Gretchen Mol in The Ten Courtesy of THINKFilm

GRETCHEN MOL

PREMIERE: Do you think you could ever tire of working with some of these guys from The State?
GRETCHEN MOL: No! It is such a ball. I hope they ask me to do everything they do. I loved it. I haven't been asked to do lots of comedy before. So it was great that this script came across my desk. It is not everybody's favorite humor. So everyone was like, "You might find this offensive or stupid." I had seen Wet Hot American Summer and I am such a fan of them. I was so excited. I thought the character was really funny. It was kind of a no-brainer.

Did you get to go to Mexico?
I did. We went to San Miguel de Allende, which is just this amazing little town and we all stay[ed] in a villa. It was a ball. And you would show up to work and who knew what you were going to find. Because the crew was like, "What are we making?" They would bring farm animals on [set]. It was just insanity. But it was great fun. And, at the core of it, David and Ken really had a structure and they new exactly what they were doing. Each piece really has a different visual style so there is a lot of structure underneath the ridiculousness of the situations.

If there was a very structured script, how much adlibbing was there on set?
At least with mine — and I am not really part of the troupe — I felt we stayed pretty close to the script. There were opportunities to try different things or, if I had an idea, they were definitely open to 'Let's-Do-One-Take-Like-That.' Ken would often come in and say, "Is there value in it?" And I guess "value" means "Is this something funny? Is there comedic value in trying it this way?" So we would do things like that.

Were your costars literally from the village?
Yes. They were from the village except for Justin. Obviously, they had gone in and cast certain actors. But I felt like Gloria [her character] going to Mexico on my first [trip there] and seeing what would happen, and it was all new and crazy.

Each story is so unique and fresh. But reading the script had to have been a very different experience from seeing it all put together?
I didn't take into account that they would do that part so well — as far as the visuals. They had an amazing cinematographer. My commandment was very torrid, almost [like a] romance novel. And then when you get the one with the animation, you think, What is this? It is sort of stream-of-consciousness almost. As a script I didn't even see it as funny as it ended up even being. But I knew I found it funny so I trusted that it would be something really interesting if nothing else.

Your timid librarian Gloria is pretty much the polar opposite of pinup girl Betty Page. Was that a conscious decision on your part?
Yeah, I guess. I didn't really think of it that way but it was fun to take the cliché of the uptight inexperienced librarian and just go full force with it. It was just an opportunity to play and be playful again after Betty. But Betty had a little of that innocence, too. I feel I often get cast this way. It was definitely with a "wink-wink" aspect to this character. But I think that the important thing that David had stressed was we were not trying to play it for laughs. It is all played very straight and the comedy comes from the situation.

Doing sex scenes are embarrassing enough but then you and Justin do all this crazy wacky stuff…
I think that almost makes it easier when it's got something fun or silly about it. It is sort of how you feel when you are doing a love scene, anyway: that this is really ridiculous to try and play these emotions, whatever goes on behind closed doors, and try to make it real. In this it was liberating not to have that, the drama element of it. [David] was like, "The more ridiculous it is, the better."

Did anything funny happen while you were filming?
We were in this tiny little place with sawdust everywhere. And they just kept bringing in farm animals. And goats and pigs were over there. And every time we walked in the room, they would be throwing food to basically get them in the frame. And so you are trying to work with these animals and you know you want them to get in the shot. So it was interesting to be aware of them. And so the shot became more about them than even what we were doing. So it was fun. It was helpful to have that distraction.