SLIFF 2016 Interview: Karen Allen – Star of YEAR BY THE SEA

YEAR BY THE SEA screens Saturday, Nov. 12 at 8:00pm at The Tivoli Theater as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Writer/director/composer Alexander Janko, producer Laura Goodenow, and star Karen Allen, a 2016 Women in Film Award honoree, will be in attendance. Ticket information can be found HERE

After 30 years as a wife and mother, empty-nester Joan Anderson (Karen Allen) retreats to Cape Cod rather than follow her relocated husband (Michael Cristofer) to Kansas. Intent on rediscovering herself, but plagued with guilt, she questions her decision until stumbling on a spirited mentor, Joan Erikson (Celia Imrie), wife of the famed psychologist Erik Erikson. Supported by her literary agent (S. Epatha Merkerson) and a host of locals, including a sexy fisherman (Yannick Bisson), Joan learns to embrace the ebb and flow of life — ultimately discovering the balance between self and sacrifice, obligation and desire. Based on Anderson’s New York Times’ best-selling memoir, “Year by the Sea” is Alexander Janko’s writing and directorial debut. Janko also has a long, successful career in music, working on more than 65 major motion picture soundtracks, including the score for “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” In addition to Janko and producer Laura Goodenow, the screening features an appearance by star Karen Allen (“Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Starman,” “Animal House,” and the St. Louis-shot “King of the Hill”), who will be honored with a 2016 Women in Film Award for her distinguished career. The film also has a local connection: St. Louisan Terry Schnuck was among its producers.

Actress Karen Allen will forever be linked to ANIMAL HOUSE (fer first film) and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK but she has appeared in many significant films in her long career, from THE WANDERERS to CRUISING and STAR MAN.Karen Allen took the time to answer some questions for We Are Movie Geeks in advance of her appearance at The St. Louis International Film Festival.

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman November 1st 2016

Tom Stockman: You’ve spent time in St. Louis before when you played Miss Matheny in Steven Soderbergh’s KING OF THE HILL which was filmed here in 1992. What memories of our city do you have from that shoot?

Karen Allen: I don’t remember much from that shoot but I was born near St. Louis. When I was growing up, I would stay with my grandparents during the summers and we would often go into St. Louis. I was in St. Louis again not too long ago for a big family gathering on my father’s side. He was from Southern Illinois. It was in a big park there.

TS: Let’s talk about your new movie YEAR BY THE SEA. You play writer Joan Anderson. What attracted you to this role?

KA: I wasn’t familiar with her work. I read the script that written by the director Alexander Janko. My agent had given it to me and I thought it would be an interesting story to tell. I was attracted to the simplicity and beauty of someone waking up one day and discovering there is a lot more to Life than what they felt and saw stretched in front of them. Her kids were grown and her husband had this world of his work, a businessman who was about to get transferred again to someplace that didn’t really include Joan necessarily. She had this moment where she put herself on pause in a way, and decided she wanted to think about who she was and what she wanted to do with her life. She had been a published writer early on, before her kids were born. She had put her writing and her individual life on the back burner so she could be the person that was there for her kids and to keep the household together.  She had, as I think that many women her age do, an epiphany and realized that she had 30 more years stretching out in front of her. She needed to know who she was and what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

Did you find all of this relatable?

KA: Oh gosh yes. I have one son who is 26 now. I found it very relatable. Unlike Joan, I didn’t continue on in my marriage. My husband and I split up and went our separate ways when our son was just six. In a way, I had a bit more confusing scenario since I was on my own when I had to make these decisions. I’m not saying that men don’t go through their own version of this and I’m sure that they do, but I think it’s very specifically an issue for women, particularly if they’ve raised families. You’re really work hard to maintain a healthy relationship with your friends and family and keeping the house together. I think you can get to a point where you hit a wall and you think you’re keeping all those balls in the air, but to what end? One of the things that made me want to do this film was that, after I read the script, I went and bought Joan’s book A Year By the Sea, and I felt deeply moved by it. She’s brave and honest and funny. I enjoyed her musings about life.

TS: I assume you met Joan Anderson?

KA: Oh yes, I met her before we started to shoot. We premiered the film in Vail last spring and the film has been in 14 or 15 film festivals. I’ve been to five or six of those and Joan has been to some as well.

TS: You’ve gone blonde in this film. Was that to look more like the real Joan?

KA: Before I met Joan, I looked at a lot of photographs of her. I wasn’t really going to do an imitation of her. Also, I was playing a Joan 25 years earlier than when I had met her. Jonah has changed a lot in those years in terms of who she was. She’d be the first want to say that the person that I’ve met and sat down with was not the person that I was portraying. We talked about it, and I thought it would be interesting to make my hair color the same that hers was. She’s Swedish by descent. I’ve never had blonde hair before, so I figured I’d just go for it and see if it put me more in the direction of who she is. I’m always looking for things that are right for the character, and sometimes that can be as easy as changing the color of your hair.

TS: Have you played real life characters before?

KA: Yes.I’ve played Helen Keller twice. I played her as a young woman and I played her as a grown woman. Those were in two different plays. In an independent film before this, I played the mother of our director who was telling the story of his family, and in WHITE IRISH DRINKERS, I played that director’s mother, which is kind of interesting.

TS: You said you’ve been to film festivals with YEAR BY THE SEA. Do you enjoy going to film festivals? Is this something fairly new for you?

