“Ok, well a few years ago, Liz [Banks] and I met at [a party at] the Venice Film Festival—she was on the jury, and I had a film there. I was with [actor] Nicholas Hoult, who’s a raucous good time, so we were, you know… dancing. Not my default setting, as you know.
Right, so she saw me at a moment where I’d run out of dancing steam. It was late, but it wasn’t that I was tired. I was...You know when you’re dancing, and suddenly you think, “What am I doing?” I had just stepped out of my body—that perspective of being glaringly self-conscious. It might have not been obvious, but she came up and was like, “Hey, chill, just have fun…” She saw it, even though we’d never met before. She basically said, “Everyone else is an idiot, too. And also, you’re wonderful and I love you.” So we became such fans of each other in that moment. To be visible to someone, and have them highlight you in that way, in that kind of environment, is like a tender act. And subsequently, she hit me up about the idea of doing a Charlie’s Angels movie, when the script was very [different]. She said, “I don’t exactly know what this is going to be, but I know that I want your energy in it.”
[Even now] I know how to hide, and not [be] in the center of things. But now I feel like I have this very solid, modest ‘square-one’ [in my life]—this [foundation] upon which to dance, radically...I know how to treat people and, you know, that sometimes takes a long time. Like, even just knowing how to really be open with the people in your life, or having them as close to me as possible... That is really important. I have family and all of my friends. My dogs are a very centering factor in my life. [So] my square one is very solid, but I [also] like feeling off-kilter. It’s not about creating chaos—I am just on a constant search.