Paul Dano and Carey Mulligan Discuss the New Film “Wildlife”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: It’s really good to see you. I watched the film. I know it’s coming out later but it’s really quite a dramatic film. I just wanted to ask you because would I be right in thinking that both the male and the female characters are quite unsympathetic?

PAUL DANO: Well, I think it’s OK for you to have that opinion. However, I don’t think so. I feel like it’s sort of about people being human. I remember learning when my parents were actually people, that they sort of had past lives and that they struggled. And sort of what that felt like as a kid to suddenly realize they had lives beyond me and sort of stepping out of like the even of childhood and then to the adult world which I think frankly is quite messy. And even though I experienced that, I still love my parents. So something I responded to in the book was the great sense of love there is even though there’s a great amount of struggle or pain. So I personally am not looking to condemn either of these parents. In fact, I feel empathy towards their struggle.

AMANPOUR: Well, look, the way you describe it makes a whole lot of sense and I’m going to take back what I said maybe but it is — but actually that is the whole other side of the coin to what I just saw. And it’s really interesting because Carey, you are the mother in this triangle of mother, father, and child. And I wonder how you saw it then because I sort of saw it from the kids’ point of view. And maybe it was a flawed point of view or flawed reading of it. I just felt so sorry for this child being caught between you two parents.

MULLIGAN: Yes. I mean I think that’s so interesting because I think, you know, we’ve spoken. There’s quite a lot of audiences who’ve seen the film. And everyone seems to identify with a different character. Some people see themselves in the child, in the character played by Ed and the film is told through his eyes. And then some people really identify with the father or the mother or they see echoes of their own experience. So I think it’s just, you know, it’s a family portrait so you can, you know, follow or be with each of these characters in different moments. From my perspective, I similarly felt despite her flaw or despite the obvious wrong move she makes, she still is hopefully a character that you can feel empathy for. And what I loved about what Zoe Kazan and Paul had written was this flawed female character. And I think, you know, often we have such idealized ideas of what womanhood and motherhood and wifehood looks like on screen. And if a mother is failing on screen, she’s only failing. And I don’t think that’s the case of this. I think you’re missing her in a very difficult week of her life and all of the cracks showing but up until that point in her life, she’s sort of spent the last 14 years being pretty much perfect.