Tribeca Interview: Actress Eve Lindley on All We Had
This year, the Tribeca Film Festival premiered the directorial debut of Katie Holmes with All We Had. Based on Annie Weatherwax’s novel, the film focuses on Rita (Holmes), a broke single mother, and her teenage daughter, Ruthie (Stefania Owen), who end up working at a small town diner alongside owner Mel (Richard Kind) and his transgender niece Pam (Eve Lindley), who works as a waitress and becomes Ruthie’s closest friend (the film also stars Judy Greer, Siobhan Hogan, Marc Consuelos, and Luke Wilson).
Model-turned-actress Lindley, who’s also appeared in TV’s Outsiders, makes an extraordinary feature film debut in the significant supporting role, adding heart and spirit to a role that proves to be both funny and deeply moving. Following the film’s premiere at Tribeca, we spoke about being cast in her first movie, her close relationship with a “veteran” like Owen, and the importance of including the film’s disturbing scene of sexual violence.
Lesley Coffin (TMS): Was this your first professional acting job?
Eve Lindley: I made a short film before All We Had called Happy Birthday, Marsha! with Mya Taylor, but that still hasn’t really been released. And then I got cast in this, so this is sort of the first film I made that a lot of people will see.
TMS: What was the casting process like for this film?
Lindley: My agent heard about it through Avy Kaufman, the woman who cast the entire movie. And they sent me in for the initial audition. That audition you just act opposite the casting directing. And then I think I had three call backs. The first one I had a few days to prepare, and they told me Katie would be there. And a week went by, so I thought they might have gone with someone else. And then the second two call backs happened and they gave me almost no time to prepare. I think my agent called in the morning and told me to get to their office in three hours. So those auditions felt kind of rushed, but those were also with Katie.
TMS: Because Katie acted as well as directed the film, was it similar to a chemistry read where they were testing how well you worked together?
Lindley: They actually weren’t. The scenes I auditioned with, Katie’s only in one of them. So considering the scenes Katie had me audition with and the kind of direction she gave, Katie seemed far more interested in my relationship with Ruthie, the character of the daughter played by Stefania Owen.
TMS: What was Stefania like to work with on set?
Lindley: It was a blessing to work with her. She’s so fun and sweet, and really smart and a really great actress. She’s worked on a lot of stuff, so in a way, she mentored me a little bit on set. Because I still didn’t know the technical side of things really, so I’d ask her things like “what does it mean to check the gate?” And she was on set almost every day I was on set, so I felt really lucky to have her by my side. And Katie really facilitated our closeness by allowing us to do things together both on and off set. After we had our table read, Katie took Stefania and I out for lunch at a diner in midtown called the Stardust Diner, where all the waiters sing. And doing things like that really helped us get close.
TMS: Where did you film the movie?
Lindley: We were at a diner called Ralph’s in upstate New York, about 45 minutes outside the city. I lived in Brooklyn at the time, so I’d just make the drive out there on a daily basis with a PA.
TMS: Did you read the book before you started filming?
Lindley: I wanted to read the book. I actually tried to read the book before I auditioned, but they didn’t have it at The Strand and I had to order it. And I ended up getting cast while waiting for the book to come into Barnes and Noble, and when I went to the cast dinner with all the actors and the writers and some of the crew. And one of the screenwriters, Jill Killington, gently suggested I not read the book and just find the character on my own and in the pages of the script. I think she suggested that because the character went through a few changes from book to script. So I still haven’t read the book, although I’m curious.
TMS: When you read the entire script, what were your first impression of Pam character and her relationship with Katie and Stefania’s family?
Lindley: I loved the character. She’s very sweet and creative, constantly making these art pieces. And she provides a really interesting foil to Katie’s character. There can be a fear that the trans character in a movie can be a joke or underdeveloped character, someone to just fill a one dimensional purpose. But that wasn’t the case at all with this script. She was nuanced and fun and had so many interests and showed a love of life. She felt vibrant, which I thought was wonderful. And when I read the script initially, I loved her joy, and found she had a great and really moving arc when we see some of that joy lost.
TMS: Being so early in your acting career, were you at all intimidated or apprehensive about the more violent scenes in the film perpetrated against your character?
Lindley: I wasn’t apprehensive, although I knew it would be a challenge to film those scenes, but I had total trust in Katie as a director. Because I felt capable of doing those scenes, but I didn’t know if I would be when it came time to film them. But Katie had a clear vision and facilitated a set to make me realize how capable I am as an actress. I think having that experience changed me as an actress and changed my future as an actress, but I also thought of this kind of famous quote, stories are data with a soul, and I think that when it comes to rape and violence, we have a lot of data out there about their prevalence.
There are a lot of incidences of trans—and cis—women going through these experiences. All different types of people have gone through similar experiences. So to take that data and turn it into a story about a character the audience can really care about, I think that is why I wanted to become an actress. I want to use these stories to talk about these things and show the injustice people are living with. Most the audiences who’ve seen the movie seem to like my character and enjoy what she brings out of Ruthie, and when this event happens, in an unexpected almost rushed way, it brings people in and puts them in the story. When they see it happening, it upsets them, as it should. I think it makes people think about her in a different way than they had during the first part of the film.
(featured image via Eve Lindley on Twitter)
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