LOUISE FLETCHER INTERVIEW Q:    First of all, tell me what Aurora Borealis is about. A:    Aurora Borealis is about a family, and it's a family in crisis and what happens is a result of the illness of the grandfather, and what has happened before in the family.  It's a typical tale of family life and what can happen.  I play the grandmother and Donald Sutherland plays the grandfather, and there is no mother and father.  There's the grandson and the two grandparents.  It's a story of family life.  That's not a very good answer, but I don't know what else to tell you. Q:    I think it's kind of like a slice of life.  That's what you're saying.  From talking to some of the other actors, everyone's saying it's a real character-driven film.  Do you think that's true?  And maybe you could talk a bit about that. A:    Yes.  I think this is a character-driven film.  It's not an event or action-driven piece.  It's if you visited a family in one day of their lives at this particular time, this is what would be happening there.  That's always fascinating.  But even though it's a small slice of their lives, you get quite an impact from knowing these people.  Q:    You play the grandmother, but maybe tell me a bit about her.  She's a very strong woman. A:    Ruth is a strong woman, my character of Ruth.  She's a typical American woman who's had her hardships in life and marriage and her children and grandchildren, and she's survived and she is a survivor.  But she takes care of herself and everybody else.  I kind of know what that's like in my own life.  I'm that kind of survivor, for sure.  And my mother and my grandmother and all the women in my family are like that.  So as I said to the director, I can roll out of bed and do this part.  It's so familiar to me. Q:    I talked to Juliette Lewis and she said the same thing.  What do you think about your character is so relatable to you, like you can just sort of be this person and see her on the page? A:    Well, you know, when people meet me, people related to my film life, they think, oh, she's so privileged, she lives this great life, and she flies here and she flies there, and she works on this and works on that, and she's probably rich and has—it couldn't be farther from the truth, you know.  I did have an early career and then I stopped working for a long time in the middle when I had children, and I grew up in the real sense, in the real world.  I walked down the street pulling my dirty laundry behind me to the Laundromat, and went in and watched it going around and sat there with my two children until it was all done and dragged it all home.  Then births and deaths and illness, what women go through, no matter who they are, no matter how privileged they are or how not privileged they are.  Women are women, and they do what they have to do.  So I see Ruth as Everywoman, not just as one woman.  She is a particular woman, however, she has those strengths that most women have to have, or they learn how to have. Q:    Not to romanticize her, but I found her heroic. A:    Yeah.  Well, I guess.  I guess we're all heroes to a certain extent, men and women.  We have our strengths and our weaknesses, and when we're called upon to endure a certain thing, normally we do.  Women do things in any given day that they don't even think about that are heroic things, but it just is a—and men do too.  But it's just much more daily life for a woman.  I know a doctor told me once, try to hold yourself back and put your shoulders back and reach your arms back and stand against the doorjamb and push yourself back, because everything a woman does is a forward movement.  Therefore, we end up with our shoulders all hunched forward.  You know, we're washing dishes or we're changing the baby or we're lifting the this or we're making the bed or we're reaching for—we're doing everything facing that way.  And it's true.  To make yourself stretch back, unless you're a dancer and you've been trained to do that, you find by the time you're seventy or eighty, you're pretty hunched over.  And that's the difference with what men do and women do.  It's this movement or it's this movement.  I could go into the man thing with the defense and all of that, but—so women are so used to just caring for things and touching things and fixing things and cleaning things and straightening things and ironing things.  Q:    Have you brought everything you've said to me, like the posture and everything, to Ruth? A:    Yeah, I think so.  I think so.  Also, I find that she knows she's going to survive this.  She's reached that point in her life where she's steeling herself for what's coming, but she knows she's going to be all right because she's making plans for the rest of her life. Q:    It's very heartbreaking at the same time, because you think this happens to everyone. A:    It does.  Why is it always a shock when it does?  We talk about death.  It comes to everyone, and yet it comes as such a shock.  Maybe it's built in to our human nature that we're protected from thinking about it every single day, that your mother's going to die, or your father's going to die. Q:    Speaking of that, I want to talk about Ruth's relationship with Ronald.  Maybe you can talk a bit about their relationship and what's going on when we meet them and through the film. A:    Well, I think probably Ruth is a product of the fifties and sixties, where we didn't make too many demands on men.  We expected to have to look after them.  And she's probably made him too dependent, as so many women of my generation did do with their spouses or boyfriends or children.  We bought the myth that your husband comes home from work and you've fixed your makeup and you've shoved the kids in bed and you're standing there with a martini and, "Hi, Honey.  How was your day?"  He kind of pushes you aside.  He doesn't take part in your life until he's ready.  We bought that.  That was a big mistake.  We didn't make demands on our men folk to help with the baby and help with the this and help with the that, where today, it's such a delight to see men getting pleasure from helping with the baby or helping with the house, getting involved in that.  