Emily Mortimer chatted with us during our trip to LA about her experience voicing Holley Shiftwell for Cars 2. She was sweet, funny, engaging, and oh, so real. Holley Shiftwell didn’t have a major part when this movie began production, but the powers that be saw the potential in Holley and Mater’s interactions and dialogue and kept writing more and more into the script.
It was nice to hear from a Hollywood star that she, too, falls into stereotyping roles sometimes, even as a mom. (Remember, I said real!!). Ms. Mortimer spoke of how she’s far more aware now, having a daughter in her family, of the role she plays and how she wants to be cautious of what she’s modeling for her daughter, because she’s caught herself acting “dappy” as she called it, with her 7 year old son.
I play into that a little bit with my son. He’s always thinks of me as this sort of hopeless sort of dappy thing and I play that part a little bit …. I think now I’ve got a daughter cause my son is 7 and my daughter is 1. I — I think it is more important to me to think, kind of think about that more, you know, and what it is I’m doing every time I’m sort of pretending to be a hopeless dippy Female and — and of course I’m not.
While laughing at Ms. Mortimer’s comments about this being the part she’s looked the best in by far, I had to agree that looking better than Holley Shiftwell would be hard for anyone to beat. The character of Holley Shiftwell is sleek, modern, sophisticated and gorgeous. I mean, first of all, it’s fantastic looking this good in a Movie. I normally do parts where I never get to wear Mascara or you know, or have a Blow dryer on my hair and um, and — and I just look far from glamorous. So I don’t think I will ever look as good as I do, as Holley Shiftwell. And um, and I’m not normally this sort of, you know, together empowered Spy Car type. In fact, my friends will make me run for a bus just to give themselves a good laugh so I’ll totally malcoordinated really in real life. Ms. Mortimer, for the record, was absoloutely well put together and looking gorgeous- exactly as you’d imagine Holley Shiftwell would in real life, were she to turn into a person.
As a mom, I totally “got” what Ms. Mortimer said when she said the best part of the whole movie was And — and the moment where I get wings and I fly and he (her 7 year old son) turned to me and he went, Mom, you’re amazing! It isn’t every day a mom can wow her kid by getting wings and flying…
I had the opportunity to attend this interview as part of my trip sponsored by Disney. All opinions expressed within are my own. [ad#glam between posts]