Ricci: I think that I have a slightly different set of what I view as risky or dangerous or something I should be cautioned against. It never would occur to me that it's brave to do a part with a prosthetic on your face. Everyone knows I don't have a pig nose [laughs], so I really don't get why that's particularly brave. It's a part of the movie. ... It's not my first reaction to be intimidated or scared or say, "Ooh, maybe I shouldn't do this. Maybe this is too whatever." But then someone will explain to me why it's a little risky, and then I'm like, "Ah, okay." But, I think that I have just a slightly skewed version of the world.What was it like wearing the prosthetic nose for the film? How much time did you spend in makeup?

Ricci: It took about an hour and a half. It's not fun to have something glued to your face. It just isn't. It wasn't really that bad. It didn't take that long. And I had a rule that I wasn't allowed to really acknowledge how irritating it was or touch it or scratch it or complain until we only had like three hours left of the day, because I knew that if I started in the beginning, I would just be irritated all day long and want to rip it off my face. So I felt that if I started late in the day then I could tolerate three hours of being really irritated.Did you ever go out in public with the nose on?

Ricci: They were very sensitive about me being seen with the nose, so I couldn't walk [around]. We would be on the streets of London and I'd want to go to Starbucks, or something, and they would just panic. I'd walk out of the trailer and you'd see the PAs panic and say, "Does she have her scarf on her face?" ... which also made me look like a freak. So, really, I just stayed inside.What was your reaction seeing yourself with it for the first time?

Ricci: The first one they put on me was a little bit too hideous and scary and kind of nasty-looking. Mark [Palansky] and Scott [Steindorff] wanted to have it really be hideous-looking. And then all the girls in the room were like, "Uh-uh. We want that one that looks like Miss Piggy and is cute." And so, somewhere in the middle, we found it. It just looked like me with a fake nose on. It didn't really disturb me in any way. The production design of this film is really striking. What was it like to be working in those beautiful spaces?

Ricci: It was really fun. I loved any of the stuff that we did on the stages, when we were inside their house. It was so great to just be around that kind of stuff, and it really set a tone for everybody. I think production design is a great way to very succinctly inform a whole group of actors and crew as to what the tone of the film's going to be, and how to fall in line and make themselves make sense within the environment that's been created. Sometimes it's harder to do that because you don't have a common language yet with the director. So I feel like, if you have such strong production design like that, it's really inspirational.What message do you hope young people will take away from this?

Ricci: I really hope that the strongest message that's taken away is self-acceptance and self-love, and that you have to learn to love yourself and you have to accept who you are, specifically for women and little girls. I like that she does it herself. She always had the ability to make her life full and to be the best version of herself that she wanted to be, and the only one standing in her way was herself and her insecurities. I think that's a very important thing for girls to know. A lot of our society is based on "I'll be happy once I have the right man," or changing yourself a little bit, or a lot, depending on who you're with. The things women do to be with different men is just ridiculous. So I think it's important that we have young girls that are growing up learn to be really strong and independent and have the right sort of priorities. Catherine O'Hara, was the message of this film one of the things that drew you to it as well?

O'Hara: Probably eventually. When I first read it, I thought it was great and funny and sweet and really good lines. I think [Leslie's] a great writer. She wrote for Everybody Loves Raymond, one of the sitcoms that I really, really laughed at. So I just really liked the script. It was fun, and I talked to Mark Palansky and he seemed like a great guy. And he had Christina and Richard E. Grant. I'd never met him before, and he's intimidatingly smart and talented and such a fun, silly, wonderful guy. Really lovely to work with. But I don't tend to look at it for the message that's coming across. Hopefully that'll be all through osmosis for anyone. But I know in these circumstances you have to talk about it. I'm sorry, I forgot where I was [laughs]. Right, I'm supposed to answer your question. I mean, it is a nice [message] overall. I'm sure if the script has a creepy message or if it's something that I disagree with, it probably would hit me more obviously, but yeah. It's got a lovely message. It's just loving yourself and not worrying about what other people think.You've played big characters before. How big could you go with this?

