Director J.C. Chandor’s latest film “A Most Violent Year” starring Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac is now playing. 

The film is a thriller set in New York City during the winter of 1981, statistically one of the most violent years in the city’s history, and is centered on the lives of an immigrant and his family trying to expand their business and capitalize on opportunities as the rampant violence, decay, and corruption of the day drag them in and threaten to destroy all they have built.

Read what Jessica and Oscar had to say about their new film.

Q: What was it like working with J.C. Chandor and what do you admire about him?

Oscar: You know it’s pretty intense because the script itself was already quite dense and filled with so many details, but also very mysterious because there’s not a lot of description of his past or even their past and how they got to where they are. I think in a very great way you learn by the action and by little hints that get thrown out. By the cumulative effect of the whole film, you get an idea of who he is and who they are together. But it was definitely challenging. And he’s not the most forthcoming often, and purposefully so, I found out with details.

So it was challenging, but he’s got such an incredible mind, and he’s very quick and it’s so filled with information and detail and he ping pongs back and forth between all these things and he’s just a little bit all over the place. When it comes time to actually shooting, all of that goes away. It’s funny because I ran into Robert Redford right before I started shooting and I said, “I’m about to shoot this thing with J. C. Chandor,” and he’s like, “Oh yeah, he’s great, he’s fantastic.” And I was like, “He talks a lot right?” He goes, “Won’t shut up. He won’t shut up. But once you get on set, it’s going to be great; you’re going to love it.” And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. It’s like all of a sudden all of that stuff just – it focuses in and concentrates and he’s just banging it out, and I found he was very gracious and gave us a lot of room to play.

Q: Is there anything you want to add Jessica about working with J.C.?

Jessica: Yeah, I really wanted to work with him because I found him so versatile. I had seen “Margin Call,” which is all about relationships and dialogue and then of course “All is Lost,” which is the opposite. And I thought, those are your first two films; this is a filmmaker and writer/director who is versatile and takes risks, because he’s not repeating. He didn’t have to say, “Okay, I need to do the same thing I did when I had some success in my first film.” So he sent me the script and it was great. It’s what Oscar said, he really left it free for us to explore. Sometimes a writer/director wants you to do what they saw in their head when they were writing. And to be honest, that’s only how they would act, overall … and sometimes we’ll ask questions, but he won’t even fully explain something to us because he doesn’t want to taint our natural instincts, and that’s what’s exciting to me to work with.

Q: And how was it behind the scenes figuring out the relationship between you two?

Oscar: We got together before we had a meeting with J. C. and we just went through every scene, every line, and talked about it and started talking about possibilities of where this whole relationship started, when it started, how we met, what year we decided to get married, when did we buy the business, how did we buy the business from her father. All these different possibilities just to create the context and so that when we were doing those scenes we had that bedrock.

And that was great because often you don’t get a chance to do that. And even if you have the time to do that, that’s not necessarily other actors’ process. You know everybody has their own way of coming to things and some people don’t like talking about anything, and that’s fine, but the fact that we have the same training, we went to the same school, we’ve been friends for such a long time, we talked about everything. And there was no fear that we were going to offend one another. We could ask each other anything and that just saved so much time, too. And it made it way more fun when we got on set.

Jessica: Yeah. Like when going through a scene, when we rehearse it’s not like we say the lines of the scene and act it out over and over again. For example, the scene we had in the kitchen, just answering questions, it had in there that she hits him. And so he and I talk and go, “Has that ever happened before? Has she ever hit him before?” Because if we make this decision together, then when it does happen, we can both respond to, this is a normal thing, or this is the first time she’s ever laid hands on him. And all of those choices, when you make with a partner, it’s very clear Anna and Abel are on the same team. It’s them against the world. And working with an actor who we have the same vocabulary, we have the same theater training, we’ve known each other forever, and we have been cheerleaders of each other’s work. It gives you so much; you don’t feel like you’re tip-toeing around another actor, trying to have them join you. It was just great from the very beginning. We started full steam ahead.

Oscar: Ultimately it doesn’t matter if the viewers are like, “That’s the first time she hit him!” or “Oh, clearly she’s hit him before.” But for us, just the idiosyncratic little things that happen when we have that history, it just creates specificity and I think ultimately you just get the sense that there is real intimacy.