I tried very much to play Ruth in that stoic caregiver woman of the fifties, which I am. Q:    So the relationship with Ronald, you see that through him, really, what you're saying. A:    Sure.  He likes it, but he fights it.  Most men like it.  They like for you to do everything for them and make life so easy for them, but at the same time, they have to resist. Q:    Is that what appealed to you about the character is that, exactly what you're saying, that she's an Everywoman and you can relate to her? A:    Well, actually, I didn't have time to think about what appealed to me about this script because it all happened so quickly.  I did read the script online, on my e-mail, because I was far away and they e-mailed it to me.  I didn't have a printer there so I had to sit there and read the whole thing.  Then I heard that Donald Sutherland was in it, and that was all she wrote.  I was very happy to be working with him.  I didn't really know who else was in it until I'd already—so the rest of the cast is so lovely.  It's a lovely cast. Q:    Because the relationship between your character and Donald's character is so intense, for lack of a better word, did you guys talk about it?  Or you just sort of evolved? A:    We did it.  We just did it.  There was no time to talk about it.  Really, we just showed up for work, and on the very first day we did it.  That's pretty much what actors do today.  I mean, unless it's a big movie and you have time for rehearsal and discussions and ask to make changes.  Those days are pretty much over, as far as I'm concerned.  I guess they exist for some people.  They have time and money, and it's a luxury.  But pretty much the journeyman actor is showing up and doing what's written on the page and finding a way to make it work. Q:    Luckily, I guess, the chemistry between you two evolved, because— A:    Well, hey, I know his work and I was really happy to work with him.  We met in the restaurant in the hotel the night before, and he seemed so happy to see me and I seemed so happy to see him, so we were happy.  We were comfortable. Q:    What are challenges in a role like this?  Do you look at it that way?  Is it because it's something different or because you can relate to it?  What do you look at as challenges for you in a role like that? A:    Everything about it is a challenge.  Everything about acting is a challenge anyway.  There are obstacles.  Every second there's a new obstacle.  That's more or less what we do.  I think of it as an obstacle course because at the very last minute you're being asked to accept things that you might not want to accept, but you have to because there's no time and there's no money and you have to do it.  So you find a way to make it work.          The challenge here?  There really wasn't—it's not a hardship playing this part.  My ex-husband has Parkinson's, and I spend a lot of time with him, and I'm very familiar with the disease of Parkinson's.  So I'm already in the picture before I'm in the picture.  There's very little difference in my life and this movie.  There's some difference but very little. Q:    Does that make it harder, though, in some ways?  It's sort of, there it is on the page, your life, and you're playing it out kind of thing. A:    No.  It doesn't make it harder.  I suppose in some circumstances, when it involves things that hurt more.  I see this as a very positive screenplay.  What needs to happen in this situation is that the leading character, which is Ronald, needs to accept—in a perfect world, if he could accept his situation and approach it from a positive point of view, it might have a different ending.  It would end, but it might be a different ending.  I see people with Parkinson's all the time, and the people who fight it have the harder time, and the people who accept that this is their situation and then try to do the positive things along with that, the exercise, the education, all the discipline that goes with it, your life can be prolonged and you can have more function. Q:    What do you think of the impact—like Ruth and Ronald have a definite impact on the character Duncan played by Josh Jackson, but through this he changes too, so maybe you could talk a bit about their impact on him. A:    I think their relationship for Duncan—it's not a surprise to him because he's known them from before, but I think now he's more grown up.  He saw them when he was a child, but now that he's more grown up maybe he can relate to it better and learn something.  He sees the devotion.  And I think very often with our parents and grandparents, that is a huge sign.  It's an outward and visible example of what a couple can be, as flawed as they are.  It's a good thing.  And maybe it gives him a little hope. Q:    Josh, tell me maybe a bit about working with him. A:    Working with Josh is just a pleasure because he is very intelligent, very professional young man.  We had many scenes together, and they all seemed to go very smoothly.  It was wonderful working with him. Q:    And Juliette Lewis. A:    Tomorrow I have a scene with her.  I haven't done very much with Juliette, but of course I'm familiar with her work and I love the fact that she's in the movie. Q:    Maybe you could tell us the significance of the Northern Lights to you and to Ronald.  There's obviously a significance that's quite poetic. A:    I think you better ask him about that. Q:    Do you think maybe the title—does it have any kind of significance? A:    I think it does, but I think the significance of the Northern Lights is in the—it's who's looking at the movie and what you put into it.  Obviously, for the character of Ronald, the Northern Lights have a magical quality and he associates them with some better part of his life, maybe, when he was younger.  Whenever you mention the Northern Lights to people, the Aurora Borealis, people get kind of—you know, they get kind of all lit up, if they've ever seen them.  Yesterday I met a man from Peru.  He asked me what movie I was making and I said Aurora Borealis, and his whole face just lit up because he said they could see the Northern Lights from Peru, which was amazing to me.  But I guess you can.  So I think they have a different meaning for everybody, but in terms of the screenplay, I think it's hope. Q:    Well, great, Louise.  Thank you very much for your time. END OF INTERVIEW