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RB: You play a single mother, as you said, and in real life you have a 3-year-old of your own. Now that you're a mom, does it change the way you play Jean or how you understand your character?

MG: Yeah, definitely. I mean it changes everything about me. But, actually—I don't want to give away anything since you haven't seen it—but there are some tough things that happen in the movie that have to do with my kid, and most journalists have been asking me if those are the things that are easiest for me to understand since I have had a child. But I've realized it's actually the sort of tiny things. There's a part of the movie where he writes a song on my bed and I get really upset; it sort of seems like for no reason. But the reason is, even though it's not explicit really, is that I've really just fallen totally in love with him and he's really not right for me and I'm scared. You know, I think to have that happen with a 60-year-old who's a drunk when you have a child at stake is a whole different level, and that's something I don't think you can understand if you don't have a child. Not really.

You know, I've played lots of mothers before. When I made SherryBaby, for example, I wasn't a mother. But in a way, she wasn't really a mother. She was someone who'd been in prison for most of her life, so she never had to take a bag of Cheerios and put it in her bag or do those kinds of basic things that you know how to do when you're a mom and that you do without thinking. But Jean, this woman is someone who had to really work to take of herself, and it changes everything.

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