- 6 hours ago
"If I didn’t do it in a way that was faithful to the reality, it could be disrespectful or it could just hurt the film," Nivola told In Studio.
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00:03I'm Oliver Trevino in studio for The Hollywood Reporter, joined by the brilliant Alessandro
00:08Nivola. How are you, sir? Thanks for that. It's true, though. I was genuinely excited
00:12about this. I mean, you're one of those actors that you hear the name, you're like, yes,
00:15when's he coming in? When's he coming in? We can hug, we can hug, but I might not let
00:19go. It's true, you just, it's, I don't know what the secret is. I guess no one knows what
00:25the secret is, but you've just continued, continued, continued, continued. Great choices,
00:29great projects, great roles, and I guess that's the key to it, right?
00:34To continue. Well, to continue, it definitely helps, but how do you do that? Answer the question
00:39that every actor wants to know. I've always been drawn to roles that were really different
00:46from myself. That's the main thing, and maybe it happened by accident when I was younger
00:51and I was just starting out, and one of the first things that I got sort of a lot of
00:58attention
00:58for was the role that I played in Face Off, and it was such a kind of like odd little
01:04character
01:06that it kind of, you know, opened up a world of like possibility for me, because people
01:12who were casting movies sort of thought like, well, if he could play that, then maybe he
01:18could play this. It's also like totally different in another different way.
01:21They saw beyond the image a bit more. Yeah, so I just wasn't ever, you know, from the beginning,
01:27I wasn't really confined to playing sort of young guys like me. I was like doing all kinds
01:34of weird tweaked little people, and so, yeah, that just like made for variety, I guess.
01:42Right, which is a perfect segue into disobedience, because that isn't, that's not you, right?
01:47I mean, it's a big change. There was a lot that went into that. Yeah, yeah, that was, I mean,
01:51this was maybe the most that I've had to research anything that I've ever done, which was like
01:57a great challenge. I mean, it was a gift. You're always looking for that, like something that
02:03you can really spend months, and also I was offered the job, you know, longer in advance
02:09than I normally get offered at work, you know.
02:12Which would help for a role like this. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, I needed time to learn
02:18to speak Hebrew. Hebrew, right, an Orthodox Jew. For anyone that doesn't know what we're
02:22talking about, this is what, yeah. Do we all need to explain what the hell is going on here?
02:26Yeah, this is what, well, now you can understand the work that went into that, yeah, yeah.
02:32You know, I was playing a Hasidic, or an English Orthodox Jewish rabbi.
02:38Right, right. And, yeah, I mean, I, look, my grandmother was German-Jewish, but she wasn't
02:46very religious. In fact, she, during the, in the 1930s, had moved to Milan to escape Hitler,
02:53but then went to art school there, and she was kind of like a wild bohemian artist, and
02:59met this, like, Catholic Italian guy there, and married him, and so, like, it wasn't.
03:04So it's safe to say you started from scratch on this. You started from scratch.
03:07Right, right, right, right. You couldn't pull anything from that experience.
03:10She definitely wasn't, you know, saying the right Hebrew blessings over our meals at
03:16dinner, but I was lucky enough to meet this woman whose kids went to my, go to my kid's
03:23school in Brooklyn, and she had been, you know, the daughter of a Hasidic rabbi, and had left
03:30the Orthodoxy herself, because she fell in love with this Asian guy, and got pregnant out of
03:35wedlock, and was like, I'm done with it, and, you know, has been living as a totally
03:40modern woman, and she, but she still had all these siblings that were in the Lubavitch
03:46Hasidic community in Crown Heights in Brooklyn, which is not far from where I live, and so
03:52she came and introduced me to all of them, and I started hanging around with all of her
03:56family, and they kind of were determined that I'd get this right, and they were really worried
04:02that I was going to get it wrong.
04:03Because it's really, I mean, it's a prominent part of the movie, and I think you mentioned
04:07Brooklyn, that's where all of us live, there's these little pockets.
04:10Yeah.
04:10That, you know, you kind of don't know much, know much unless you're in it.
04:14Yeah, if you walked down the street, if I would walk down the street normally, like,
04:17they wouldn't look twice at me, and so I wouldn't have had the opportunity to kind of really
04:24get inside at all if it hadn't been for this woman, and for these people who kind of welcomed
04:29me in it, but pretty soon I was like, you know, this guy was teaching me all these Hebrew
04:34blessings that I had to say, and was inviting me to their Shabbos dinners, and I really, like,
04:39had a close encounter in a thrilling way, so it took a big commitment, and I was nervous
04:49about representing them accurately, and I felt the burden of responsibility as well, because
04:55my character kind of represents the religion, and, you know, that particular way of life
05:02in the film, and if I didn't do it in a way that was faithful to the reality, that, you
05:11know, it could be disrespectful, or also it would just hurt the films.
