Being No. 1 on the call sheet imbues an actor with a lot of power. There’s a certain kind of reverence that’s reserved for the name atop the production schedule — a respect granted only to a lead performer taking on the responsibility of steering their colleagues through a shoot.
On the set of “Wicked,” Cynthia Erivo often found herself in this position. Along with co-star Ariana Grande, she had top billing as Elphaba, the infamous Wicked Witch of the West whose name belies a softer underbelly. And yet sometimes, after sitting in a chair having green makeup applied to her for four hours, she was asked to break her turnaround time. That’s the amount of time an actor is given between the end of one production day and the start of the next — personal time devoted to rest, rejuvenation and preparation.
“I’d be getting my makeup off, which took another hour, and they’d go, ‘So, Cynthia, how soon can we pick you up?’” Erivo recalls on a mid-November morning, sitting alongside five of her peers on The Envelope Actresses Roundtable to discuss the roles that have put them in the current awards season conversation.
“It’s taken me years to learn how to say ‘no’ to that,” adds Kate Winslet, who portrays the real-life photographer who goes from shooting models for Vogue to the atrocities of the Holocaust in “Lee.”
“Because I think you’re still thugging it through with everybody,” says Danielle Deadwyler. “Yeah, you’re on the call sheet, but f— that call sheet. We are all making a film together. I want to be with the gaffers and the grips and the PAs and the second AD. This is a gift.”
Deadwyler appeared most recently in an adaptation of August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson,” playing a widowed single mother clinging to a sentimental family heirloom. On this Sunday morning, she, Winslet and Erivo sit with Demi Moore, who undergoes a dramatic physical transformation after receiving a back-alley rejuvenation treatment in “The Substance”; Zoe Saldaña, returning to singing and dancing as a lawyer protecting a Mexican cartel leader in the Spanish-language musical “Emilia Perez”; and Saoirse Ronan, starring as a young woman grappling with her sobriety in remote Scotland in “The Outrun” and as a British mother searching for her lost son during the Nazi bombing of London during World War II in “The Blitz.”
Together, the women discuss the power of saying no, how box-office hits can prove creatively stifling, and crying during press tours.
These excerpts from that conversation have been edited for length and clarity.
Is there something you wish you’d known about the business before you got into it?
Kate Winslet: I think knowing how to handle oneself in a situation where there might be nudity. Knowing how to say, “I don’t think you need to put the camera there,” or “I’m not sure it’s OK with me that my robe is 20 feet away from where I am.”
Cynthia Erivo: There don’t need to be 20 people in the room when we’re shooting.
There is much more community and a sense of looking out for one another. Because we don’t have a built-in system of mentorship. And so when you’re really young, you’re afraid to ask sometimes.
— Demi Moore, on feeling safe on set
Winslet: That’s it. Saoirse and I had a really great situation. We had a really intimate scene together in a film called “Ammonite” from a few years ago, and I suddenly realized that our boom operator was a man. And I turned to our first [assistant director], and I said, “Is there a female boom op for the day?” And he was like, “I’m sorry, we didn’t think about that.” And I said, “Ah, I think we’re going to need a female boom.” So our third assistant director, this lovely Welsh girl called Lucy, she was like, “I’ll do it, I don’t mind.” And she just stood there holding this boom, having never done it in her life.
Kate Winslet
Saoirse Ronan: It was very empowering for us, though, because I think we were essentially the only two actors on that job, and we both came into it as two women who had both started from a very early age, had all this experience, and are quite vocal in what we’re comfortable with. And it really felt like for once we were the majority — we were the ones that were able to go, “No, this is how we’re going to work.”
And Kate, you have been a massive part of that for myself, for Shailene Woodley, a lot of young actresses. Kate has always been the one that’s really taken us under her wing. Even for me now, I’m 30, but there are now people coming up who are younger than me. I really want younger actors, male and female, to know that if they’re ever feeling a little bit overwhelmed or they just want someone to talk to or to go, “Is this how it should be on a photo shoot? Am I all right to ask for this?” to just be able to call us and know that we will always be there. Because that’s what I had with you, and it’s had such a massive impact on me.
