Kristen Bell Interview For ‘Big Miracle’

Inspired by true events, the rescue adventure ‘Big Miracle’ tells the tale of a small town news reporter (John Krasinski) and a Greenpeace volunteer (Drew Barrymore) who are joined by rival world superpowers to save a family of gray whales trapped by rapidly forming ice in the Arctic Circle. Local newsman Adam Carlson (Krasinski) can’t wait to escape the northern tip of Alaska for a bigger market. But just when the story of his career breaks, the world comes chasing it, too. With an oil tycoon, heads of state and hungry journalists descending upon the frigid outpost, the one who worries Adam the most is Rachel Kramer (Barrymore). Not only is she an outspoken environmentalist, she’s also his ex-girlfriend. With time running out, Rachel and Adam must rally an unlikely coalition of Inuit natives, oil companies and Russian and American military to set aside their differences and free the whales. As the world’s attention turns to the top of the globe, saving these endangered animals becomes a shared cause for nations entrenched against one another and leads to a momentary thaw in the Cold War. Alongside Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski, ‘Big Miracle’ stars Kristen Bell, Dermot Mulroney, Tim Blake Nelson, Stephen Root, and Ted Danson. The film it out now.

What was it that originally drew you to the script for ‘Big Miracle‘?

Kristen Bell: Initially, the fact that it was about animals. I thought just in simple terms, “Oh, I like animals.” Then upon reading it, the complexity of the story, it seemed almost unbelievable to me. I was like, “Oh really, a 180 journalists from different countries flew in and 2 million dollars was spent on this, really? And people got married who met talking about the whales? Give me a break Ken Kwapis (director).” And he said that the most outrageous portions of the movie are the truth. I just felt like it was a story that needed to be told. The inspiration factor behind it was the most important thing to me, definitely. There’s so few times in history when everybody wakes up at the same time or everybody works together for a common goal. I think we are so into having enemies as humans, we are so interested in the “us” and “them” of it all that it’s phenomenally rare to have everybody check their baggage at the door and work together. That’s so powerful, I think.

Your character Jill she has her own agenda….

Kristen Bell: Jill’s perspective wasn’t necessarily to do anything to rescue the whale’s, much like a journalist nowadays, they sort of have a secret third eye of what the story could possibly be, and how you could make a more impactful story. Throughout the course of the movie, Jill does show her true colours in that she sort of nonchalantly mentions, “If we don’t save the whale’s, it’s still going to be a great story.” I don’t think that villainizes her as much, as she’s a human being, who had a moment where she was being very selfish, but ultimately she did try to help the whale’s. But not necessarily as much as everyone else, she did come up there because she had selfish reasons to move up in her career, and she thought this story would make that happen.

A lot of the characters in ‘Big Miracle’ are based on real people, but your character is really a representation of the many journalists who covered the story. Is that more freeing in the sense that you’re not playing a real person, you’re just playing a character?

Kristen Bell: It’s better and it’s worse at the same time. You don’t have anyone specific to draw on, so you’re not sure that you are doing it right. But then at the same time, I can certainly identify with the idea of competition. My existence is in a business where there is always someone better than you right around the corner. The idea of that competition, and that hunger, and that aggressive dedication I could identify with because I have wanted jobs so badly. I feel that Jill Gerard was just a mish-mash of all these journalists that thought that this was the story that would make or break them and that they had to do a great job. Her storyline is interesting because she loses herself a little bit, or maybe she doesn’t. Maybe you see what her two priorities are. She’s a little bit more selfish.

This film says a lot about cooperation and generosity?

Kristen Bell: Oh yeah. I think everyone came together because everyone was able, for a split second, to see a common goal. For some reason we identify with whale’s, they’re these big magical creatures, they seem sort of human at times. If you’ve ever been whale watching and you make eye contact with one, you feel something more than if you see a pigeon on the street. Everyone involved from different backgrounds, whether culturally, politically, with different investments in the story, they just decided momentarily at this one point in history to have a collective goal. And it made the impossible possible. It’s an extremely inspiring story.  It’s interesting because watching the movie, it fills you up with so much, almost self-esteem…..or just the feeling that you can accomplish anything.

I have to say, your 80s look was great.

Kristen Bell: It was wasn’t it? I tried (laughs). Playing Jill, I loved her hair and make-up, the whole dress code, that was fantastic. Playing someone from the 80s is really like no other. I grew up in the 80s, even though I was really young – there where some real bad decisions made in the 80s….real bad (laughs). The ‘80s wasn’t like my prime, my prime was definitely like 95-96, I’m sure you’ve heard (laughs). But it was really fun working with the costume designer to create all these amazing shoulder pads and cool pastels.