05:15Right.
05:16It's a big order.
05:16Yeah.
05:17It's a big order.
05:17The cast, obviously, Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, and, you know, this story of, you know,
05:23the forbidden love, I guess, and it touches on a lot in the movie in the way that, you
05:28know, it shows you you can take your own path in life.
05:30I feel like there's a lot of messages in there, which is why it's incredible.
05:34The chemistry you guys have is amazing.
05:36Did you guys meet before the movie to prep much?
05:39Because, obviously, you mentioned you knew about the project a while before.
05:42Did they?
05:42Did you all get together?
05:43Was there much rehearsal?
05:44Well, they, well, so, all right, so Rachel Weisz is a producer on the project.
05:50Right, right, of course.
05:50I found the book and brought the book to one of the other producers, Frida Torres Blanco,
05:56who, you know, ended up developing with her, so she'd been involved from the inception.
06:01Rachel Weisz and I had done another movie together about 20 years ago, which was this
06:06little Michael Winterbottom movie called I Want You that nobody saw, but that brought
06:12me over to England for the first time.
06:14Oh, wow.
06:14That was, like, my second film role right after Face Off, and I hadn't really intended
06:20to have so much of my career play out in the UK, which it ended up doing as a result
06:27of
06:27that film.
06:28And so I knew her really well, and, you know, we'd seen each other over the years, and so
06:33that was Rachel Weisz.
06:36And then McAdams, I didn't know at all, but she and I were in the same boat in terms of,
06:41like, having to really heavily do this research, and we were both shit scared, and, am I allowed
06:47to say that?
06:48You said it.
06:50So you had that in common.
06:51And so, yeah, we were kind of, we met fairly early on.
06:55I think we had, like, a kind of little rehearsal where we read through the script in New York
07:00before we even went over to the UK at all.
07:03And so she and I were in touch via email, and also the accent that we were using is
07:10a very particular accent.
07:11It's a London accent.
07:13It's a North London accent, but that has, like, a little bit of a kind of Yiddish inflection
07:17in the way that, you know, there's a New York version of it where in Brooklyn you hear,
07:21like, a Brooklyn accent, but there's, like, this kind of, like, the T's and the D's, like,
07:25there's a little bit, you know, they kind of hang on their D's and their G's, and so
07:32that sound is, there is, like, a London equivalent of that that I really wanted to try and get,
07:39and I was hearing it when I was there, and I was recording people into my iPhone a lot
07:43and sort of trying to, you know, hear what that felt like and what that sounded like.
07:48So good, by the way.
07:49I'm, like, even just listening now, I'm kind of, I'm amazed.
07:52I'm amazed.
07:53I'm, like, I struggle to speak British.
07:55And then there's you just popping in and out of everything.
07:58It's amazing.
07:59Oh, well, I love doing, I mean, I've always loved, like, my voice has always been a big,
08:04you know, part of character and performance, and it's often been a kind of starting off
08:11point for me, even if it's not an accent, just, like, the sort of sound of my voice
08:18in whatever character it might be, and so I tend to fixate on that as, like, one of the
08:24very first things, and so she was, too, and we had to sound like we were from the same
08:29place and that we'd been married for 15 years or whatever, and so we spent some time together
08:35working on that as well.
08:37It's nice to get a bit of prep time for that.
08:38Yeah, no, I mean, all these things.
08:40Look, the more time you have to prep for something, it's always better, you know?
08:44I used to think, like, oh, it takes away the spontaneity or whatever, and I think that's
08:49a total BS.
08:50Like, you know, even in the theater, you know, I used to not memorize my lines until sort of
08:57shortly before we were up in front of an audience because I thought, like, through the rehearsal
09:01process that if I knew my lines, I would have a kind of rote way of saying them and that
09:06that would take away from the kind of discovery of the rehearsal process, and then this last
09:11time I was on Broadway, I was doing The Elephant Man with Bradley Cooper, and we had done it
09:17before, a year before, at Williamstown as a sort of trial run over the summer, and as
09:21a result, like, the lines came back to me really, really quickly, and so by the time we were
09:25in rehearsal, I knew them already, and it was the most liberating experience of my life,
09:30and it just goes to show, like...
09:31Especially for Broadway, too, yeah.
09:32Yeah, in any kind of process, like, the more sort of time you have, the more you live with
09:37it, the more, like, it really kind of can settle in and become part of you.
09:42Amazing.
09:42Well, clearly, whatever you're doing, keep doing it.
