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Jun 26, 2009 By Chris Tinkham Web Exclusive

Even though Pell James only has about a dozen film credits to her name, she’s worked with an enviable list of directors that includes Terrence Malick, Wes Anderson, David Fincher, Jim Jarmusch, Sidney Lumet, Barry Levinson, James Toback and James Marsh, who won an Oscar this year for his 2008 documentary Man On Wire. Her latest film, Surveillance, is a twisted thriller directed by Jennifer Lynch, the daughter of David Lynch. It’s been 16 years since the younger Lynch’s previous feature Boxing Helena stirred up controversy, but time hasn’t caused the director to soften her approach—Surveillance is an unapologetically demented follow-up. In the film, James plays Bobbi, a junkie held for questioning by federal agents (Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond) after witnessing grisly roadside crimes. It was a left-field choice for James, who had given birth to her first child shortly before accepting the role.

A native of Fairfax, Virginia, James now has two boys (a two-year-old and six-month-old) and lives in Los Angeles. She moved from Virginia to New York to study acting at NYU but dropped out after a year. An early break was being cast in a comical IKEA commercial directed by Wes Anderson. Although James acted opposite Gael García Bernal in James Marsh’s The King and had a leading role in 2005’s Undiscovered, she might be best known for her brief but memorable appearances in Broken Flowers and Zodiac. Among other upcoming projects, James has a coveted role in Terrence Malick’s next film The Tree of Life, slated for 2010.

Surveillance opens today in New York and Los Angeles and is available on Video On Demand. I spoke with James earlier this month in Hollywood.

When you first read the script for Surveillance, what were your early impressions of your character Bobbi?

It was a last minute thing. My friend Braxton Pope e-mailed it to me on a Saturday, ‘cause he’s a friend of one of the producers, and someone had fallen out. So, it was a matter of packing up and going to Canada in three days. And I had a six-month-old. I had been in a nursery with my baby doing nothing but being a mom, which is really fun, but I was excited about the idea of playing someone so different from what I had just been doing. It was the first thing I had read since having a baby. So, it just seemed like something crazy and fun to do, and I had spoken with Jen on the phone, and I really liked a lot of the people involved, like French Stewart and Cheri Oteri and Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond, just the names I knew from watching their work. So that was pretty enticing.

It’s a pretty twisted movie.

It really is. We shot it a little over two years ago, so I’d kinda forgotten. It played in Cannes [this year], and I was there for it. I was doing little roundtables with Ryan Simpkins who plays the little girl Stephanie, and she was talking about the macaroni brains and all this stuff that I obviously had put out of my head. It is really gruesome.

Did you have any reservations about playing this role?

No. I hate those things where it’s really exploitive, and a woman’s half naked. It didn’t seem in any way exploitive, which I always appreciate. And I think those movies are fun. I did Zodiac, and that was a lot of fun to be a part of.

I read that your mom is a substance abuse counselor.

Yes, she is.

Did you discuss this role with her at all before filming?

I think I did a little bit. But, you know, the whole mom thing gets a little annoying when she can get into stuff. I did e-mail some kind of narcotics anonymous to get some information, ‘cause I don’t know a lot of people who have done hard drugs, so I e-mailed the website for some information, explaining that I was an actress and was gonna do this role, and this guy writes me back, and he’s like, “I really appreciate your cry for help, and I’d love to talk to you about your addiction.” And I wrote him back, I was like, “No, no, no. It’s for a movie. I just need this kind of information. I have some set questions.” And he just couldn’t get it out of his head that I had a drug problem. He still e-mails me! Like every six months I get, “Hey pal, just a heads up to see how you’re doing and if it’s time to get clean.” It’s ridiculous. And I’ve sent him links to the movie, like, “No, for real, I’m an actress! I swear I’m not making this up.” I think the last one I got was like six months ago, so maybe he finally followed a link. I didn’t send him links before. I think I finally just sent him an imdb link and was like, “C’mon man. I swear.”

Since this was your first film after becoming a mom, did working with Ryan trigger any maternal or protective instincts?

No, her mom was on set, and her little brother. I kind of looked at it more that Bobbi wasn’t so much her mother but more of a cohort, in a sense. I always feel like Bobbi had the emotional maturity of someone Ryan’s age, about 10.

Bobbi is subjected to some intense encounters with other characters in the film, both psychologically and physically. Was preparation necessary to find a comfort zone with the other actors for these scenes?

I wasn’t really expecting Kent [Harper], the cop, to be like that. That really came out of nowhere for me. So that was not an enjoyable experience. It’s probably my only bad day. He’s a very method actor, which is fine because I’ve worked with people who are like that, but it was intense and not fun, that part. But everything else was like, lots of pads and super taking care of everyone else. So, it was fun.

That scene, did it go off script?

Yeah, I don’t believe it was written as so much the gun in her face, like he’s trying to put it in my mouth. And I told him, “No. You’re not doing that.” He’s like, “Oh, it’s the character.” I was like, “I don’t care. My character’s not going to let you do that, so figure out something else.” It’s a little much.

Yeah, watching it I began to wonder how you prepare for something like that. It must be really unnerving.

Yeah, I didn’t think it was going to go that far.

In your own life, have you had any unsettling roadside incidents?

I just saw a guy get beaten the other day. It’s so weird you say that. I was coming home from a birthday party at 11 in the morning, a kid’s birthday party in Eagle Rock, and I saw a gang of motorcycles pull up to this kid and beat him until he was unconscious. It was crazy. I’m a witness. And my friend who was in the front seat, she got his license plate and a couple of the other guys in the gang’s license plates, so it’s ongoing right now. And it’s beyond frightening. It really affects you in every which way, something I had never thought of when I was shooting the movie. You’re like, “Oh, we’re shooting this thriller, and it’s really fun playing these characters.” But it did not feel like the real thing, which I just experienced about six weeks ago.

