【S.H.→☆访谈】莎莉·霍金斯…（…我们爱你！）

Sally Hawkins...(... we love you!)
By Chesley Turner Photograph: Seamus Ryan
Sally Hawkins is inspired by the great artist.
Not Hepburn and Olivier and Bergman. Not the lions of the silver screen, or even the masters whose works line the walls of the Met and the MOMA. No, the artists that Sally can reel off like a whimsical summer reading list are the ones that light every child's imagination.

Fiction readers, Sally points out, are predominately female. So it makes sense that we are seeing more films come to the big screen led by women, written by women, directed by women. But the playing field is by no means level. "I think the real question is, still, that we need to keep talking about pay. You know, I've been discriminated against throughout my working life, and surprisingly so." It's easy, she says, to go along with things and not question the pay rate, because it's inconceivable that a woman be paid less than her male counterpart in this day and age. "And yet, until you ask the question and you receive the answer, which is: yes, you're being paid less than a third of your male counterpart...It's so incredibly... it just makes you feel sick." How many times must we ask the question and raise the argument before we're taken seriously? It's not time to quit yet. "I think that people are very willing to acknowledge the fact that female-led films and protagonists are very much alongside males, but we have to keep asking questions. Unless we do, people will be quite happy paying less, and happily discriminate quietly. I suppose we have to keep knocking away."

The magic of the movies is undeniable, especially when the right team comes together. The Shape of Water won Oscar for best picture, director, original score, and production design in 2018. For Sally, the entire production was a dream, from start to finish, not least of all because of how it began.
"The way it happened was kind of like a fairy tale. I just happened to be writing a mermaid story, one that's set in the future and is very different, about a girl who doesn't know she's a mermaid. Her body is falling apart and - it's like a modern-day Metamorphosis, that's what I wanted to do. So I'm writing, with a view to do maybe a short film. I'm literally sitting in a little cafe in Putney in South London, and I got the call saying: Guillermo Del Toro is interested in a merman-type story. And I sort of almost fell off the chair. I didn't know if I'd manifested it."

Guillermo Del Toro, Sally says, is the master of fairy tales. Despite the fact that there was no script and just a vague description of "quasi-modern-day mermaid story set in the Cold War." she was in. And so, she became part of a dynamic and diverse cast to tell the tale. When asked about working with former Moves cover man, Michael Shannon, who played the role of the vindictive Richard Strickland with terrifying grace, Sally gushes. "He's a gorgeous, gorgeous human being. He's close to genius. I just admire him so much and love working with him, and watching him work. His attention to details is like a surgeon. But then, the greatest actors play the meanest parts because they're brilliant. But as soon as you step outside of that he's just... he's just the sweetest guy. They all were!"

Sally breathlessly ticks through the cast list. "Stuhlbarg!" (referencing Michael Stuhlbarg). "And then you've got Doug Jones, who's got the biggest heart I know. You don't see his beautiful face, but it just transcends the inches of rubber suit. And Octavia Spencer... I was just thinking about Shape of Water this morning. How did that happen to me?" It's nothing but sheer luck, she thinks, to have landed such an enchanting part in a tremendous story with an incredible cast, led by the master of the genre.
"It's so much luck. You know, this business is kind of like gossamer. One element out and it can fall apart. It was the greatest gift. And I'm so delighted for Guillermo because he just gave his heart. He is a genius. So every single heart was behind that film because of Guillermo. He just goes to the end and back again."

Perhaps one of the most striking but simple elements of The Shape of Water is that the good characters have kindness and empathy, and the bad characters do not. "As Guillermo far more eloquently put than I ever can: ompassion is a great human gift. It transcends everything. Everything."
Humbly, Sally claims she didn't have to do a thing in the film. "I just had to be. That's all I had to do. Be. And learn. And I learned so much just by watching greatness." And yet she is the emotional lynchpin and the hero, showing us what can be endured if we set our mind to it, what can be realized if we truly see, and what can be achieved when we let our hearts lead. Still, she's thrilled she didn't ever have to say a word, during the film or during its after-life in the world. "I could just be there in celebration of it."
With almost equal enthusiasm, Sally pivots to speaking about her upcoming film, Eternal Beauty. "It's a very low-budget film we shot last year with a beautiful dear friend of mine who I've known for several years and love eternally. Again, talking of quirky, interesting characters that don't really fit, the character here, Jane, really is the essence of that. And then some."

Sally speaks of Eternal Beauty like a mother bird wanting the very best for her fledgling, just before it takes flight. "You want it to have a life beyond the art-house down the road. You just want its life in the world to expand beyond and beyond. You want people to see it. It's an important story, tackling mental health in a really unusual way, and I just adored, adored doing it."
It's clear that Sally Hawkins sees her acting as a way to connect perceptions and emotions and art - just like the children's books she still buys everywhere she goes.

