Patrick Stoner Stanislavski [the acting teacher who founded the Method] said that people don't go to the theater for the text - they could read that at home - they go for the SUBTEXT [the real emotions and thoughts under the surface of the words]. May I assume that playing the subtext was important to you in this role?
Julia Roberts EVERYTHING was subtext for this character. She couldn't be herself for a minute - not in those times, as a servant in that house. Also, she had a background that made her a very repressed person. She didn't know herself just how sexual she was. Hyde, in this version, sees THROUGH all of that - right to her secret desires, her secret needs...
Stoner: a very common fantasy - the perfect lover who knows what you secretly want...
Roberts: and you don't have to SAY it. That's especially attractive for a lot of women - especially one like Mary Reill - who couldn't allow herself to ADMIT her own desires. Or who could act on them without punishment from her superiors, society, even her own strong conscience.
Stoner: So, your main tools for communicating all of this underneath the words is, what, the EYES?
Roberts: Yes, that's why the camera stays here [closeup on the eyes]. She never responds in words, but she can't hide the truth in her eyes. She's attracted to Dr. Jekyll, but he's too inhibited himself to approach her; she doesn't want to be attracted to Hyde, but she can't help it, and he won't LET her hide from it (an ironic name, with that in mind, isn't it?).
Stoner: I was talking with Julia about the importance of subtext in this play and her use of her eyes to convey it. How about you? How important is subtext to you?
John Malkovich: Very important. I think subtext determines what you see and hear on the surface in the text.
Stoner The inner determines the outer?
Malkovich: Always, I think well, in a good script, it should. But it's always is where you start. Once you've decided on the subtext in your mind, the way you read a line, give a look, even walk - everything on the surface comes from the subtext. In this case, one of the two characters in the same body. Hyde has a subtext that's the same as the surface; he hides nothing [laughs]. That's both his appeal and his threat. Dr. Jekyll is more like the rest of us - feeling and thinking things that he can't bring himself to say or act upon.
Stoner: Which is more fun to play?
Malkovich: Jekyll is more fun intellectually because he's more complicated; Hyde is more fun emotionally because you can turn on your full concentration and just let him run wild.
