INTERVIEWS

MICHELLE WILLIAMS

mighty michelle Girlfriend Magazine (Australia) March 2000

As Dawson's Creek's girl we love to hate, Michelle Williams has fast become a household name. Now she's set to wow on the big screen with her new film, Dick.

Michelle Williams has been a busy girl. While we're whirling around in the new millenium, she seems to be stuck in the '70's, co-starring with Kirsten Dunst as an innocent school chick caught in the White House, for the political comedy Dick. She turned brunette to play a '70's lesbian in If These Walls Could Talk 2, and is soon to star in a movie she co-wrote! Titled Don't Blink, it tells the story of three young women who moonlight in a Nevada brothel to earn extra cash and find themselves in too deep. Michelle will star and also serve as an executive producer for the film - not bad for a 19 year old! In this exclusive interview she reveals how she not only survives, but thrives in the hard world of Hollywood.

Girlfriend: Your hair looks cute.
Michelle Williams: It's the 'I got off work at 6am and came over here' hair. I'm so out of it.

You don't look tired.
I feel so spacey. I'm running on three cups of coffee. So I apologise for anything I might say.

You didn't sleep at all last night?
No, I didn't. I would only have had a half hour to sleep, and if I'd lain down for half an hour, there'd been no getting me out of bed.

What movie were you working on?
If These Walls Could Talk, Part 2. The first one was on abortion, and this one is on lesbianism. It tracks it from the '50's, to the '70's, to the '90s, and I'm in the '70's. Again. But this is a much more toned-down, peasant shirt, jeans and clogs sort of '70's. One I'm more comfortable in. Chloe Sevigny plays my butch girlfriend.

She doesn't seem so butch.
Well, she is now. She's got short hair and wears suits and ties. She's amazing.

You're brunette now. Will Dawson's let you keep it dark or will you have to go back to being blonde?
[nods] Unfortunately I've gotta go back to being the blonde bimbo. I'm naturally some sort of dark blonde but I've loved being brunette!

Why is that?
I feel taken more seriously. It's really interesting. I don't get nearly as many stars and catcalls. I feel like I blend into walls, and I like it.

Where did we leave your Dawson's character before you broke for summer?
That's a good question. I think I was still depressed and sleeping around.

And where will we pick up?
I don't know.

Do you think Jen will become less slutty this year? Do you want to become more pure?
It's fun to play the bad girl. It's fun to be the one who gets to drink, and yell, and scream, and cry. I like it, it keeps me interested.

I saw a special on tv about Dawson's Creek, and they were talking about fans...
Oh, people talking about the characters? Yeah, I saw that. Nobody likes me.

They all hated you. Have you ever been slapped in the grocery store? Do directors say, 'We don't want Michelle in this movie, all the teenage girls hate her.'
No. It's a love/hate relationship. I've been verbally abused - never physically. I'm the character you aren't supposed to like. She eventually grows on you, and hopefully you come to accept her for all of her misgivings, and her pain, and her screw-ups. I've never found directors saying, 'We don't want her in this movie because nobody likes her.'

How have you been verbally abused?
Oh, just girls saying, you know, 'Why don't you stay away from Dawson?' and 'You should just stop drinking, and stop sleeping around.'

That must be strange if they come up to you in a restaurant and say that.
I know. They carry on these very long, drawnout conversations, as though I actually have something to do with writing a show.

What do you say to them? 'Get a life?'
No, I say, 'Thank you very much for watching. I'm really glad that the show has had an impact, and that it's caused you to think, and have dialogues with your friends and parents about this. But please don't hate me.'

What were you like as a teenager?
Well, I am still a teenager. But when I was younger, I was really into politics. I grew up in a really political household. My father ran for the Senate in Montana.

You were basically on your own a 15. Was it tough moving to North Carolina?
Yeah, absolutely. But I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. All the mistakes, all the good times and bad times, ahve really shaped and changed me.

What was the toughest part about living along at the age of 15?
Little things. Like going to the dentist. I mean - this is quite disgusting - I have not been to the dentist in four years. You're so concentrated on things like paying bills, getting jobs, keeping food in the house. And trying to grow up and discover who you are, but also have to have some sort of sense of who you are to survive in LA. It's trying to find that balance in your life, I guess.

How many months a year are you on location for Dawson's Creek?
Nine.

Wow, that's a very long time.
I know, it is.

Dawson's creator, Kevin Williamson, is a producer on Scream 3. Is it true that you couldn't be in it because of Dick? Did you ask him for a role?
In Scream 3? No.

Halloween H20 was enough?
I've done my share of screaming. I think I've explored that genre as much as I really want to. Although I had a great experience on H20, and Jamie Lee Curtie is one of my favourite people on earth. I'm really glad that I did that.

Arlene, your character in Dick, acts like a little girl. It doesn't seem like you experienced that kind of childhood at all. Was it difficult for you to act like that?
I think I just had a really accelerated childhood and had giddiness at six and then lost if at eight, or something. So I remember hints of it. But it was surprisingly hard, because I tend to be more serious. So I had a hard time letting myself go, and giving myself over to this flighty, impetuous, wide-eyed, excitable little girl. But in the end, I think it was a good thing for me to do- just to let go of being jaded at 17.

Did Checkers [the dog] cooperate with you guys while you were shooting the film?
No! Oh god.. I had one of the most surreal experiences of my life with Checkers.

What happened?
There was this one scene - it took like five hours. It's this scene where we're out on the White House lawn, and we're taking Checkers so he can go poop. But we were standing up on this platform for five hours waiting for this poor dog to go. And I was standing there, staring into space, thinking, 'This is what my career has come to. I'm waiting for a dog to take a shit.'

You seem so mature for your age, really poised. Were you always like that?
Kind of. I was an old child. I graduated pretty early. But I've recently come about finding that childhood again. My joy now comes from rollercoasters, and things I never really allowed myself to appreciate when I was a child. So I'm really relishing them now. With all these other crazy experiences, that's what you sort of come back to, and I appreciate that.

It sounds like you don't have time for much of a personal life.
I find some sort of balance. I manage it.