Transsiberian's Emily Mortimer Understands Moral Ambiguity on Screen and in Real Life
What could be more refreshing on a hot summer day than a gruesome thriller set in a snowy Siberian wasteland? Horror fans may think they're on a well-worn track when Transsiberian premieres this Friday in New York. Thanks to its claustrophobic journey by train and morally ambiguous heroine, the movie world seems determined to compare it to Hitchcock's classics, but star Emily Mortimer believes the film isn't so easily classified.
"It starts off as a Hitchcock movie, but it becomes more of a Dostoevsky novel in the end," says Mortimer. "The morality of Hitchcock films is often questionable, but that's not the theme of this film. Hitchcock's films are sort of chillier... and that's what I like about them. But Transsiberian is an investigation of guilt, and whether you really can get away with murder in your own mind, whether you can keep that secret and carry on with life -- which is more in line with Dostoevsky." Director Brad Anderson (The Machinist) is inclined to agree.
Mortimer plays Jessie, a woman whose seemingly wholesome married life is a mask concealing demons from her sordid past -- and the actress was able to draw from plenty of real-life experience. "My dad is a criminal defense lawyer. He defended a lot of murderers, and he would always say that they were generally the nicest clients he had," she explains. "And it's a crime that he thinks anyone could commit -- whereas not everyone could hold up a bank. Most of us have it in us to kill someone at some point in our lives, and my dad brought me up with an open-mindedness and respect for that fact."