09:45Keep doing it.
09:46Should we hug again?
09:47We can hug again.
09:48By the way, we can make this the interview of hugging.
09:50I just don't think other people will appreciate what we're going through.
09:53So, I mentioned, like, Rachel Weisz, and Michelle Pfeiffer, and De Niro, and all these
09:58people, McAdams, that we just spoke about that you've worked with.
10:01Anyone on a call sheet that hasn't been on there yet that springs to mind?
10:05I mean, I'm sure there's many, but the first one that you'd like to work with.
10:08Oh, that I haven't worked with yet?
10:09Yeah, because you go through your resume, and it's literally, like, IMDb's top 500 of all time.
10:15Well, there's some, I don't know if he's acting anymore, like, I always wanted to work with Gene Hackman.
10:20I had, I met David Mamet for this movie that Gene Hackman was going to star in.
10:27It's a star opposite him.
10:28I can't remember what it was called, but I remember sitting down in this meeting with David Mamet,
10:33and the first thing Mamet said was, so, can you go toe-to-toe with Hackman?
10:40And I was like, yeah.
10:41It's a big question.
10:42Yeah, yeah.
10:43Just say yes.
10:44Even if you don't believe it, that's when you just say yes.
10:47So, I always wanted to go toe-to-toe with Hackman, but I wasn't given the opportunity that time.
10:53Okay.
10:54Who else?
10:56They're all retiring.
10:57Daniel Day-Lewis, he's retired.
11:00Let's get him out of retirement.
11:01We want to see this.
11:02We want to see this.
11:03We're going to end with THR's top five.
11:05Five easy questions.
11:06Okay.
11:07I hope they are easy.
11:08Otherwise, I'm not going to get that hug at the end.
11:10They're already tired.
11:11TV show you watched as a kid that you wish you were in.
11:14Oh, Knight Rider?
11:16Yes.
11:17Right?
11:18Kit?
11:18Drive the car too?
11:19Yeah.
11:19Maybe that Bugatti that you just saw had Kit in it.
11:22I don't think so.
11:23One of our jokes.
11:23Kit would never be that big class A.
11:27One actor who inspired you growing up?
11:29Uh, okay.
11:30I guess I'll say Dustin Hoffman.
11:34That's a good one.
11:35I saw him in a movie of Death of a Salesman, and I, for some reason, really loved it.
11:40There you go.
11:41There you go.
11:41He called me up after he saw Laurel Canyon.
11:43That was the only time I've ever had any communication with him.
11:46But what an amazing full circle that is.
11:48Yeah.
11:48Look at that.
11:49Last show you binge-watched, if you do binge-watch.
11:52Well, it was a mini-series, Howard's End.
11:54It's just been on Hayley Atwell, stars in it.
11:57Okay.
11:58I'm going to do a thing in the UK now called Foreign Skies that's produced by the same guy,
12:04Colin Callender, and is going to be shot by the same guy who is this great Polish.
12:08Why are all great DPs Polish?
12:11I don't know.
12:11All great cinematographers are Polish.
12:13They have a great DP school in Poland.
12:14They do, actually.
12:15The Polish school of DP.
12:16They do, yeah.
12:16Is that what it is?
12:17In fact, the guy who shot the movie I did with Rachel Weisz before was Polish.
12:20His name was Slava Mir Itziak.
12:22I wouldn't even try that.
12:25He shot, like, his love.
12:26I'll just call him Slav.
12:27I'd be like, Slav did it.
12:28Slav.
12:28Yeah.
12:28Slav did it.
12:29Slav did it.
12:30Oi.
12:30Oi.
12:30Oi.
12:31He's got me down now as well.
12:34One word to describe your journey as an actor.
12:38You know, like a Jackson Pollock painting or something?
12:41One word.
12:41One word.
12:42One word.
12:42By the way, that was a better answer.
12:44Splatter.
12:45Splatter.
12:45I don't think I could have asked most people one painting to describe your career.
12:49I just mean there's no continuity to it whatsoever.
12:52Amazing.
12:52Just hurl paint at the wall and see if it sticks.
12:56And last question.
12:57Just anything random that pops up.
12:58One thing we might not know about you.
13:00Oh.
13:02I've got orthotics inside my boots.
13:04I do too.
13:05Do you?
13:06Yeah, I've got them down at the chiropractor.
13:07Do you need to hug?
13:07We hug now.
13:08We hug now.
13:11Brilliant.
13:12That's enough.
13:13Enough of the hugging.
13:14Or may not.
13:15Maybe it might continue, but we're cutting this.
13:22Take care.
13:22Analytical music.
13:22You
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