Mary Elizabeth Winstead Found It Surreal Working With a ‘Creepy’ John Goodman in ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’
Actor Mary Elizabeth Winstead worked alongside Roseanne alum John Goodman for the first time in 10 Cloverfield Lane. Like many, she grew up watching Goodman, and had a difficult time getting over being in a film with the veteran star.
John Goodman’s creepy performance in ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’ was too real for Mary Elizabeth Winstead
10 Cloverfield Lane showed Goodman in a different light. Because of one of his most iconic roles in Roseanne, many were used to seeing Goodman as the caring husband he portrayed in the sitcom. His Cloverfield Lane character, however, couldn’t have been any more different. The 2016 horror feature showed Goodman playing a disturbed and deluded kidnapper who traps his co-star, Winstead, in a bunker.
Winstead asserted that the real Goodman was not too unlike his Roseanne counterpart. Which sometimes made it all the more difficult to work alongside her co-star when he got into character.
“He’s everything that you hoped he would be, as someone who grew up watching him in so many things,” Winstead once told HeyUGuys (via FemaleFirst). “He is that lovable John Goodman that we all know. A legend, but in this role he gets to be somebody else entirely. So it was a bit surreal, getting to watch this actor, that I love so dearly, be intimidating and creepy. But he does it so well.”
How John Goodman got into his ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’ character
Goodman’s role in 10 Cloverfield Lane may have been a deep departure from some of the other roles he’s known for. But he once shared in an interview with Flickering Myth that he did little to slip into his tormented character. Most of the prep work was already done for him in the film’s screenplay.
“I just came off another movie that I shot in Louisiana right before this and I went right into it. With the script the way it was, I didn’t need to do any prep work. It was right there. I mean, I could lie to you and said I dug my own grave and laid in it for two weeks before filming,” Goodman said.
However, the Big Lebowski star did confide that he had to really get into the psyche of his Cloverfield alter-ego. But even after doing so, Goodman had very little sympathy for the character.
“You have to find out what he believes in most of all, what he wants most of all. He’s got a very narrow scope of range. And make that the most important thing for the guy,” Goodman once told Slashfilm. “[He’s a] tragic figure in the sense that he’s got bad wiring in his head. Outside of that, no.”
How Mary Elizabeth Winstead felt being a scream queen in ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’
Winstead was seldom seen in horror projects like 10 Cloverfield Lane. Perhaps the closest she came to dabbling in the genre was in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, where she tussled with a serial killing motorist. But with 10 Cloverfield Lane, Winstead seemed proud to join the ranks of celebrity scream queens. Especially since she considered her character a different, more capable version of Scream Queens of the past.
“People still have an idea of a scream queen as the 1980s slasher-film version, which I’ve never really played before. I’m hoping to solidify an image of a scream queen who’s really strong. Intelligent, active,” Winstead once told Time Out.
At the same time, she felt there was more substance to portraying the lead in a horror movie than other potential roles.
“I’d much rather play the smart ‘final girl’ in a horror movie than somebody’s girlfriend. And really, it’s an honor for an actor because it says that people are able to see themselves in you and feel what you’re going through. That’s awesome,” she said.
