Lake Bell Interview: In A World…

By Tribute on August 8, 2013 | Leave a Comment

In the new comedy In a World…, Lake Bell stars as a vocal coach with big aspirations to break into the male-dominated world of movie trailer voice-overs. Her character, Carol, finds herself competing against her own father (Fred Melamed), the reigning king of the insular industry, for a prestigious job: the trailer for a blockbuster “quadrilogy” called The Amazon Games.

Lake, 34, known for her quirky roles in films like Ivan Reitman’s No Strings Attached and on HBO’s short-lived How to Make it in America, wrote and directed In a World…, which won a screenwriting award this year at the Sundance Film Festival. Next year, she will star in the big-budget baseball film, Million Dollar Arm, playing Jon Hamm’s love interest. Tribute.ca spoke with Bell about In A World… to find out what it was about the world of voice-overs that has her so obsessed.

This is such a unique and refreshing movie and I really loved that someone has finally tried to crack the mystery as to why all major movie trailers are voiced by men. Did you discover anything eye opening about this?
I haven’t figured it out fully yet but I do appreciate the conversation that it is stirring up from people who have seen the film.  I think the awareness of the issue, whilst it’s not life or death (laughs) is significant and I love that my character Carol is taking this issue very seriously.  I do find it strange that men hold this trophy of authority when it comes to representing things vocally.

Women do get to do voice-overs for tampon commercials….  
(laughs) Right, and dish soap or women’s products… it’s very archaic in a way. Sometime we get the car commercial but it’s usually in a sexy voice. When a man is voicing a car commercial you have to be tough or strong, but when a woman does it, it means you get to have sex with me if you get the car.

What was it initially that actually drew you into the world of voice-overs? Was it something you tried to do early in your career and got rejected?
That is somewhat true actually… but that’s another movie!! I was always interested in the voice-over industry and mainly doing different accents. My whole life I have paid great attention to the voice and I did silly accents for my family at dinner parties when I was a kid, which blossomed into something more sophisticated at drama school where we poured over the nuances of exercises that help develop the voice. In the film, my character records people with different accents to get their exact tone and sound and that is something I learned to do in drama school. We were encouraged to go out and listen to people’s accents in their real environments so I remember sneaking into the Bulgarian Embassy so that I could record accents in there and I was promptly thrown out.

You live and learn…
Yeah, you live and learn, that’s for sure. I just find that your voice is such an important tool when representing oneself in any situation, it’s right up there with how you present yourself, so that’s why my cause has been to help eliminate the sexy baby voice virus. We need it to stop spreading.

You’ve been in this business for a while now – is there anyone you’ve worked with who influenced your style?
I would absolutely say that after the 12 years that I have been seriously acting everything I know comes from me sponging from every single director I have ever worked with. Look, you have the choice as an actor to just go back to your trailer when you aren’t needed on the set or you can be like me and always hang around, ask questions and help out in areas that maybe I wasn’t needed but just wanted to learn about.  If you spend ten years watching, asking, listening and being exposed to some of the greatest teachers that can give you first hand experience, then you will start to learn things that will help you with your career or things you might want to do in the future.

You did such a great job, especially considering what you had to go through on this film. Several of your friends were cast in this, did that help make the process a little easier?
Absolutely, and I have to say I am a very lucky gal to have such talented friends!! I’m also lucky that they took a chance and lent their talents to me because it’s not easy to ask your friends to take 20 days of their lives and devote it to a project that may or may not work. All the people in my movie are content creators, they make their own stuff and so it is a lot to ask. If it sucks, what are they going to do? They can’t take it off their resumé, they already did it. So I was extremely blessed to have people like Rob Corddry and Dimitri Martin and the rest on board to make this project a success. I wanted to make them proud; I felt I owed them that much.

