A true Southern belle, Carrie MacLemore was born in Mississippi and raised in Alabama, but now resides mostly in New York, where she twice moved to try her hand at acting. In charming, demure tones, she admits she escaped her homeland without an affinity for country music or NASCAR (“Which means I didn’t quite feel like I fit in when I was little”), and says she feels most Southern when she’s out of the South, and her accent helps render her a delightful curio. With but a few television credits to her name, MacLemore was hand-picked by director Whit Stillman for her film debut in his fourth feature film, “Damsels in Distress.” In the very mannered, quirky, college-set comedy, MacLemore plays Heather, a polite do-gooder who has some unique theories regarding the relationship between physical characteristics and human behavior. Fresh off the heels of her 25th birthday, ShockYa recently had a chance to sit down and talk with the actress about acting, her debutante past and throw-back off-screen tastes. The conversation is excerpted below:
ShockYa: Was performance and acting something you had an instinct for when you were young?
Carrie MacLemore: Oh, definitely. My parents told me they knew when I was about two. I remember tapping on a little box that my dad made for me (as a stage). I was always into performing — it was dance, and then it was singing, and then it storytelling and acting. And my parents were always supportive. I couldn’t have done it without their support, for sure.
ShockYa: How about auditions, since they’re a different skill set than delivering a performance on set. Do you feel comfortable with them yet?
CM: Yes and no. It’s funny, because Greta (Gerwig) and Megalyn (Echikunwoke) were just talking about this at lunch, and the process of testing for (TV) pilots, which I did this pilot season. It was so nerve-racking! I felt like I was jumping through more hoops for this show that might be a show than I did for this film. Greta was saying that it’s kind of like taking the SATs, because it’s such a heightened audition. It is hard, and I think even with a lot of practice it’s hard to go in and just relax, but that’s something that I think I’ve gotten better at. Auditioning does feel so different from the performance, because if you have an emotional scene you can have a quiet moment to yourself and then it can happen more naturally. But when you come in (on an audition), have that little bit of small talk and then just dive right in, it’s just harder.
ShockYa: And you were cast for “Damsels” out of New York, right? How was that process?
CM: I was. I read for (the roles of) Violet and Priss, and then I landed on Heather. It was really the most exciting audition process I’d ever gone through, because Whit was there from the first day and that’s pretty rare. A director usually comes in at the end, with the deciders. But he was there, and it was exciting because I loved this script and the rest of his work. I was possibly the most nervous of any audition I’ve ever done, because I just wanted it so badly, I was on my knees for it. And he was across the room mouthing the words with me, so to be able to sense his passion kind of fueled my passion for it. It was really exciting. And he was interactive, too. The casting director was more than willing to be behind the camera, but Whit wanted to be behind it and see right away how things were looking. He was so affirming and supportive, right from the first meeting.
ShockYa: Progressing through the auditions, was there a lot of scene work with other actors?
CM: No, it was just learning these major scenes for different characters, and coming in and reading them. To make a long story short, in the middle of auditioning for one of these roles, I was set for six months to go on a mission trip with my church to Africa, and I got very ill 24 hours before the flight. So I was in the hospital for four days and missed the trip. I was supposed to be getting together with Whit and the casting director when I got back, to read again, but I called and let them know that I could come in earlier since I’d missed my trip. And as soon as I was feeling a bit better, I hobbled in and they told me to come back, and here’s the whole script, and learn all the Heather parts. And I was like, “Wow, this is going to be a mega-audition, OK!” Then I went to Whit’s office and read with him and his assistant, Rebecca, and at the end he started talking about scheduling for rehearsals and wardrobe and I was like, “Wait, what? I think I’m missing something!” And I think that made him a little nervous, to have to say, “Well, yes, you do have the part.”
ShockYa: The gang of girls in the movie have a very particular meter to their dialogue, and conversational back-and-forth. Was that something that Whit ever discussed, how he wanted those words and phrases — which on the page might sometimes come across as a bit wooden or certainly formal — to sound?
CM: I think one reason we were all cast was that we got it, we all knew how to say it without having it come out like wood chips or something. I think you love it or hate it, and I know I loved it. My personal favorite brand of humor, and the kind of comedies that I love watching, are British in nature, so I kind of approached it in that way (which helps the) cadence flow more easily. He did have a tone, or pace, rather, that he liked — kind of a fast pace. Usually we had to walk slowly and speak quickly, because we had lots to say. That was something he said, because you don’t want to get ahead of the camera. But the dialogue speaks for itself, mostly. He took everyone’s energy level on the first day and brought it down to here {indicates chest-level}, and so everyone was maybe a little nervous about it, but of course he’s the genius and he has almost his own genre, basically. He knows his pace.
ShockYa: I feel like all of Whit’s films almost feel like they could come with their own footnotes or annotations, running down the side while you’re watching them, so I was surprised in conversations with some of the rest of the cast that they said there wasn’t a lot of intellectualized discussion about the movie’s themes or topics or philosophy.
CM: Yeah, that’s true. We didn’t (talk about that a lot). The things [he and I] bonded over and had in common were references to Christian virtues and thinkers; we do have that in common. And then I was a debutante in Alabama, and so we bonded over that.
ShockYa: So what was that conversation like?
CM: Well, since “Metropolitan” was about the New York deb scene, it was totally different than [my experience]. It was fun. Whit asked about dresses, and I explained that down in the South we just wore wedding dresses but cut off the train. And that’s actually how I first met my husband. He was my blind date to my debutante ball, and we got married six months ago. So Whit was very tickled by that story.
ShockYa: What’s your impression of Heather, and the manner in which she’s always explaining very simple things to others?
CM: As an audience member I might look at her as the airhead of the bunch, but I can’t play her that way because that wouldn’t be very human or interesting. So I had to approach her in the opposite manner for her to come out the way she should, really. I looked at her as a concrete thinker, not a flexible thinker, and so that whatever someone said is set in stone and there’s no changing it. And so I had a lot of fun looking at psychology articles about concrete thinkers, and how what happens a lot of times is that in high school or college sometime you make the leap toward more abstract thinking. So I said, “Well, she’s a junior in college, but she just hasn’t made that leap yet, and maybe she’s an only child and her parents are exactly the same.” She’s just very literal.
ShockYa: In artists, particularly musicians, I think we embrace the idea, culturally, of reinvention. When Madonna or Lady Gaga or someone has a new album, say, it’s accepted that she’s going to have a new look, a new persona or character. And yet in the world that really isn’t embraced on a personal level, which “Damsels” touches on a bit. I guess acting in its own small way is an ability to slip into the skin of someone else, but I also think back on several peers who left high school and then decided in very concrete ways — like, I’m changing my entire wardrobe but also my name — to reinvent themselves. Did you ever have that urge toward the end of adolescence, to shed a skin or wriggle out of what you felt others perceived you to be?
CM: I don’t know that I so much shed a skin as much as I stepped into, around age 19 or 20, baking and listening to Ella Fitzgerald and liking clothes that were dresses — even if it wasn’t practical, weather-wise, in New York — and just being a little prissier, in clothes not attitude. I think I stepped more into that.
ShockYa: So, off-screen, what types of things do you enjoy? It sounds like you have kind of a throw-back taste.
CM: Oh yeah, I think that’s one reason I felt right at home with these girls, and their obsession with the elegance of the past. I grew up watching old movies, and those are still my favorite. I love Django Reinhardt — things that make you feel transported to simpler pleasures, and different times. I love baking, and I love to make chocolate truffles and jams.
Written by: Brent Simon
