Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan chat exclusively to RadioTimes.com about leading Ethan Coen’s first solo directorial outing. <\/p>
\u201cIt was a safe place to get horny!\u201d laughs Margaret Qualley, talking about the set of her highly-charged new comedy Drive-Away Dolls. \u201cOh it\u2019s horn-dog!\u201d nods her co-star, Geraldine Viswanathan, in between fits of giggles.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the way, this giggling that we\u2019re doing is exactly what it was like on set, trying to keep it together.\u201d But this aside, she adds: \u201cAll the sex scenes felt either silly and outrageous and over-the-top, or, like, meaningful to the story and beautiful and tasteful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both these actors know comedy inside out, of course. The daughter of Four Weddings and a Funeral star Andie MacDowell, Qualley is the 29-year-old Montana native who many will remember for playing one of Charles Manson\u2019s hippie-girl acolytes in Quentin Tarantino\u2019s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.<\/p>\n
The Australian actress Viswanathan, meanwhile, broke out in the 2018 American sex comedy Blockers, about three girls planning to lose their virginities.<\/p>\n
Still, neither have ever made anything quite like Drive-Away Dolls. Co-written and directed by Ethan Coen \u2013 without his brother Joel, his co-director on such classics as Miller\u2019s Crossing, Fargo and No Country for Old Men \u2013 it marks is a new direction for this Coen Brother.<\/p>\n
His co-writer is the Coens\u2019 longtime editor Tricia Cooke, who has been his wife since 1993. Cooke is a lesbian \u2013 the unconventional couple got married anyway, had two kids and now have separate partners; she based this 1999-set story on her years frequenting lesbian bars.<\/p>
The story sees two roommates, the free-spirited Jamie and the uptight Marian, go on a wild journey down to Florida. Unbeknownst to them, the car they\u2019ve been instructed to drive to Tallahassee happens to contain a briefcase with some sought-after cargo that a bunch of violent criminals want back.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s in the case? Well, that\u2019s a major spoiler, but suffice it to say, neither Qualley nor her co-star had seen the contents until the day of shooting. \u201cThey let us have that genuine reaction,\u201d teases Viswanathan. \u201cAnd that was a lot to take in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Working with Coen and Cooke was pure harmony, says Qualley, who notes just how in sync they were. \u201cI feel like they had a shared north-star that was very clear to both of them,\u201d the actress adds. \u201cThey wrote it together. They created the whole thing together. But I will say that sometimes they had different notes on how to achieve that same end result. So that\u2019s really nice. Ethan\u2019s a very dry man. And so sometimes Ethan would say something and I\u2019d look to [Cooke] to get her note. And some clarity on the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a word-perfect script, there was no room for improv, either, adds Viswanathan. \u201cUsually with comedies, you\u2019re trying to punch up the jokes in the scene and that\u2019s when you improvise and try to find something new. But we didn\u2019t need to do that here.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the script is so brilliant and perfect. And the dialogue is so specific and melodic and going for something tonally so I think anything that we tried would have felt off. It would have been hard to match that.\u201d<\/p>\n