O'Hara: I hope not so big it's not real. We were just talking about that. I like to kind of channel over-the-top human beings that I've met in my life, and over-the-top days that I've had in my life. So I hope it's grounded in reality. It is for me. ... It's a bit of an extreme story, but within that story you have to look at the reality. I did, for my job. We do, for our jobs. And you think, "Okay, what would I do?" My daughter, the daughter that I dreamed would be so beautiful as a representation of my beauty, turns [out] to get the curse that's been in his family forever. And this is my life.Your character seems harsh at times, but she also seems to care about her daughter.

O'Hara: This is a character I'm going to defend to my death. To me, it's all protective mother. But it's coming from not the healthiest place. Because just a while ago, I was dealing with friends who have a kid and the mother was talking about protecting the kid from the kid's friends, but then she started talking about herself in school and the way kids can behave and the way kids are cruel to other kids. And I thought, "Wait, we were talking about your kid, weren't we? Who are we talking about now?" Right? So it's all a reflection on you. And all the things that were right in your world, you want to give that to your kid, and the things that were wrong you want to save them from. So Jessica, obviously, thinks she's taken some kicks and licks in life and now she's got this poor thing with this pig snout and she's going to protect her from this horrible world. Maybe somebody was cruel to her once, maybe she accepted a lot of it on herself. Who knows? But for me playing Jessica, it's all from a place of doing your best for this child and that world will never be able to accept you. They don't understand. They'll never just love you for who you are, like I do. So I just went into the reality of what that would be like.What was the dynamic like between you and Christina on set?

O'Hara: In the scenes, definitely mother-daughter, and kind of tense, in the scenes. She's a lovely girl, she's trying not to say the truth, and I'm just manic about trying to make her happy, make her life perfect somehow. And find her someone so the curse will be broken. That idea, that the curse will be broken if somebody of your own kind loves you, she doesn't get that. Nobody gets it. But [it's] fun to play. ... Christina's a great actress, so off-camera it's co-workers, friends, new friends. We have the same agent. We talked about [our agent] a lot. She's a cool girl, isn't she? She's just here and not here at the same time. She's otherworldly and completely grounded and really talented.Were there any differences between Mark as a first-time director and other veteran directors you've worked with?

O'Hara: You wouldn't notice, as far as being new, no. I've worked with other first-timers who are less confident. Not that they weren't talented, but it's a tough [job]. So much of it is a confidence game. And he just made it fun. He was really into all of our characters. Great directors are really on your side, and they come from within your character for you. When they give you notes, it's not like, "Why doesn't she yell at her some more?" It's like, "She's feeling this, and so that's what we're trying to get across." So he was great. He got into all the characters, and we had fun.Mark Palansky, did the short film you'd made prior to directing Penelope adequately prepare you for your first feature?

Palansky: Well, it was a very different thing. It was a different thing. You know, a short film is favors and things like that. Probably not adequately prepared me, no. But I'd been on sets before, and I'd directed second unit and stuff, so I knew how it should be. And the crews very much are, if you know what you're doing as a director, great. [They say,] "We're there and we support you." If you don't, it's difficult. You know, it's difficult. But no, that part of it actually was all really good. The crew was great and supportive, and we got through the day. There were things here and there, of course, like anything. But it's just, you get great people around you. The casting director I had just come off of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and she was a veteran and she was really great and supportive. It's just having great people there.What do you see through the lens when you look at Christina?

Palansky: Vitality. I mean, she just kind of brings everything to life. I realized when I was probably a couple weeks into filming that her and I are basically the same age, and she's been acting for 20-some-odd years. So while I was doing whatever I was doing at that age, she was on sets. You don't realize that. You're sitting there filming, and she's just so good at what she does and such a professional, and she really has such an understanding of where the camera is and what it does. And it was actually, just, quite simple. I mean, everything she gave was amazing. And also, obviously everyone talks about her eyes, and in this film, I mean, her and James, their subtle looks and things like that were really important. And I just didn't want anything to be kind of, even though the story is fantastical in a way, I didn't want the performance to be over the top, too over the top. Granted, there are some moments. People say you can't imagine anyone else in the role, but really, with Christina, it's just so true. I think her as a person, what she's done as an actress, where she's come from, all of that, it really was just perfect for Penelope. She has a sort of integrity to her that animated Penelope.How hard was it to stage the scenes with Christina and James when they're on opposite sides of the one-way glass?

