had 30 days to shoot, so we had to get really prepared. So the "heightened naturalism" is really my version of naturalism. My feeling is that we're never still, as people we're always moving, we're nodding or fidgeting or doing something, so I think those things, to me, are the things which make characters on the screen "human."

THC: You've been asked about Alien for almost twenty years now. Looking back, do you feel like you can take credit for inventing a new type of heroine?

SW: I feel I should take very little credit for that. It was funny because the decision to make the character Ripley a woman was made by David Giler, Walter Hill, and Gordon Carroll [producers], who bought Dan O'Bannon's script which was all male. They basically rewrote the script, and they were looking at it and thought, wouldn't it be great if the hero winds up being this girl you don't expect. They just kind of did that because they thought it would be a good plot surprise, it was written exactly like if it was for a man. That's the biggest mistake people make, when they write the woman's part it gets all schmaltzy and stupid. If you want to write a great part for a woman, just write it for a man, without any preconceptions like, now she needs her little sympathetic moment, now she needs to show that she's emotionally fragile. I think Alien turned out the way it did because of producers who just decided to let the female character loose, and that's where it came from, not for political reasons, but because it's much more interesting.

THC: The only thing that seems to link your roles is that your characters tend to be ferocious--and not always likeable.

SW: Alice, from this film, is interesting in that way because I think we all know someone like Alice who drives you crazy, but you respect that about them, that they're always out there with their real reactions. But I think Alice was the most interesting woman I've played because her journey is just so unique, by the time she gets released so much has happened to her, inside, outside, so much has happened to her family, yet they kind of make peace with it and move on. I think it's a very stirring movie, a very amazing movie because it tells the truth.