Demi Moore: On “The Substance,” I was being rushed to sign my approval on the nudity as if I was holding things up. And when I arrived, I spoke to [younger co-star] Margaret [Qualley], and she said, “Have you signed that?” And I said, “Well, I thought I was the last one so I kind of acquiesced.” She hadn’t signed hers yet, so I immediately rescinded mine and said, “We will only be tied together.” In doing so, I also [asked] that we have the ability to approve [a scene] after it was edited. And I’m telling you, neither of us changed anything. But the comfort of being part of the conversation by being considered, it’s a game-changer. And I think that’s a reflection of how things have changed. There is much more community and a sense of looking out for one another. Because you know we don’t have a built-in system of mentorship. And so when you’re really young, you’re afraid to ask sometimes.
Zoe Saldaña: Especially women. I grew up in a culture where the respect to elders was never questioned. It’s changed a lot, but at times the child grows up not really having a voice. There are moments in which a young person can feel uncomfortable. It’s important to check in with them and give them back the power of making their own choices. Sometimes saying “no” is a very important choice that you have to make in your life. It can save your life, it can save your sanity, and allow you to develop safety. … When a child says, “I hear you, but no thank you,” it is so powerful and so beautiful.
Winslet: The truth is I guess we kind of had to learn the hard way, because when you’re a young actress coming up in the industry, “Oh, you don’t make a fuss. No, no, no, don’t be difficult. Don’t get a reputation.” These things that were definitely said to us that, I have to be honest, I think were not said to the boys. These voices that we all now collectively have, they are hard won.
Zoe, you’ve been in the three highest–grossing films ever: the two “Avatar” films and “Avengers: Endgame.” That would seemingly be any actor’s dream. But you’ve said you also found it creatively stifling.
Saldaña: It’s a challenging conversation to have because the soundbites don’t really favor the conversation that I was having at all times about this. I’ve always been grateful. To say that I am a pupil of James Cameron and Steven Spielberg and even James Gunn, J.J. Abrams, I feel very honored because these were men that were incredible creatives. I learned so much. They gave me my first opportunities that catapulted me into markets that I could never have imagined had I planned this out myself. I don’t know how a brown girl from Queens could have designed that for herself.
But it was stifling in the sense that these successful stories became franchises, so all of a sudden they’re a part of this machine that has dates and has a schedule that sometimes is more than two to three months long. It’s sometimes four to five, six months long, and all of this is happening while I’m in my 30s, falling in love, getting married, starting my family. I stopped asking myself what I wanted for so long. And I remember one day my husband and I are having a really passionate conversation, as Italians and Latinos often do, and he just asked me, “What do you want?” I broke down. I said, “I don’t know what I want. To start from scratch again.” On paper, I have everything. You have more than enough reasons to gaslight yourself. “How dare you want more?” But I did. I wanted to grow.
So I started with that. “I want to continue growing, I want to continue challenging myself and surprising the f— out of myself going, ‘I can do that?’” And I had stopped doing that.
Zoe Saldaña
Ronan: I was almost crying there as you were talking about that, because it also sounds like you’ve given so much time to your personal life away from work. You can so easily start to lose your own sense of self. … And I think it’s so important, as great as it is to work and to be doing great work, like we all are, to also give that time to your loved ones and your private life because it only enriches the work.
Saldaña: But you started so very young. How were you able to balance, or did you balance?
Ronan: I think I did to a certain extent. I think having the mother that I have made such a difference to me. … I was in movies where I was the kid among a bunch of adults, so nobody was expecting me to be anything other than the kid who gave this performance. But at every single wrap party, every single event after a premiere, I would go for a bit, and then Mom would be like, “OK, we’re going home.” We stayed in a house every single time we were on location. We never stayed in a hotel. She would cook dinner every single night. She would go over my lines with me. There was a structure to my evening away from work, which I think I still kind of hold on to now.
What do you all like to do outside of work? Danielle, you got a master’s in creative writing at one point.
Danielle Deadwyler: Yeah.
Winslet: Good girl! F— great. Was it Columbia?
Deadwyler: Well, that was the other one.
Erivo: The other one?
Winslet: Come on, tell us all the other things. We just want to know what you did in your real life.
Deadwyler: I feel like I’ve had the privilege of being able to balance my own personal performance art and visual artwork with more commercial film opportunities. Operating in this space has given me the autonomy that I’ve wanted artistically to explore themes that are important to me, that are reflective of this body. And then I’m able to curate this film and TV aspect of my life in a more rigorous and interwoven way. I did all of that academic work and became a mother during that time. Having a certain life experience that informs both sides. Now I’m at a point where I’m not separating them. Because your real life is always in conversation with your artistic life.