Is Pell your given name?

No, it’s my grandfather’s nickname, so it was my nickname growing up.

What kind of name is that?

His last name was Pellegram, so it’s Belgian, but my father’s adopted, so our last name didn’t really pertain to us.

Did you move directly from Virginia to New York for college?

Yeah, I went to NYU for a year and dropped out. I finally paid it off, that one year. I paid it off three years ago. I lived in New York until four years ago. I came out here to shoot a movie, and then I just never left.

NYU attracts a lot of people who are interested in pursuing film careers. Was that the case with you?

Yeah, I went to Tisch for acting but couldn’t afford it.

Before you started acting professionally, were there any other ambitions that you considered seriously?

I wanted to write my own stuff, which I just started doing. I wrote a pilot with my best friend. We just sold it to FX. We’re going to shoot that as a pilot presentation. So that’s something. And then I just co-produced a movie last year, Shrink, which comes out July 23 with Kevin Spacey, Robin Williams, Keke Palmer, Dallas Roberts, Saffron Burrows and Mark Webber, who’s really great.

Does this creativity come hand-in-hand with acting?

I really love acting, but I also realized, once you get out in L.A. and you kind of see the process, it’s really as much about luck getting parts as it is about talent, especially when we cast our TV show. We just realized, there are so many great people right for it, but there’s only one person to fill the role. It’s just fitting different people into this puzzle. So, it kind of made me take a second look at making sure I made stuff to do for myself instead of waiting for parts to come to me.

You’ve worked with an impressive list of directors, so I was curious if that’s good fortune or a matter of you being choosy about the parts you take.

Yeah, I don’t like feeling like I’m wasting time. You don’t realize how little time you have. So yeah, I have a list, my own list of people I want to work with. Working with Terrence Malick was a shock. I never expected that to happen. So that’s really exciting. Yeah, you do try and do things that really matter to you. I don’t feel like I’ve done much stuff that I didn’t really respond to.

Did you play a pregnant daughter in the IKEA commercial?

Yeah, isn’t that awesome? [laughs] It was really funny, ‘cause when you audition—I don’t do commercials, but I did when I was starting out in New York—they call ‘em allbacks instead of callbacks, because they’ll call back everyone they saw the first go ‘round, and it’s a lot of people. And this woman sitting next to me is like, “It’s that funky little director who did the bottle movie.” And I’m like, “Bottle Rocket? Wes Anderson?” And she’s like, “I think so.” So I had no idea that he was directing it. So, when I went in for the audition— Usually you kind of mentally prepare, like, “I’m going into the room and I’m going to meet Terrence Malick. So, OK, just breathe.” And so I had no idea, so I was really nervous. I was really young when I met him, and I was super sweaty. I had to put my hands in my pocket for the audition, which is never the way you want to audition.

So early in the process, you didn’t know that Wes Anderson was directing the commercial…

Yeah, this woman sitting next to me who was auditioning for the mom told me. I had no idea. So very few big directors direct commercials, you just never think— It’s part of your weekly, like, “Oh, I’m going up for a Coke commercial, an IKEA commercial, a Home Depot commercial, or whatever.”

...but you knew before the audition.

Yeah, I found out. I was pretty nervous. He’s really nice. That was really fun.

What can you tell me about your role in the Terrence Malick film?

I don’t think I can. I don’t know. There was never any specific “don’t say anything,” but I meant to call him and ask him, ‘cause I figured people would be interested. I never got around to it. But I’m sure he wouldn’t want people saying anything, ‘cause I still get information about the movie by Googling it.

Fanboys was good for your geek cred.

Yeah, I haven’t seen it. [sheepishly] It came and went very quickly. Did you see it? Did you like it?

I grew up an intense Star Wars fan, so it appealed to me.

Yeah, I loved the script. I thought it was really funny, and all the people involved. The whole concept was really great; I don’t know how the movie turned out.

There were some funny scenes that had me squirming because I was seeing my own ridiculousness up there. Did the humor and trivia seem foreign to you?

No, not at all, because I grew up in that era. I loved Star Wars. I didn’t love Star Wars the way some people I know love Star Wars, especially some of the people in the movie. But I had actually worked with Carrie Fisher. She had played my godmother in a movie [Undiscovered] two years before that, and so we talked a lot about Star Wars, ‘cause that’s what I know her from. I’m sure she was really thrilled with that. She was really cool about it. So, I know. All my friends growing up loved Star Wars and have all the action figures and stuff. I’m not a huge, huge fan like I know people are, but I’m a fan.

What can you tell me about your roles in upcoming films?

In Shrink I play Daisy, this obsessive-compulsive agent’s assistant. My friend Tom Moffett wrote it, and she wasn’t pregnant, and then I got pregnant, so everyone’s like, “Well, we’ll have to recast the role.” And I was like, “No. She can just be pregnant. You just have to change a few lines.” So it actually worked out really funny to have her pregnant. I’m a surrogate, which explains my pregnancy, and my romance. The one that I wrote for FX is a male-driven comedy with the heart of Cheers and Taxi. And we shoot that in two weeks with Jonas Pate directing for us, who also directed Shrink. I play a failed overachiever trying to run this gym that I’ve inherited from my stepfather and my mother, with my stepbrother, who’s this manchild towel boy, but we don’t have towel service. It’s a lot of peacocks. It’s really disgusting. I’m really proud of it.

www.magnetreleasing.com/surveillance