Is there a birth scene?
I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone. I feel people know so much about it already, that whatever details we can keep quiet, it’s only going to be better for the audience.

You seem to love the process of learning. What did you read for Closer?
I read Alice in Wonderland a lot. A British writer wouldn’t name a character Alice without making some sort of allusion to that. I read A Lover’s Discourse, the Roland Barthes book. Julia gave me The Passion, by Jeanette Winterson. And Mike gave us Silk, by Alessandro Baricco, a lyrical novel, very short, a lot of poetry. I think it just got us into the atmosphere of that passionate love.

At one point in the film, Larry says to Alice, “You have the face of an angel.” Do you, Natalie, worry how you’ll live up to a line like that?
Larry also says Alice has “the moronic beauty of youth.” I think I’ve got the moronic look. [laughs] It can seem angelic, because everything innocent and inexperienced isn’t hard to come by when you’re as inexperienced as I am.

But for a 23-year-old, you’ve got a lot of work and life experience. What are the advantages and disadvantages of that?
I just feel that I have a different life experience from anyone I know. I definitely had a period where I was conformist, the high school years when you just want to fit in. But at the same time, as an artist, you want to keep things strange. It’s comforting to be different, because you look at the world from such a different perspective than other people. And that’s what makes art—a unique perspective.

Usually when you hear of someone having experience beyond their years, that has a negative connotation. But it hasn’t been for me; it’s been really positive. I don’t feel jaded or that I have a burden of experience. I feel the world is so full, and every second so full of life. Every minute I’m so stimulated and interested and attracted by the world, sort of in wonder to the world. And it’s not related to youth, it’s related to how much you fill up your seconds.

What encounter or sight has knocked you out lately?
I’m living in Jerusalem [for two months], and it’s the most amazing experience. Just talking to people every day who have different experiences from everyone else in the world. People my age have been in the army and have seen crazy things, sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrific. And every time you learn about someone else’s life, all the details of their day, it’s shocking—and it’s surprising that it’s shocking. My job is to imagine what other people’s lives are like. But it’s very abstract to just imagine someone’s parallel life running alongside yours. When you’re actually introduced to it fully, it’s surprising how different it is from anything you could ever imagine, and how much fuller.