Sockya.com had the pleasure to talk with Danielle about her latest film: The Ward, which is now playing in select theaters.
This is an amazing interview! Some of the highlights can be found below, but to read the whole thing click here. Be careful though, there are a few spoilers about Danielle’s character.
Can you tell me about your audition process and how you got the role?
I was on set working on The Crazies and I had met [producer] Doug [Mankoff], I believe and a couple other people at Echo Lake before I’d left town and while I was on set on The Crazies, my manager sent me the script for The Ward and said take a lot at it. I flew back to town for a weekend to meet with John [Carpenter] at the Hamburger Hamlet and chat and he offered me the role of Sarah.
So after getting the role, what was your preparation process like before you got to set? Did you do anything beyond working on the script?
I think both in the rehearsal process and each of us individually did a little bit of research into what it would be like being in a mental institution and how that effects each of these characters specially. I don’t want to give too much away, but we all definitely did research and John brought a lot of material including actual footage of someone going through electroshock therapy, so we all came with our A game.
How was it working with your co-cast? I spoke to Lyndsy the other day and she said you all got to hang out a bit and have some fun, too, so how did that effect your on screen relationship?
It absolutely is helpful. It’s funny, I said to John in our initial meeting, I said, ‘Have you considered the fact that you’re about to bring five or six young actresses who are all roughly the same age range in a very competitive industry and stick them together in a hotel and hope that they get along?’ I really asked him if he was concerned about it at all and he said, ‘No,’ which I thought was brave of him. But it actually wasn’t a problem. We were all professional and we did, we got along really well. We are all professionals and we showed up and we did our job and it was fortunate that we did get along as well. We’d go hang out, go see movies, but it wasn’t a huge town, so the hotel was amazing and we spent a lot of time there with each other and that sort of thing.
So how did that translate to the relationship on screen? Especially because you’re character isn’t the nicest one of the bunch.
It’s funny. Amber [Heard] said something when I saw her back in LA months later. She said, ‘My only memory of you is being snooty and putting lipstick on.’ [Laughs] She didn’t say my only memory, but she just said, ‘I remember you being snooty,’ and that sort of thing. So I think my on camera relationship with the girls is a little different than my off camera one. But there definitely is an element of familiarity that I think you do see.
Is it more fun playing the meaner one?
It was great. It was really fun. It was something I hadn’t done before and that was really appealing to me when I took the role and I had a great time. It’s fun to get to push the boundaries like that.
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