Erivo: Hearing that you have done your master’s really inspired me, because I’ve been trying to do my PhD for a really long time.
Deadwyler: Go back. I’m trying to figure out how to do that too.
Erivo: I was accepted into the Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard. I haven’t been able to do it, so it just made me think, “Get it together, figure it out.”
Deadwyler: You can do it.
Danielle Deadwyler
Demi, before “The Substance,” is it true that you were considering leaving the industry?
Moore: I went through a period where I didn’t quite find where I belonged. The material I was seeing, it was like nothing was bad, but nothing was great. My question became, is this part of my life complete? Have I done what I was supposed to do here? And then I realized that if I didn’t have the answer to that question, I have to then inject the focus and energy to answer that question. … And what’s interesting is as soon as I made that shift, “The Substance” two weeks later arrived across my desk. And it was the first piece of material in a very long time that I felt moved by.
I have to tell her story, and I have to also be brave enough to tell a story about a flawed, middle-aged woman who went to war to bear witness, and for which she paid a huge emotional price.
— Kate Winslet, on why she needed to make “Lee”
Kate, you were clearly very moved by “Lee,” which you’ve been trying to get made since 2015. Why did her story affect you so much?
Winslet: She is an incredibly important, significant female figure historically in our time. And this was someone who, when I first Googled her in 2015, it said: ex-lover and muse of Man Ray, former Vogue cover girl. I thought, “This is not OK.” Why are we so obsessed with defining important female figures alongside their love life? We don’t do that to the men at all. And I thought, “I have to put her where she belongs, I have to tell her story, and I have to also be brave enough to tell a story about a flawed, middle-aged woman who went to war to bear witness, and for which she paid a huge emotional price.” She suffered terrible PTSD, which haunted her. She had a dangerous relationship with alcohol. But I would sit with potential male investors, and they’d say, “So exciting. Tell me, why should I like this woman?”
What would you say to that?
Winslet: I mean, I had lots of words that began with F … But I didn’t say those things, I would just say, “Well, clearly I’m not going to make the film with you.”
Cynthia, on press tour for “Wicked,” you and Ariana Grande have been very emotional. What about this story has brought out so much feeling in you?
Erivo: Well, I think on the face of it it’s this fantastical story about a woman who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda the Good Witch, and their friendship. But actually, it’s about two women who suffer losses in their own separate ways. And my particular character has to walk through life feeling deeply unloved, having a really complicated relationship with her father, who basically shuns her, and having to figure out what it is to be an older sister without getting in the way. I really understood these concepts as a person whose own father disowned her.
We had made an agreement at the very beginning of the film, right before we had started when we met each other, that we were going to make the space that was necessary for both of us to tell the story, that we were going to keep each other safe, that we were going to be really honest with each other, that we weren’t going to bicker about silly things. We put ourselves through a lot, both physically and mentally, vocally. I mean, I’m up in the air in a f— harness and a corset singing at the same time. You can’t do that if you don’t feel safe. And so both of us did that for a year, two years, and then had to hold on to it. And we’re only now being able to sort of share it with everyone, and all of that stuff comes back. Why we are emotional constantly is that we’re reliving all of the things that we had gone through.
Ari is so funny. She says, “I don’t know why people are so afraid of emotion,” and I agree. I don’t know why we’re so afraid of watching two women who went through something cry about it. I think now people are sort of like, it’s hilarious. But I think at the beginning it was like, “Why are they always crying?” Well, because we spent two years of our life with each other.
Winslet: Just listening to you talk so beautifully, it makes me really reflect on the time that we are living in since #MeToo. Because that remains a movement that we are all in, in the sense that we are listening to each other with different ears. I think that we crave sisterhood, we crave stability in the togetherness of listening to one another. I think that really lifted a lid in terms of knowing that we’ve all got our stuff. Not being ashamed or afraid to say, “It really f— hurts, this job, sometimes.” And of course, we’re all lucky, so we don’t want to sound self-indulgent, but the reality is it does really hurt. And I think saying these things in a time now where we are listening in a different way, and you can feel it almost vibrate underneath everybody, especially the younger generation, because they’re the ones that we’re going to hand the baton to, they’re the ones that are going to have to keep changing the world.