Q:  Which scene for both of you was the most challenging to shoot?

Oscar: Well that first scene after she shoots the deer, that was our first real scene together that we shot. And so the pressure of that being the first one, the “not sure we can do all this” talk and we can rehearse, but then it comes time to actually do it and that’s always a scary thing. You know and everybody there, behind the camera, is like “Alright, we got them, let’s see what happens.” And the way that just started coming out and –

Jessica: We were having a good time.

Q: Earlier J. C. mentioned that because you both have the Juilliard training there’s a little bit of like one-upsmanship that goes on?

Jessica: That’s actually not true, at all. J. C. has said this a couple times. I have no competition with Oscar. In fact, if I am acting in a scene with someone who is soaring, it’s going to make me be even better. I don’t want to do a scene and have someone fail because I’m going to be terrible in the scene. So when J. C. says the thing about, “We’re going to one-up each other,” I have been so supportive of Oscar. I went to his premiere of “The Nativity Story.” I’ve always been such a cheerleader of who he is and his work. And on set I was so happy to get to be in a scene and just watch him soar, and his character. I think in his mind, he thinks it’s more fun if there is something like that, but I didn’t feel that.

Oscar: And what he might be referring to is for instance, we would push each other within the scene.

Jessica: As the characters.

Oscar: As the characters. And so, he becomes the viewer.

Jessica: “Oh, Anna and Abel are fighting again!”

Oscar: “Oscar and Jessica are fighting.” No, that’s acting.

 Q: It’s interesting to hear you say that because this movie is about fighting against outside forces, and suddenly we realize the focus is on both of you. You keep some secrets and it’s interesting to watch. 

Oscar: Yeah. Well there is, it’s interesting … one of the things that I was working on, too, was the fact that as it goes on, it seems like Abel speaks less and less to Anna as well. He starts to hide things a little bit more. And playing with what that was, because as the pressures grow, I think he starts to become suspicious of everyone, including Albert Brooks’ character, and he starts to close off quite a bit. And then the irony being that big last scene, she’s been having this secret this entire time. So yeah, it’s a fascinating study not only of a character, but of a relationship and I don’t think you usually see relationships portrayed in quite this light where they can get so nasty so quickly and then just as quickly the cloud goes away and they find a way to move forward because they both realize that it’s a very mutually beneficial relationship, and not worth destroying over just emotion.

 Q: How does J.C. Chandor help you guys sort of understand what’s going to happen and how it’s going to go in a direction and make sense? 

Oscar: Yeah, he said in a slightly crass way of joking that it’s a gag movie. The gag is that you think it’s a gangster movie and it ends up not being one. It actually ends up being about a pacifist.

Jessica: Morality type.

Oscar: Yeah. So that is an interesting perspective … but as an actor I can know that … it’s helpful in tone, but not necessarily how you’re going to play each thing. So as far as me playing Abel, the idea that he doesn’t want to be a gangster, and he has never wanted to be one, and he’s afraid that he will, if he starts down that path, he will just be dismissed as one. And also possibly that if he starts down that path, he will really like it. You know, he has the propensity for violence. Clearly, he had that one point he starts beating the guy’s head in. I think that maybe Anna wouldn’t be with him if she didn’t sense that maybe he had the potential to do that, those kinds of things as well. So I think the tension that’s created, that J. C. creates, by also calling it “A Most Violent Year”, it plays with the audience’s expectation.

Jessica: A thirst for violence.

Oscar: Yeah, and thirst. One of the screenings that we saw, when she shoots the deer, everybody started clapping. Because it’s a moment of release, you know, you want that. The audience gets a little bloodthirsty. And it’s an interesting play that he does.

Q: Going back to the equality in the relationship between you two, I’m wondering just how you approached this role as a wife, a mother, a partner. You don’t always see sort of the strong female presence when your husband is just as strong, too.