Palansky: It was interesting, because James couldn't see her. This is the boring technical stuff, but we tried out several different pieces of glass and how it would look and how it would make the actor look and all that stuff. But it wasn't too bad, really. I mean, it wasn't too bad. I think it also probably helped the two of them, Christina and James. What was great was, obviously he knew sort of roughly where Christina was behind the mirror, but he's sort of looking all over like, "Where is she?" and all that stuff, so I think it really helped. It helped them. It helped them get into character, and that set was all kind of one nice piece together. And their room being so black and white and hers being so full of color ... I think they walked on there and [said] like, "Okay, I understand this." So it wasn't too bad. We sliced an entire wall out, because I really wanted that image of the side shot, where it's like his black and white and her color, and it's divided in half. So we really kind of literally just sliced the entire set and shot that. And that was great. It was kind of exactly how I hoped it would be.This was filmed in London, so you have a lot of British actors, some with American accents, some without. How did you work that out?

Palansky: You know, how I think it probably went is that everyone panicked around me. So every now and then I'd get a producer who would come up and say, "Are you really sure about this? Sure about the accents?" And everyone seemed to be pretty preoccupied, pretty distracted by that, as it being a real problem. And I always maintained this is a story about a girl with the snout of a pig. And we're in a kind of metropolis within that city. And it's not all white people, it's not all black people. It's like, this is a city. And it would seem really strange to me that everything would be of one color, of one accent. And so obviously, Richard E. Grant, being her dad, it would be strange for him to have a British accent. It would be fine, but I didn't want it to distract from anything. And I don't think it does. But we had all kinds. We had left-hand-drive cars and right-hand-drive cars and rotary phones. For me, it was creating this kind of tapestry where there are things that are different and it's okay, and hopefully you treat those things as you do her nose. It's just okay that that person has an accent, and I'm past it, now I'm just hearing what they're saying. But there were definitely concerns. We didn't, like, have a meeting about it. It was just, as we were casting, people were kind of always like, worried.How does a first-time director maintain authority when the producer is Reese Witherspoon?

Palansky: I think you really just have to believe in your own vision of it, because everyone comes to the table with their own opinions, their own ideas, their own everything. I think when a film falls apart or when a vision is [compromised], it breaks down. And I did really respond to the story, and I knew how I wanted it to look. So I think if I'd been a little more uncertain about those things, it would have been much more intimidating, but I remember Reese and I had [meetings]. I remember going to one and meeting with department heads, the director of photography, the production designer and all these things, and I wanted some off-the-wall choices. And Reese as a producer, smartly and rightly so, said, "I want you to have veterans. I want you to be with people that have done 50 films." And it wasn't the energy I was looking for, and I told her, I said, "I'm very visually prepared." And you know what? She said, "Okay. Great." We had that conversation. It was the two of us, just like this, in a room, and we had that conversation and she's like, "Okay." It's just like, trying to figure out how people work best. And I was comfortable with the film and knowing how I wanted it to look. I think I could definitely see things going wrong, if you're just not sure, like, "I don't know, it could be that or it could be like this," when you start doing that, everyone kind of throws in their two cents and how it should be, just like the accent thing.This is clearly a female self-esteem story. How did you connect with it?

Palansky: Reese's manager told me, she said, "You must have a 13-year-old girl trapped inside of you." I remember saying, "Taking that literally, it sounds a bit weird." But yes, it's sort of a female-empowerment thing, but it's something that everyone has. It's something that everyone goes through, and I certainly could relate to it all. And I think you can relate to all the characters. So I think that I've found things in Peter Dinklage or James McAvoy. There was a lot of estrogen, certainly, just in the whole process, but also, that was important, I think, with Christina, because in a way, Christina, she's obviously extremely feminine, but she's so strong-willed. And she's not Blanche DuBois. She's not that type. So working with her, that felt organic. It never felt like we had to have a fainting couch present or anything. It was just sort of like, yeah, it's still a person trapped by how they're born, and that's what it was always to me.