莎莉·霍金斯…（…我们爱你！）
采访人：切斯利·特纳 摄影：西莫·瑞恩

莎莉·霍金斯受到伟大艺术家的启发。
但不是赫本、奥利弗和伯格曼。不是银幕雄狮，也不是那些作品挂在大都会博物馆和现代艺术博物馆墙上的大师。都不，能让莎莉像列一张异想天开的夏日读物清单一样滔滔不绝聊起的艺术家，全是那些能够点燃每个孩子想象力的艺术家。

“莫里斯·桑达克、昆汀·布莱克、罗尔德·达尔……他们是我的英雄，真的。精彩的故事就是精彩的故事。超越了年龄。”考虑到莎莉成长于一个父母双双是童书作家的极富创造力的家庭，这并不令人惊讶。莎莉始终偏爱创造力。这已成了她的世界观。“艺术的价值在于——我真的一无所知——给了你表达自我的空间。我发现这很容易做到。对我来说，这就像是一种语言。”儿童书籍和文学提供了一个不同的世界。不同于成人那种情绪常被隐藏的刻板。“他们更诚实，展现出了不可思议的创造力与自由，这才是人性。我发现最鼓舞人心的故事、书籍和艺术品的美丽是永恒的。比如，谢尔·希尔弗斯坦（的作品）。我几年前在纽约的狮子书店偶然发现了他的作品后就深深爱上了。”

莎莉的作品总能体现出她对一本优秀故事书中坦承的创造力的那份欣赏。无论是扮演爱上了人鱼的哑女，无忧无虑的小学老师，还是一只会说话的秘鲁熊的养母，莎莉的角色都站在古怪的一边。“这大概跟我本人有关。我觉得那些角色更有趣。我只是对不太适应环境的人更感兴趣罢了。说实话，我想每个人都觉得自己不太合群或者还没在这世上找到自己的位置。我喜欢艺术的千奇百怪，我也喜欢角色的奇形怪状。我认为，孩子们的故事更诚实地反映出了（什么是）格格不入。”

莎莉指出，小说的读者主要是女性。因此，我们看到越来越多由女性主演、女性编剧、女性导演的电影出现在银幕上是有道理的。但竞争环境绝不是平等的。“我认为真正的问题仍然是我们不得不继续讨论薪酬问题。你知道，在我的整个职业生涯中，我一直受到歧视，令人惊讶的是，一直是这样。”她说，顺其自然、不去质疑工资水平很是容易，因为在当今时代，女性的工资低于男性是不可想象的。“然而，你提出质问并得到了答案，可这答案是：没错，你的薪水就是还达不到你男同事的三分之一……也太让人难以置信了……这只会让你感到恶心。”在我们确确实实被认真以待之前，同工同酬这个问题还要问多少遍、为此据理力争多少次？现在显然还不是放弃的时候。“我认为，人们非常愿意承认这样一个事实，即其实女性导演电影和主演角色的效力与男性是基本相同的，但我们女演员却得不断提同工同酬。我们必须这样做，否则人们会开心地继续付给我们低薪，并愉快地继续无声地歧视我们。我想，我们必须不停敲打他们。”

当合适的团队聚在一起的时候，电影的魔力尤其毋庸置疑。《水形物语》最终斩获2018年奥斯卡最佳影片、最佳导演、最佳原创配乐和最佳艺术指导四项大奖。对莎莉来说，整个电影制作过程因自己接下这部戏的奇幻开头而显得从头到尾都是一场梦。
“这时简直有点像童话。我当时碰巧在写一个关于美人鱼的故事，那是个发生在未来、关于一个不知道自己是美人鱼的女孩的故事。她的身体正在分崩离析——就像现代版的《变形记》，而这就是我想去做的。所以，我写了篇文章，想拍一部短片。我坐在南伦敦普特尼的一家小咖啡馆里，接到一个电话说：吉尔莫·德尔·托罗对人鱼题材的故事很感兴趣。我差点从椅子上摔下来。我不知道我这样说清楚没有。”

莎莉说，吉尔莫·德尔·托罗是童话大师。尽管当时没有剧本，只有一个“冷战背景下的准现代美人鱼故事”的模糊概述，自己还是瞬间被吸引了。因此，她加入了一个充满活力和多样性的演员阵容，与他们一道讲述这个故事。当问到与《电影》前封面人物迈克尔·珊农合作的问题时，莎莉激动地表示，珊农以惊人的优雅演绎了报复心极强的理查德·斯特克兰德。“他是一个非常、非常棒的人。近乎天才。我非常钦佩他，既喜欢和他一起工作，也喜欢看着他工作。他对细节的关注简直如外科医生般精细。不过，最伟大的演员往往扮演最悭吝的角色，因为他们才华横溢。但只要一跳出戏来，他就……他是最可爱的家伙了。他们都是！”