A Tony- and Oscar-nominated actress, Amy Ryan has played tough, tender, damagingly self-involved and everything in between. In real life, though, her persona runs closer to Holly Flax, the lovably good-natured if somewhat dorky romantic interest to Steve Carell’s Michael Scott on The Office. Ryan is self-effacing and peppers a conversation with laughter, but also all sorts of jokey tangential asides. In her latest film, writer-director Drake Doremus‘ Breathe In, she plays Megan Reynolds, the wife of frustrated music instructor Keith (Guy Pearce), the latter of whom develops a slow crush on Sophie (Felicity Jones), an exchange student the couple takes into their upstate New York home. I recently had a chance to speak to Ryan one-on-one, about the movie and Doremus’ unusual collaborative process, what sort of gifts she likes, and one of her fall projects, Alejandro Iñárritu’s Birdman. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.