Plus, working on the series Children’s Hospital and having the chance to direct some episodes had to have paved the way for you too.
Exactly! Directing Children’s Hospital as a precursor to In a World was a great exercise in directing my friends. Children’s Hospital could not be a more wild set; I was directing it this year too — the fifth season — but season four everyone was way too comfortable with each other and giving each other the business. If you’re the director and you come in not knowing anyone, it’s difficult sometimes. You got a lot of big personalities, we’re all goofing off and you got two days to do an episode; we shoot two at a time in four days, really quick, all out of sequence… it’s pretty crazy. It was the perfect boot camp though, in terms of managing large personalities who are also my friends, but also moving very quickly and efficiently.

You portray this world as quite egotistical, but isn’t all of Hollywood like that?
Isn’t every industry? There’s not a job out there where people aren’t resting on their egos. I always say everything is about ego and it doesn’t matter what you do. There are hierarchies everywhere you go whether you are in the voice-over industry or not.  I pulled the well-rooted sexism and male ego from the race car tracks I used to visit as a kid with my dad. Strangely there are similarities between those two worlds, voice-over and race car driving, especially in the amateur circuit where I was mostly exposed. So trust me when I say that I saw a lot of synergy between the two worlds.

If you could make a film using any accent, which one would you choose?
I would like to do a full on South East London accent, Cockney or any type of British accent. I also love French, I do speak fluent French and I love that accent. So those are the two that I feel pretty confident with.

Now I have to ask. Have you ever had anyone make out with your nose before?
Ha, no never this was a first, but the thing about movies is that you have to do many takes. I have to give credit to Ken Marino because he took me aside and said, “Can I French kiss your nose?” I was like, sure, whatever you want to do. Then once he did it, it was so hard to keep a straight face shooting that scene. It was really hard not to laugh, I couldn’t keep it together. I actually pulled him aside and said, I’ve got a note and it’s that we can’t do this more than twice because I can’t stop laughing.

It sounds like acting is something you’ve always wanted to do. Was there a movie or an actor you saw as a kid that made you decide this is what you wanted to do?
It’s hard to pinpoint what the first movie was but I remember vividly that we only had one movie that worked in the country house that we had in Jersey and it was Indiana Jones. We watched the movie over and over and I thought Karen Allen was so funny and spunky in that film. I remember thinking that I wanted to be like her and thought it looked like so much fun. I also loved Harrison Ford and liked what he did, so I guess have to say it was Indiana Jones that gave me my calling.

Did you have support from your family about choosing this profession?
They did not want me to become an actor. In the end, my mom (bless her) for being so patient and recognizing that this is really what I wanted because she was the one who told me I had to go to England to drama school if I was really serious. So I worked very hard to get into drama school over there to satisfy both her and myself. It was the best decision I ever made going to the Royal Conservatory in England. It really changed my life.

Coming up next we are going to see you starring alongside Jon Hamm?
I just wrapped a movie called Million Dollar Arm. It’s a feel good sports movie for Disney. It’s with Jon Hamm and Alan Arkin and Bill Paxton and me. I think it’s going to be really good.

Are you going to direct again?
I am writing something else. I should keep my mouth shut. But it’s called What’s the Point? and it’s a comedy about marriage, an unromantic romance story. I started writing it three years ago. I was so far from getting married, and my perspective on marriage was so cynical. Cut to now, when my perspective has vastly changed. Getting back into that script being newly married has been interesting.

You are a huge fan of movie trailers. Are there any trailers that stand out as particular favorites?
Yes, I am a trailer junkie. But I think when Don LaFontaine (the voice-over king) was in his heyday… I mean, those kinds of trailers are pretty great. I think the Star Wars trailer is kind of epic. So I guess my childhood trailers—’80s and ’90s trailers—only because I remember them so well.

So you must have had a blast making the trailer for In a World…
It was, it made me rip my hair out, but it was great. The team of people who helped me put it together told me not to over think it because trust me, I could have done that.

In A World opens August 16 in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. It then opens August 23 in Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa. ~Bonnie Laufer Krebs

---

---

1. There are no comments yet, why not be the first?

---