Latest project presents stark contrast for Farmiga
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Between starring in James Wan’s horror film “The Conjuring” and inhabiting the insidious soul of Norman Bates’ mother on the A&E series “Bates Motel,” Vera Farmiga has spent a lot of time in sinister places lately. When she received the script for her latest film, “At Middleton,” it presented quite a contrast. It was funny and poignant, plus it would co-star Andy Garcia, an actor she had admired since she was a college student at Syracuse University.
“I’ve always had a tremendous respect for him,” Farmiga says on the phone from Vancouver, British Columbia, her family’s part-time home base for the duration of “Bates Motel.” “After seeing Andy in ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ – I’d seen him in ‘The Godfather: Part III’ – but his performance in that film, his tenderheartedness, he did such profoundly tenderhearted work in that film.
“When the (‘At Middleton’) script came, I was in the middle of shooting ‘The Conjuring,’ and I was in the mood for a really good love story. That Andy was attached, that mostly piqued my interest, and then the script cinched it. I’m a sucker for a romance.”
In the film, Farmiga plays Edith, a middle-class mom reluctantly shepherding her overly serious daughter Audrey (Farmiga’s look-alike younger sister, Taissa Farmiga) on a tour of the Middleton campus. Garcia is George, a heart surgeon who loves the school and hopes the tour will spark some interest in the institution in his indifferent son Conrad (Spencer Lofranco). Edith is a free spirit, while George’s bow tie is a dead giveaway to the strait-laced man inside, yet these opposites find a spark between them that has been missing in their lives.
“It’s so funny, and in executing the script, it’s so fanciful and whimsical and fun-loving, and then you get down to the nitty-gritty and you realize, ‘Oh, at the heart of the story is something quite profound and sad,”‘ Farmiga says.
“I think the message of the story, to me, was simple and beautiful,” she adds. “What I took from the initial reading of it was that you can’t wait for inspiration. You’ve got to go after it with a club. There’s also the reminder that risks must be taken. You need to keep paying attention. You need to stay eager. Attention is vitality. There is just a very simple kind of holiness to the story, and a reminder to not accept relationships in second gear. I love that. I love stories about reawakening. I suppose those are the stories that clobber me.”
After being a fan of Garcia’s for so long, Farmiga was delighted to find him as much a joy to work with as he is to watch onscreen, a gentleman and a generous collaborator.
“What a great dance partner Andy is,” she says. “What a noble man. What a benevolent man. He’s just so gracious and fun loving, full of light and love. He is a special guy with a profound love of family. He radiates love for his family. It’s no wonder he’s got one of the most lasting relationships in Hollywood. He’s a gorgeous human being.”
As great as it was to co-star with Garcia, a bigger bonus for Farmiga was the opportunity to share the screen with Taissa. She had cast her little sister as her younger self and directed her in her screen debut in 2011’s “Higher Ground” and also worked with her on her audition tapes for such projects as “American Horror Story” and “The Bling Ring,” but the siblings had never acted together before.
“This was the first time we were on camera together and had the give-and-take of a scene,” she says. “We felt comfortable. We’ve had a lot of practice. … She’s just used to taking direction from me.”