Rachel McAdams NYT

Revealing Rachel McAdams Interview New York Times:

IF IT'S TUESDAY, RACHEL MCADAMS MUST BE BLOND. SO WHAT IF THE HOLLYWOOD HOTTIE HAS A FEW SOCIOPATHIC TENDENCIES? INTERVIEW BY LYNN HIRSCHBERG

In ��The Lucky Ones,�� which is out next month, you play a soldier home on leave from Iraq. What attracted you to this movie?

When I first read the script, I didn�t get my character and I found that interesting. She had such a mishmash of qualities � one minute she�s a hellcat and the next she�s so sensitive. I liked that sense of complication. And I was interested in what it is to belong to something like the Army and the nature of true fellowship and service. Basically, the movie is a long road trip, and that was resonant for me: we were the family that drove to Disney World and played Name That Tune all the way there and back. I didn�t go up in an airplane until I was 22, and then I was heading to Italy for my first part. It was very glamorous and completely different from anything I had known. I thought, This is making movies!

You grew up in a small town in Canada. Did you always want to act?

No. When you live in a small town in the middle of Ontario, it would have been too big of a dream to say you want to go to Hollywood. But, secretly, I think I always knew. When I was young, I was a figure skater, and every year there was an ice carnival. I lived for the carnival. That�s when the actress in me first came out. I loved the costumes and the sparkles. One year, I got to play Marilyn Monroe on ice. I danced to ��Diamonds Are a Girl�s Best Friend.�� I wore a long blond wig and a red dress with sequins. It was heavenly.When I was 12, I went to drama camp. I knew every Broadway score and I wanted to be in the musical, but I couldn�t carry a tune. So a wise teacher said, ��Maybe you�d like to try Shakespeare.�� Initially, it was intimidating, but our first play was ��Macbeth�� and I was cast as one of the witches. Instead of being ugly, we were beautiful and sexy witches. The director was clever to make that distinction, and I was hooked: I loved Shakespeare. It was around then that I probably admitted to myself that I wanted to be an actress.

But you still stayed in Canada instead of jetting off to L.A. or New York.

Yes, I lived in a little town, the type of place where the mayor also bags your groceries. I still don�t live in L.A. or New York. I had a small-town life � I worked at the local McDonald�s for three years. I�m not sure why they kept me: I am something of a daydreamer and a dawdler, so they would only let me be the ��friendly voice�� that greeted you when you entered the restaurant. I was slow � I would be organizing the sweet-and-sour packets in the customer�s takeout bag while the line snaked out the door. Even at a fast-food restaurant, I wanted everything just so.Movie sets must remind you of small towns.It�s true. You are very close to the cast and crew for a short amount of time. I go into withdrawal every time I finish a movie. I miss that sense of working together toward the same goal. I�ve always liked the idea of some kind of task, planning and organizing an event. In high school, I had the official title of ��social convener.�� I was a committee of one, organizing the prom. I am so not that girl, but I was bored and I wanted to make things more interesting.

What did you wear to your prom?

A chartreuse floor-length dress. It had a velvet bodice and a chiffon skirt. I had a wrist corsage and I wore my hair in tight curls.What color was your hair? You�re always switching � from red to blond to brown to pink stripes and back again.Back then I think it was dirty blond. It�s a compulsion: I�m always changing parts of me. Even when I was young, I wanted to change my hair color. I was so determined that I dyed my hair with Kool-Aid. You dunk your head in a bowl of red Kool-Aid for four hours, and it comes out apricot. Not that pretty, but it is still transforming. Even my handwriting changes regularly. [She laughs.] They say that only happens with sociopaths, so maybe I�m crazy.

For your first major role, ��The Hot Chick,�� you were very blond, and in the film your character�s personality was swapped with the comedian Rob Schneider�s. What was it like to be a guy?

I watched all of Rob Schneider�s movies, and I knew his mannerisms. I didn�t think they would cast me, but I liked acting like a guy. It was strangely liberating. I think it may have been harder for Rob to become female.

Do you like to audition?

I love auditioning. Since ��The Notebook�� and ��Wedding Crashers,�� I don�t have to audition anymore, and I miss it. You get to show your interpretation of the character. I get nervous when I don�t audition. What if they hate what I want to do? I also like screen tests, where they put you in a room with your male co-star. They want to see if the two of you have chemistry together. There�s something wonderfully old-fashioned about a chemistry test. During a movie, chemistry is so important, and yet they just assume actors can fake their way through it. That doesn�t always work.

In ��The Notebook,�� you and Ryan Gosling had amazing chemistry. Are love scenes difficult?

They�re strange. A kiss with anyone, on or off camera, can be intimidating. I�ve been kissing for nearly two decades now, and I�m always convinced I�m not doing it right. Chemistry is so important in a great kiss. You can act your way through anything, but it�s hard with a kiss. It�s much better if there�s an attraction.

You had a very busy year in 2005 with ��Red Eye,�� ��Wedding Crashers�� and ��The Family Stone,�� and then you kind of disappeared. I�m sure you were deluged with offers. Why not accept them?

You�d be surprised: I didn�t get many interesting offers after I finished ��The Notebook.�� And yes, I now get a lot of them. But I don�t like to work all the time. When I�m working, the rest of my life slips away. I press pause on everything, and then, when I�m done working, I get back to the world I�m trying to interpret in the movies. I have a split personality � I love being completely immersed in my nonworking life, but I am equally compelled by the lives of the characters I play. If you want to tell stories as truthfully as possible, you have to have a normal, boring existence. Otherwise, you�ll never understand the greatness of the everyday.