This morning Elisabeth and Andrew Shue came by to talk about their new movie, "Gracie". WATCH VIDEO. I caught up with them in their dressing room to ask a little bit more about making the movie:
Q: How was it working with a sibling on a movie?
Elisabeth: Um, (laughs) I would say that it was - most of the time it was really really fun. There were times we were back at the dinner table (laughs) fighting it out like we did as kids...but we all really fought hard for the parts of the film we really believed in, and I think that's why the movie is as good at it is, because we had people who were all very passionately fighting for what they cared about.
Andrew: We also knew that we all wanted to end up in the same place. Whenever you have a common goal you know you're gonna come around the bend and end up arm in arm in the end.
Elisabeth: That's true and I think that's also one thing about families - that you know you go through tough times and you definitely fight it out as kids, but you make it through and you actually love each other more because you actually can communicate on that level...in our family we grew up just saying what we felt.
Q: How was it working on a film based loosely on events from past - did that make it harder or easier to get into character?
Elisabeth: I think for me it made it easier - because I was busy taking care of my eight-week-old baby and so I didn't have enough time to prepare in the way that I usually do, and I think because entering into that was so much, was so filled with the emotion of my family and the emotion that I obviously have lived, so much of my family existence. I know my mother very well so it made it easier to come into character.
Andrew: I think that throughout the film there were all these truths that we were trying to tell that were less about the actual - you might have said this - the actual facts and more about the emotion that we were feeling in all our different moments, whether it was trying to get our dad's attention or whether it's the passion you're feeling in a soccer game, getting called into a game, missing a penalty kick and what that feels like, and sitting there on that bench after and your family's coming up to you after you missed it, or going through losing a brother and things like that. I think also being in the town where we'd grown up - there was just a lot of the reality to it.
Q: What was one of the funniest or quirkiest moments in filming?
Andrew: Being there, right in those places where we'd spent all those days as kids - it was just the Twilight Zone - they'd be rolling the camera and making a movie in these places where we played soccer, went sledding, went to have pizza, we went to the movies all really right there where we were - and the high school where we walked in the front hall.
Elisabeth: There were a lot of Back to the Future moments (laughs). The part about being a mom and watching yourself as a fifteen-year-old and then imagining oh my mom saw this and now I can actually understand how she must have felt when I was fifteen.
Q: How do you feel like soccer encompasses the film, and what does it mean to you?
Andrew: I think what everybody who plays soccer knows about soccer is that it's the most like life, in that there's nobody out there telling you what to do, you have to figure it out for yourself. It's a free-flowing game and you may not score the goal until the last 2 minutes, and in life you have to keep fighting for things, you know, keep going after your dream - you may be sixty or seventy years old before you attain it. I just think that the story is really about the ups and downs of what this family goes through...the game is really the perfect metaphor for what this family's going through.
Elisabeth: I think it's a great game for girls especially. I think their talent as athletes really lends itself to the game because it requires incredible endurance, and men do not have the endurance that girls have (hits her brother's arm, laughs). Women - we have to go through childbirth...we have this sense we have to push through no matter what and also teamwork. You know I notice the nine-year-olds: my son's a nine-year-old and I watch the girls who are nine playing and there's a little bit more teamwork happening over with the girls. I've heard a lot of people say that the guys play almost a different game than the girls, but it's not like other sports where they sort of judge, "Oh well they're not as strong as the boys," it's a different game but it's equally as intense and it's equally as beautiful to watch.
Q: When you were the girl on the guys team were there moments that were tough and intimidating about that?
Elisabeth: Actually the first day I showed up on the field a little boy stole my ball and told me that, "girls can't play soccer." For real.