Michelle Williams has slowly been stepping back into the spotlight in the past few months, promoting her latest movies Synecdoche, New York and Wendy and Lucy, and she recently talked to Newsweek to help promote her films. The interview is both raw and sincere, with Michelle talking about living under a microscope and how she's handling Heath Ledger's tragic passing. Here's more:
- On having her personal life so exposed: "It's such a funny line to walk as an actor," Williams says. "There's some great quote I think Dustin Hoffman gave when he was doing 'The Graduate': 'The more you know about me, the harder my job is'."
- On Dawson's Creek: "When I was on 'Dawson's Creek,' I wanted to make work that meant something to people, serious work that made people less alone in the world. And I was thinking about that this morning in the shower—'Dawson's Creek' meant something to people."
- On how she's handling Heath's death: "It's so sad. I guess it's always changing. What else can I say? I just wake up each day in a slightly different place—grief is like a moving river, so that's what I mean by 'it's always changing'. It's a strange thing to say because I'm at heart an optimistic person, but I would say in some ways it just gets worse. It's just that the more time that passes, the more you miss someone. In some ways it gets worse. That's what I would say."
The interview must have been a difficult one for Michelle, but the strength and wisdom she's shown over the past year really shine through. Having Matilda and Spike Jonze in her life are hopefully helping Michelle find happiness in both her personal life and her career.
Napapijri
Penhaligon
Brand Alley
she's so mature and wise, i'd love to meet her
1I heard that she's threatening to quit acting because of the paparazzi intruding her life. Noooooooo!
2Ive really never cared for her one way or the other, she sounds genuine and her daughter is her main priority, funny how some celebs can speak of their child/children and protect them from the media and paparazzi as much as possible and not subject them to the world they signed up for, for that she should be applauded, she doesn't use her daughter to promote anything its actually the contrary with her
3Love her.
I feel for her.
4"It burns a fire inside of me, the s––– that I've seen people do to get at me or my daughter," she says. "I won't forget it, and I won't support it. I don't want my daughter growing up feeling spied on or threatened."
HER BEST QUOTE
5I love Michelle and my heart breaks for her and Matilda.
6God bless Michelle and Matilda.
7She is so right about missing someone...it DOES get worse as time passes, at least for awhile. I don't think you ever fully get over that kind of loss.
8This part makes me tear up bad:
"Williams is jovial and chatty, until the conversation turns to Heath. You can see it's still difficult for her to talk about him, and she hasn't done so publicly until now. The first time Ledger's name comes up, she bursts into tears."
Gah I'm in tears right now.
9It makes me terribly sad to think of how sad she feels.
10haha, dawson's creek is her idea of serious work? whatev
11I love her. One of the few actresses that seem real. Poor woman, I truly feel for her and her loss. God bless Michelle and Matilda.
12"haha, dawson's creek is her idea of serious work? whatev"
I don't think she said that. She said that it meant something to people and she wanted to do work that meant something. I'm sure she's moved on from Dawson's Creek, she was just commenting on how it meant something to some people.
13She's a rare gem in Hollywood. Michelle is incredibly strong and has integrity, it hurts to see how much pain she's going through. Anything she says is genuine, tragic, and beautiful all at the same time. Love her.
14you can think what you want but she called it serious work.
15No, krae85, she said it "meant something to people". It's right there in black and white above.
Taken in context with her interviews during that time, where--as stated--it was apparent she was more interested in serious acting roles (and indeed those were all the small indie roles she chose on her own outside the TV series) I think it's simply a reflection that there were people out there watching and she never really considered their viewpoint of the show before.
She was like sixteen years old when she took the role and I feel confident "Dawson's Creek" will be a footnote in Michelle Williams career--same as "Growing Pains" for Leonard DiCaprio or "21 Jump Street" for Johnny Depp or "Bosom Buddies" for Tom Hanks.
16She seems very genuine, my heart goes out to her and to little Matilda
17and she calls it serious work. hello???
18No, I bet you're right. when she played the town tramp on dawson's I bet it changed lives and now she's only a celebrity because people feel sorry for her because her ex, who was an actual celebrity died at an early age. I know this is a celebrity blog, but is it too much to ask people to have some actual real-world perspective?? She called her role on dawson's serious work, that in black and white to, shanooooo.
19Wow, that's one of the most heartfelt words I've ever read.
20That's a really good description of the grieving process--like a moving river.
21Why so angry, krae85? LOL. You're right it's only a celebrity blog. Don't need to get that worked up about it.
Personally, I think the fact Michelle Williams has received Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Independent Spirit Award nominations gives her at least some credibility all on her own.
22i love michelle williams! she is so beautiful and strong. good for her.
23awwwwww, I really do like her....and lol at Dawson's Creek
24Because how are you going to tell me I'm wrong when it's right there staring you in the face, in print. If you weren't so biased you wouldn't have made it at issue. but heave forbid she saying anything flakey, right? again. whatev.
25Because how are you going to tell me I'm wrong when it's right there staring you in the face, in print. If you weren't so biased you wouldn't have made it at issue. but heaven forbid she saying anything flakey, right? again. whatev.