KA: No, I’ve been going to film festivals my entire life. It wasn’t as big a phenomenon in the 1980s, or maybe I was more focused on making films for studios. Independent film get more drawn into that world, but in the 1980s I was doing films that would go to the big film festivals. My first film festival was Cannes in 1987. We took THE GLASS MENAGERIE to that. It was in competition there. I’ve been to a few others with films that I have done. I’ve been to festivals in Boston and Toronto and Montreal. I enjoy going. It’s a wonderful way to get back together with the actors and director that you’ve worked with on a film. Normally you finish a film, and short of doing something like a film festival, you don’t see those people again.

TS: YEAR BY THE SEA was directed by Alexander Janko, a first-time director who has scored music for many films. Talk about his instincts as a first-time director and what do you think his experience as a musician brought to this film.

KA: Alexander had had the great fortune to literally fall in love with this book during a time in his life when he was going through some real personal challenges. This book just happened to fall into his world. He picked it up by chance and read it in one afternoon. He was so moved and fascinated by the book that it sort of helped pull him out of this very difficult situation he was going through with his life. He made an effort to find Joan Anderson and to sit down and talk with her about the book. They had been working on making the film of this book together for about seven years. She was deeply and passionately involved in the story. By the time I sat down and met with him about the project it was clear that this was a real labor of love, a project from his heart. He said that one of the most interesting question that people ask him is why 40- something year-old man would choose this is his first story to direct. He really did relate to it. He saw his mother in the story, and his friends’ mothers. He has been married and has a child, so he saw his own life in fast forward a little bit. Musically speaking, certainly his years as a composer, and being around films and watching them in an intimate helped him understand how they’re made and what makes them work well, and how music makes a film work. There’s a sense of rhythm to a film, so perhaps there’s not a vast difference in composing and directing to him. I think his music background was a real strength.

TS: What was it like being on the set of YEAR BY THE SEA compared to being on the set of ANIMAL HOUSE?

KA: Oh gosh! (Laughs). ANIMAL HOUSE was my very first film so I was really unsure what to think. I was lucky in that so many of the other actors in the film had never been in a film before either so we were in the same boat, so to speak.

Karen Allen in ANIMAL HOUSE

TS: Was the set of ANIMAL HOUSE as chaotic and wild as one might think?

KA: It was fun. It was a really lovely group of people. We all stayed in a kind of ratty old hotel in Eugene, Oregon. We had a very short shooting schedule so there was not a lot of time for messing around.  We were scheduled for six-day weeks and we had to get up at five every morning. It was pretty bare-bones.  We didn’t have trailers or people picking us up taking us to the set. It was done on the cheap and that was fine. We were all so happy to be there. In the case of YEAR BY THE SEA, Alexander wanted us to have a week of rehearsal. He wanted there to be a feeling that these people had a connection between them. He wanted Michael Cristofer, who played my husband, and myself to have some time together to get to know each other.  I had met Michael before, we had some mutual friends. I did not know Epatha Merkerson or Celia Imrie. We got to stay in these really wonderful little cabins together on the waterfront. We did spend a lot of time together and at the end of the day we would all gather in somebody’s cabin and somebody would make dinner. Joan Anderson was a guru of the women’s movement. She has people from all over the world who will come and do anything for her. I hate to use the word ‘acolyte’, because that takes on an almost religious meaning, but at any given moment Joan is surrounded by sometimes hundreds of people who want to help her. So, a lot of those people gathered for the making of the film.  They made food for us and brought it to the cabins. We called them Joan’s angels. They were looking out for us.  Compare that to on ANIMAL HOUSE where I was looking into the eyes of my fellow actors who had never been on a film set before, compared to looking into the eyes of people who had one Pulitzers and other awards for their work in film and television and on the stage. It was like being on the other side after putting in 30-plus years becoming the best actors we could be.

TS: I do want to talk about one of your older films. I was just reading that THE WANDERERS is coming out on Blu-ray soon with a lot of extras.

KA: Yes, I’m going to the Film Forum in a couple of weeks to do a Q&A about that film.

TS: Did you read the novel that was based on by Richard price?

KA: Oh yes, Richard was on the set of the film a lot.

TS: That was my Catcher in the Rye when I was a teenager. I read that book over and over. I think that’s an underrated or perhaps underappreciated film.

Karen Allen in THE WANDERERS

KA: Oh that’s so cool, but yes that’s something of a cult film especially in certain parts of the world. When I was in London, forget RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK or ANIMAL HOUSE, the movie that people would come up to me and want to talk about was THE WANDERERS. That movie is a big deal over in Europe. It has the status it never really achieved here.

TS: What can you tell me about Indiana Jones part five?

KA: I wish I could tell you more. I know they’re contemplating it and I think it may be on the roster to be made. I don’t think it will be made until 2018 so that’s still a ways away. I haven’t been able to determine whether or not my character is in it, although I might be. I have queried but they want to keep it very much under wraps. There still developing the story so there is not a sense of what exactly they want to do with the story yet, Or maybe they do and they’re keeping it to themselves.

TS: Well good luck with YEAR BY THE SEA and I hope you have a great time when you’re in St. Louis next weekend. I have a STAR MAN poster I’m hoping you will autograph for me.

KA: I’ll be happy to!