Vera Farmiga in Quid Pro Quo Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Read Premiere's review of Quid Pro Quo.

Read Premiere's interview with Nick Stahl about Quid Pro Quo.

Vera Farmiga has played a variety of wildly different roles: a mother with a ravaging drug problem in Down to the Bone; an employment councilor who dates a ventriloquist in Dummy; a married woman who falls in love with the man she hires to impregnate her in Never Forever; a psychiatrist who sleeps with her patient in The Departed. But her latest movie, Quid Pro Quo, is probably her strangest so far — and the most challenging. Farmiga plays Fiona, an able-bodied museum restorer who, for reasons of her own, desperately wants to live life as a paraplegic. Her desires lead her to a strange romance with the wheelchair-bound Isaac, played by Nick Stahl, in this dark drama. Vera Farmiga sat down with Premiere to discuss the challenges of playing someone who won't feel whole until she is paralyzed, a love scene involving a wheelchair, self-demand amputees, and why the taboo can be so erotic.

What convinced you to participate in this film?
I grew up watching Murder, She Wrote and Love Boat... Quirky detective stories and oddball romances. I imagine initially that's what drew me. I love romance... I am always on the quest for an unusual romance, and this was it. There always has to be something about the character in the script that really turns my head and Fiona — I have a stiff neck from craning at this one. My initial response was she's that woman in your life that you are absolutely terrified of but at the same time have to be around. She fascinated me. And the fact that it is just an unusual detective love story, and also a taboo subject that you don't hear anything about.

Is this a real phenomenon?
It's a real thing. It's a very real thing.

What sort of research did you do?
There was only one book at the time that I could get a hold of, which served as my Bible for the project. It was called Amputee Identity Disorder: Information, Questions, Answers, and Recommendations About Self-Demand Amputation [by Gregg M. Furth and Robert Smith]. And aside from that really there is so much pain, guilt, disgrace, and shame associated with this syndrome that it is impossible to sit down with someone. There's no related literature... At the time there wasn't. The only support system I could find was online, which is always probably the biggest source of all my research. And there are so many support groups.

Vera Farmiga and Nick Stahl in Quid Pro Quo Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Apotemnophilia, [which] I think is maybe an even outdated term, is how I referred to it as I was researching it. I think it might be [referred to now as] BIID, Body Integrity Identity Disorder — wannabes is the street term, but it is a real thing. It's people, able-bodied people wanting to be disabled. The thing is, it's a syndrome that has a different signature... with each case, he or she has a different psychology. Every case is deep-seated and unexplainable. I think the only thing in common is that it's just this mental torment. And for me, I think it wasn't so important to understand [why] — I think it was virtually impossible to understand why Fiona is the way she is. It was more important for me to get that when it comes to apotemnophiliacs, the mental torment and the anguish of wanting to be paralyzed is the greater agony, is the greater pain, is more painful than amputation, and that sort of gave me a springboard and a direction.

She's a tough character... One of the most consistent thing[s] about Fiona's character [is] her inconsistencies. She is someone who shrugs off her syndrome as much as she revels in it. She laughs at herself as much, really, as she cries for herself. There are so many contradictions to her. She's larger than life but she feels very small. She is a total overachiever but can't achieve wholeness in her sense of being. So she's really mercurial, and with a role like this, you wish you had the luxury of time so you could play everything in two completely opposite ways.