While we were on the press trip for Million Dollar Arm, we were unfortunately unable to interview Lake Bell. However she gave us a chance to do a phone interview this past week! I was thrilled to participate! Lake plays “Ms. Brenda” in the movie Million Dollar Arm. She is a character that you quickly fall in love with as she doesn’t put up with any sh*t. In fact, she tames the playboy JB Bernstein in the movie.
In real life, JB married Brenda and they now have a daughter!
Lake did a phenomenal job of portraying a down to Earth, no bullshit woman in this movie.
We did a quick phone interview and here is what she had to say about Million Dollar Arm and her experience working on the movie!
Q: So, it seems like you’re the only one in the film who didn’t get to travel to India. Did you have any desire to visit along with the crew, or did you try to petition Disney to try to join in on the experience?
Lake Bell: In truth, it’s kind of a sore point of contention at this point. I feel like I got left out of the coolest trip ever! But, that said, I’m not really complaining; when all the boys came back from India, they did a lot of complaining about the 127 degree weather, and how they ate all these exotic foods and got very sick, and I was like “I would have taken all of that! I would have taken my Pepto Bismol and sucked it up to have the life experience.” But anyway, I’m super bummed about not going to one of the most extraordinary places in the world.
But, hopefully… look, maybe they can be like “Miss Brenda, The Sequel.” {Laughing}
Q: How did you prepare for the role?
Lake Bell: It’s interesting…because it’s a true story, the thought is that you have to sort of find something about the real person and then latch on to that. But really, in this instance because none of us are playing iconic characters from history it’s sort of a different ballgame – pun intended. It’s more that you have to adhere to the message and sort of honor the story itself versus the literal hand gestures or physical quirks of a character. It’s more ‘who is Brenda and how does she live her life and how does she influence those around her?’, not necessarily ‘Ooh, I want to drink a certain type of decaf coffee she drinks everyday’ in order to be more like the real Brenda.
I didn’t get to meet the real Brenda until the premiere, so I only had information that I could get from the script and what other people said about her, and her husband JB was on the set quite a bit so we got to talk about his life and the real Miss Brenda.
Q: What is it about your character, Brenda, that you most admire? How did you accentuate that trait on film?
Lake Bell: I really admire Brenda’s no-bullshit policy. She is very much an advocate for tough love, she stands up for herself. I think often, in these types of movies, female characters can be left on the sidelines or kind of the pretty thing that dotes on the male protagonist. Brenda, which I really appreciated, was written really beautifully by Tom McCarthy, who I love, and then directed by Craig Gillespie to be more assertive and unafraid of punching Jon’s character, JB, in the proverbial gut and call him a jerk when it’s due. I admire that. I think sometimes I could do with a little more of that in myself.
Q: Are you a baseball fan and were you familiar with the story of Million Dollar Arm before the movie?
Lake Bell: I have nothing against baseball, but I don’t know ding-dong-diddly about it so, going into this movie, I certainly didn’t know the story of Million Dollar Arm. But I will say that Jon is an avid baseball fan and didn’t even know anything about the story either, so I didn’t feel too badly about that.
I remember reading the script and thinking “Oh boy, there’s no way this is true” and when you looked it up, it was such an extraordinary tale that, in a way, it couldn’t be made up. It’s really cool to be a part of a project that is that exciting. You don’t need to be a sports fan to understand that, for someone who’s never picked up a baseball, 10 months later to be recruited into the major leagues as a pitcher. You don’t have to be a professional baseball player to understand that it is extraordinary.
These young guys, who were 17 at the time, they overcame such fantastic cultural obstacles and physical/athletic obstacles to arrive at their goal. Goals and dreams they didn’t even know they had because they didn’t even know they existed.
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