26aww that's so sad. I haven't lost anyone close to me yet thank God, but I can almost feel her sadness here
27"moving river" is an oxymoron. Anyhow, I agree with her statement about grief it is so true.
28"When I was on 'Dawson's Creek,' I wanted to make work that meant something to people, serious work that made people less alone in the world," she says. "And I was thinking about that this morning in the shower—'Dawson's Creek' meant something to people."
She doesn't directly say that Dawson's Creek itself was serious work, she says that she wanted to make serious work, and she realized that Dawson's Creek meant something to people. Therefore Dawson's Creek fell under that category of "serious work that made people less alone in the world", but she didn't explicitly say Dawson's Creek WAS serious work.
I think it's a nice sentiment, because she's recognizing that although she didn't have the meatiest, most life-altering part, she was part of something that people really grew attached to, and loved.
So sad about poor little Matilda though, I hope they're doing better.
29I agree with you pinkprincess, as much as I like a certain celebrity, I do admire other celebrities who choose not to sell their kids' pictures to magazines (although Matilda's pictures weren't really in high demand like others, but that's a different story
). She seems
like a great mum and a very intelligent, mature woman. I haven't seen any of her films and I didn't watch Dawson's Creek on a regular basis so I can't really comment on her acting.
However, I think it's really weird that people pick apart her words like that. Who cares if she thinks it's serious work or not? We don't have to agree with her. I think what she means is that although Dawson's Creek is not an Emmy-award winning, epic show it meant a lot to some people. I think that's a really nice thing for her to say because a lot of TV-turned-movie actors resent their TV past and are very embarassed by it (I'm looking at you John Stamos and Johnny Depp).
30cali Matilda's pictures after heath were in high demand but she didn't subject her daughter to the paps to promote anything or gain anything out of his death, she could have made magazine covers with Matilda but she didn't.
what i got from her quote was that she wanted to make serious work but that dawson's creek at the time meant so much to others she felt she couldn't leave, i could be wrong, which i probably am.
31well she's always giving us something positive to think about and she's really realistic about her job as an actor is something that she takes seriously and knows what impact she has out there. i hope that she and spike continue to have all the happiness in the world since she's moving on and coping.
32If people want to dissect her words, it comes down to grammar. If you want to think of her comma as a parenthetical phrase, (i.e. a continuation of the thought) OR a separation of independent clauses that could often stand alone as sentences. To rearrange them as sort of loose examples of each (quotes removed since it's no longer an actual quote):
Parenthetical:
I wanted to make work that meant something to people, serious work that made people less alone in the world, and 'Dawson's Creek' meant something to people.
Separate clauses:
I wanted to make serious work that made people less alone in the world.
I wanted to make work that meant something to people.
This morning I realized that 'Dawson's Creek' meant something to some people.
I think they were meant as parenthetical, with the implication that she aspired to do serious work which meant something to people while she was on that teenage show. Looking back in retrospect, she now realizes that Dawson's Creek really did mean something to some people, so it wasn't as trite as she might previously thought.
Although I've never watched an episode of Dawson's Creek, so I'm extrapolating from what I've read that it might be kind of trite.
33Very class act.
34I was in high school/college during Dawson's Creek and I loved her character and the depths of the character, and that show meant something to me.
It was a cheesy high school show, but that doesn't mean it didn't affect people or that people didn't enjoy it. She was awesome in it, and in the last episode, she did some serious work (her character died and left a video for her daughter). So yes, she did some serious work and some lighthearted work in that show.
I was never a big fan of hers, but I am proud of the work she has done and how she has handled herself in the spotlight. She has always come across as being very insightful and intelligent, and doesn't strike me as someone who is in it for the celebrity. I love those kind of actresses/performers.
35Great breakdown Ginger. And I think it's nice that she's not become some movie actor snob. That show was a big part of my teenage years and it's nice to know she's not going around dissing it.
36By the way an oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines two words with different meanings. Moving river is not a oxymoron. Maybe you meant redundant. But I think she was really feeling that grief is moving always and combining that with the analogy of a river.
37HaHa after the witch hunt I faced a couple of days ago because I don't take any notice of spelling and grammer on my blogs, I find the above funny. I didn't know Pop was also a punctuation lesson.
38But I'm impressed ginger. I think you won the argument.
she is actually the only female celebrity i like. always intelligent in what she says. and not in for the fame.
enjoyed her interview recently- wow she looked gorgeous.
39She genuinely seems like a nice, grounded person!
40What a brave girl! I cannot imagine how can it feel your daughter is not growing up with his father. Although she is doing really great and Mathilda also seems a very happy toddler. Bach flowers could help her to heal from the sadness. They both can Honeysuckle to live more in the present, Mustard to overcome the sadness, star of Bethlehem to absorb the shocking loss, because nobody was prepared for Heath death, Holly to change every negative feeling against other people (even paparazzi) to a happy outlook of life. For Mathilda it could be good to have Elm ready to take during periods of depression when she feels that the task she has undertaken of taking care of Mathilda alone is too difficult.
41I love Michelle very much like i loved Heath! It is so sad!
42Post New Comment
Please share your opinion with our community, but make sure it is on topic and follows our Community Rules. We moderate comments and prohibit personal attacks, threats, spam, lewd images, or the promotion of your personal website.