Jessica: I had known J. C. and we talked in Cannes about this film, and he sent the script to me. I read it, and I had this very strong instinct about this one thing, and he and I sat down for a long lunch, and I said to him, that for me, she was Dick Cheney. And that’s what I wanted to do with her. Because she is the person that she’s doing what she feels is best, and she’s doing the dirty work so he can remain clean, and he can believe the way he’s doing it is that he sees the best, but she’s actually doing what they need to do to survive. And I like that this is a character that you completely underestimate in the beginning. You underestimate most of the time, a female character doesn’t get to be like that. I love that he’s created this story where it’s 1981, it’s a man world, and she is aligning herself with the most powerful man in the room. She wants to be with someone who is like her father. She believes her husband is a king, and anyone who disrespects them, she will personally kill. But I think that scene with the gun is really interesting because that’s when a lot of things start to bubble to the surface for her. She’s a girl who grew up in a household where her father was well-versed in criminal activity, and she knows how to shoot a gun. And that’s when she starts to become more bold with the cop, with the gun. She now is feeling like she needs to step forward and take charge.

Oscar, what can you say about Star Wars?

Oscar: Nothing.

Jessica: Coming out on Christmas.

Oscar: Coming out on Christmas, yeah. I can’t say anything. I’ve signed away my organs.

Q: You’re in the trailer.

Oscar: I am in the trailer. And that was pretty wild to see, that was very fun to see.

Q: How was it like filming?

Oscar: It was great. J. J. Abrams is an amazing, amazing man, and he’s got a lot of vision and I think people will be really surprised with what he does with it.

Q: Jessica, J. C. told us about meeting you Cannes in a very crowded room where he offered you the role for this movie. This year, you were there and you saw “Mommy.”

Jessica: Yes.
Q: And you’re going to work with Xavier. Tell me a bit about how that happened. 

Jessica: “Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby” played at Cannes this year. And whenever I go to a film festival, I always make it a point to see other movies because the first year that I went to festivals, I realized they don’t schedule that. They expect you to go, and you talk about your films and your press, and then you leave. So I will now only go to festivals and watch other people’s films, because that’s the reason I like to be in this business is I love films. And someone had told me about this 25 year old filmmaker, Xavier Dolan, who was incredible. I said “ok, I’ve got time to go see his film.” I was absolutely blown away by what he did, and I’m new to Twitter and all I wrote was “Marvelous, incredible! This film’s fantastic!” And I guess someone told him, did you know Jessica Chastain tweeted about your film? And then he started tweeting me, but in front of everyone, he was like, “Will you be my beard?” And sending me Justin Bieber music videos and I loved him immediately. I was like, “oh we’re going to have a good time with this guy.” And then we had a conversation over the phone, he sent me a script, we planned to meet for dinner, I opened the door and he’s standing there with a huge bouquet of flowers in front of his face. Love at first sight. He’s a dear. He was at the premiere last night. I’m excited to work with him, and I think he’s such an important new voice in cinema.

Q: You’re really vocal about women in Hollywood and the lack of opportunities or rituals. Obviously Anna Morales is an exception to that, so I’m wondering, how do you see this challenge affecting you, or how do you watch it affect others? And what is a fundamental thing you want the business to change in order for this issue to move forward and become better?

Jessica: When I speak about that, I don’t speak from a selfish point of view, because I know I’m in a very lucky position and I get sent scripts that are incredible. And I can work with the directors to make the characters even more interesting and rich. And usually there’s a collaboration happening. I’m speaking as an audience member who’s going to the movies, and I’m not seeing films about women. I don’t see Asian-American actors on screen, I don’t see women in their 60′s on the screen. I think it’s a huge problem. I find it absolutely disgusting, to be honest. It’s really upsetting to me. I love cinema.

I love European films because I love diversity, and there’s more diversity, for some reason, in other countries.Like French cinema, celebrates women of all ages. So I’m speaking for other actresses I want to see in films. I think Lily Rabe and Sarah Paulson, they’re such incredible actresses and I never see them in movies. I think we just need to get more characters going. They’re just as interesting as the male characters. In “Interstellar,” my part was originally written for a man, and Chris changed it to a woman. I don’t think he had to do anything different to change the part to a female character. And it actually made me realize men and women we’re not that different at the end of the day. And I’m going to start going through scripts and finding what male characters I can change.

-$haina_Moskowitz