Anna Paquin talks about bad behavior and keeping the drama onscreen
Anna Paquin wants equal screen time for equally bad behavior.
While there have been female antiheroes in series like “Homeland” and “Damages,” “I could name probably 15 male protagonists that make god-awful, morally ambiguous decisions but are still considered the heroes of their shows,” she said. “And you would never go, Oh my God, I can’t watch ‘Breaking Bad,’ he deals meth! Or, Dexter’s a serial killer!”
Which is not traditionally how women have been portrayed. “It’s boring,” she added.
But her latest character — Robyn, an American publicist living in London in Pop TV’S “Flack,” starting Feb. 21 — is anything but.
Whip-smart and freakishly controlling, Robyn maintains a tight leash on her celebrity troublemakers while her own life rocks and rolls with drugs, adultery and deceit.
“She just happens to have this job where there’s two very different sides of the coin,” said Paquin, who has had the same publicist since she was 12. “There’s the face you present, and then there’s the reality of who people actually are inside.”
Paquin and her husband, Stephen Moyer, who met as the supernatural lovers Sookie and Bill on HBO’S “True Blood,” have found their sweet spot as collaborators. Together they executive produced the London-based “Flack,” though he was mostly shooting Fox’s “The Gifted” in Atlanta. Moyer also directed Paquin — who won a best-supporting actress Oscar at 11 for her turn in “The Piano” — in his feature debut “The Parting Glass,” currently making the festival circuit.
In a phone interview from the Venice section of Los Angeles, where the couple live with Charlie and Poppy, their 6-yearold twins, Paquin, 36, spoke about growing up in the industry while keeping her own life out of the public glare.
Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
I watched “Flack” with fascination. Does this stuff really happen? I can’t wait to grill the publicists I know.
I 100 percent believe that there are publicists that have to clean up spectacularly horrific messes on behalf of their clients. I am not personally that client. And let’s face it — if I was, do you really think I’d tell you?
I was just about to ask what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done.
I’ve been doing this for 27 years. There’s not much you can find out about my life that a quick Google search wouldn’t tell you. I’ve spent most of life being kind of not interesting in that tabloidy way. I work, I now have a family, I’m married, I work, I do Crossfit — like, yay. My publicist doesn’t really have to spin that. I mean, maybe someone could try to make me sound more exciting by creating a scandal for me but I am pretty good without the drama. I like the drama to stay onscreen.
What’s it like for you and Stephen to work together again after “True Blood?”
We love working together. It’s our happy place. That’s how we met, how we found love. There’s a shorthand and a trust thing that’s just hard to replicate with other people.
How was it being directed by him in “The Parting Glass?”
I had a very small role in as far as screen time. I was predominantly producing, and a large amount of my job was putting out the fires before he had to know about them so that he could focus on steering the ship. It was Toronto in the middle of winter and at the time, I want to say Ed Asner — who has an enormous role in the film and is mentally sharper than a razor blade and amazing — was 87. And it sounds horrible, but also kind of funny: Every day we’d get to the end of the day and go, “Oh my God, we’re so relieved we’re not the ones who killed Ed Asner.” Like, he didn’t slip on black ice today. Literally.
No one blinks in “Flack” when it becomes obvious that Robyn has sex with men and women. But in 2010, it was big news when you announced that you’re bisexual. Thoughts?
That was already in the script so I can’t take any credit for being like, Oh hey, let’s wave some rainbow flags. And I guess if you’re open and upfront and refuse to buy into the narrative where it’s actually a big deal or even, frankly, interesting , it normalizes things. I’m not stupid but I don’t on any emotional level understand why other people’s sexuality is anybody’s business, other than the person that they’re in a relationship with. And I think the more vocal people are about it, the more this becomes a really mundane sort of footnote in their bio — as opposed to the only thing that people want to talk about.
Let’s move on to Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.” That’s an impressive cast.
I have a very tiny part in it — I play Robert De Niro’s daughter, one of them, and he’s the Irishman (the labor union leader and alleged hit man Frank Sheeran). But it is an absolutely extraordinary experience, just getting to be around those great sort of gods of my craft. There’s a sequence that takes place at a large celebration that had every single cast member — and I mean, like, everybody there — that shot for a couple of weeks. You’re kind of looking and going, I can’t quite believe I got invited to this party. (Laughs) It was amazing.
So interacting with De Niro is no big deal, right?
Yeah, and with Al Pacino (who plays Jimmy Hoffa).it was exactly as cool as it sounds. I’m not going to lie.
In 2017, you wrote on Twitter, “I’ve been in this victim grooming industry since before I hit puberty.” Have you seen concrete changes or is it just lip service?
I think there’s a lot of good intentions. I know that HBO and now Showtime voluntarily have employees that they call intimacy coordinators for anyone having any kind of sexual anything. I mean, 7 1/2 years (of nude sex scenes) on “True Blood” pretty much made me immune. But I’m glad that that’s a thing. And I’m really hopeful that we will put in place structures so that some of the things that have happened to a lot of us don’t happen to the next generation of young, voiceless, scared people who don’t feel like they can speak up for themselves for fear of not just getting fired, but of never being hired ever again.
What kind of set rules do you maintain when you’re No. 1 on a call sheet?
Even if I’m not No. 1 on the call sheet, I pride myself on looking after the other women on set. It makes a huge difference, and it doesn’t take that much effort to let other people know that you see everything, that you are on their side and that you’re someone they can talk to if anything happens. I don’t want them to ever go home and feel like they were somehow degraded or traumatized, even if it was not intentional. That matters to me very greatly. I’m sure I don’t get it right all the time, but I sure as hell try.