Caitlin Gerard

0:06Well hi Caitlin. Thanks for coming. Thanks for giving us this. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited about this show. Me too. I like your... You are... No. No, you're not. No. Terrible idea. It was the worst decision ever. No, why do you love this show? What about the show enticed you? I mean, to be very honest as a young actress, first of all, we don't have the opportunity to play very substantial roles. A lot of times they're very supporting to more male heavy roles, you know what I mean? And so as a young female actress, you don't usually get the opportunity to play characters that have such depth to them. And so I feel incredibly fortunate that I get to be a part of the project, but really it's very meaningful and has a lot to say. Especially about our country

0:53and where we are with, you know, our racial issues or dilemmas, our kind of problems, our wounds, essentially, that we haven't really solved yet. See, I don't know much about the show other than it's a racial trial and I don't know what you can really say before. Well, I mean, I can give you a nutshell, you know, it's kind of that thing where this is a story about a racially charged case that gets the nation emotionally involved, you know, and it was inspired by the Trayvon Martin case or the Central Park Five. And, you know, I think ultimately what's at the heart of it is that we, as an American people, still have this issue of race that we're not really comfortable addressing. And every time something like this comes to the surface, it just kind of picks at a scab that hasn't fully healed.

1:44You know what I mean? So it's this wound that we keep trying to cover up and we keep trying to kind of ignore it or push it aside or tell ourselves that we have moved forward and we have progressed. And then something like this happens and it shows us that, you know, we still have a really long way to go. I just got really deep. Yeah. First thing. Good morning. And the IMDV page, you don't have the character name. I don't? Well, not on the page. So, so who's your history? Yeah. So who do you play? I play Aubrey. Aubrey Taylor. So there are four characters in the story who are brought in as suspects to this crime. And I am one of the suspects. I am in a mixed race relationship with Elvis Nalasko who plays Carter Nix. And we are drug addicts who

2:36I believe are at the wrong place at the wrong time, but I don't. I can't say anything more. That is my important. Your lawyers have told you not to. Yes, exactly. I cannot say too much. I cannot disclose any further information for legal reasons. Right. You know what we can't talk about though. You just produced a short, didn't you? Didn't some just come out like a week ago? Oh, yeah. Well, I produced a short with a friend. It's kind of that thing as well, being in that frame of wanting to create more opportunity for females and female actresses and roles that we have a little more to say with as opposed to just being the girl next door or a sorority girl or a cheerleader. That way you've been encountered with over the years? More than more than not.

3:22But so, yeah, we shot this short that a friend of mine wrote and then this weekend actually, I'm shooting another short that I wrote. And yeah, and so it's, you know, I kind of recently realized why do we, especially as actors, you're always on the receiving end, you know, you can put your heart and soul into something, but whether you get it really, there's so much politics involved even beyond whether you're talented or not. But it's that thing where I just kind of got to this point where I was like, I love what I do, but I also want to be a little bit more in control. So this is kind of just playing around, you know, having fun. That was the very first thing we did. So I don't know if it's any good, but hey, we're trying and we're doing so. Does it change your experience as an actor on set now that you've been on the other side being like,

4:09oh, I shouldn't have complained about it. Well, I grew up in LA and my mom was a producer for mainly stuff, international stuff and commercials and stuff like that, but she always made me do PA work. And so I, from a very young age, am very familiar with all sides of it. And, you know, ultimately why I love acting so much is because when you're on set, there's this collaboration that I don't think really many other art forms have because everyone is essential. I mean, the grip, the lighting, even the PAs who get you your coffee, if you don't get your coffee, you're not going to function. So everyone has a really important, they're like a piece to this puzzle and where this little

4:57kind of patchwork of a family that's trying to achieve this goal of making art, you know, and so that's what's really fun about it. And that's why we're all, I would say no one is more important than anyone else on set. We're all, we're all on the playing field. We're all on the same team. Totally. I don't know how to say we that in the fintra, but I kind of want to just, what's it like, like a hundred takes and everything? Okay, so that's, that's like, oh my god. Okay, well that was one of the very, I mean, that was literally one of the very first jobs I had. And I had, I mean, I had just turned 21, I had just gotten an agent, and two weeks later, I got this small part in the social network. And it was, it was mind-blowing because I definitely didn't have any experience and was very nervous playing opposite Justin Tim

5:44Ralake, who is awesome, but very nerve-wracking. And we started doing take after take after take, and I wasn't aware that David Fincher had this style. And I wish someone would have told me, because by take eight, nine, 10, 11, I'm like, oh god, oh god, I'm not doing what he wants. I'm not done horrible. I'm horrible. And then in my mind, as we're doing the scene, which is, I'm like, oh, I'm running all the great actors that he's worked with. And I'm like, and now he has to put up with me, and what am I doing? And at take 14, we finished. And I literally called my agent crying and I was like, I'm never going to work again. And she was like, you only did 14 takes? That's great. I don't know about that, but it was really that thing where it was, once I knew that it was fine,

6:31but that, well, that first, that first scene was really heart-wrenching because I thought I was never going to work again. Well, you're doing quite well, I think. I think, I'll let you go because you got a million of these to do today. But five quick questions, one word answers. Stage or screen? Screen. Improver script. Improv. Lening or McCartney? Lemon. Lemon. Sorry. We'll go with lemons. Lemon's or lives. Lives. Like our margarita. Movie, film, or picture? Feature? And curveball. All right, I'll take that in one word, American crime. Oh, oh, that's it. Oh, oh, oh.

7:19Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Great talking to you.