#mare sheehan

“Evan was so terrified that he was gonna screw that (drunk) scene up, he was terrified! and after every take he would say ‘kill me, kill me, just get me an acting coach.’ He kept saying to me 'get me a coach, tell me what to do, why don’t you tell me exactly what to do because you will know all the things that I don’t know and if I’m bad just lie, just lie’ and I’m like 'Evan stop, stop torturing yourself’ and I didn’t want to say to him 'it’s perfect’ because then that can stop an actor exploring other avenues within the scene you know? if you say 'you’ve nailed it’ so I just kept saying 'it’s absolutely…you’re totally doing it, you’re doing all of it. Just keep doing more of it, just keep going, keep going, keep going’.

Yeah he hated himself, he was just beside himself and Craig and I were like 'what are we going to do?’ he like hates himself and doesn’t ever wanna act again, poor Evan. But I got the sense and I’ve never said this out loud and you may need to call Evan and verify it but I got the sense that he was always just a little bit terrified of me. I like to think I’m very good at putting people at their ease but I will confess that for the first few weeks of our shoot I did let him be just a little bit scared (host: You fucked with him a little bit?) I did a little bit and I’m not that method, I like to think I am not method…I don’t manipulate other actors, never. But actually I did a little bit, poor Evan 'oh that’s quite good for Mare and Zabel isn’t it because he’s supposed to be really scared of me’ and I just thought it’s actually quite, I can be nice to him later, if he just feels a bit freaked out now that’s gonna be good for his character and my character (laughs) I have never done that before ever, poor Zabes. But yeah we were partners, he (Evan) was fantastic, I loved working with him.”

Kate Winslet talking about working with Evan on The Watch podcast.

There is a lot to unpack here But I’m just going to say Evan’s complete lack of ego is both the sweetest thing about him but also the most worrying because it’s not so much lack of ego as a the complete absence of self esteem.