from Orange.co.uk

We talk to Catalina Sandino Moreno about Fast Food Nation and upcoming Ethan Hawke project The Hottest State

Do you eat meat, Catalina? ~
Catalina Sandino Moreno: I stopped eating meat once when I got a big steak and I opened it and it was just like an artery and it was just full of blood. I decided not to eat meat after that – it just grossed me out.

And did Richard Linklater come to you or did you have to chase this movie role?
Catalina: No I got the script and then the next day I was like ‘I really need to do this’. I went to meet him and I wanted to let him know that I can do this and I want to do this and I will give 100% to this project. So I met him and I got it.

Were you surprised to find something you were so passionate about?
Catalina: I was very excited to just find a project. With many scripts I can read them and if I don’t like it I just don’t keep reading. Sometimes I just turn three pages and I’m like, ‘No, thank you! I’m not going to read anymore. I’m not going to waste my time.’ But with this script it was a page-turner. That’s why I had to read the book because I didn’t understand why or if these things were real and then Eric Schlosser, the writer, dissects everything. It was a very interesting way to relate to the world going from the script to the book and from the book to the script.

Do you think the film is trying to dictate what people should or shouldn’t eat?
Catalina: I don’t think this movie is just for the fast food industry. This movie doesn’t tell you, ‘Don’t eat more fast food’, or who’s a bad guy or who’s a good guy. I just think that this is a movie that everyone can react to in different ways. Everyone can take anything from the movie because it’s an open movie this doesn’t tell you what’s bad and what’s good. It just tells you what’s happening and I think you need to know this and it’s your right to know how things are functioning.

Does that bother you about working for studios?
Catalina: For me, I just feel very proud of this movie. From the first time that I read the script I thought it was an important thing to tell people. I think everyone has the right to know what’s in their food. I feel happy that Richard gave me the chance to put a face and a voice and a body to this girl that just wants a better life and will do whatever it takes to take care of her family.

Some scenes were quite disgusting to watch. Was it the same to shoot?
Catalina: You know I’m an actress who likes to feel the heat. So I was so happy that we were going to be shooting in that slaughterhouse because I could be able to touch and I was touching and testing. My job was to take the shit out of intestines and clean it and then after you do that you just drop it in a bucket.

I was doing that for the last part of the film and for my character it was perfect because I’ve never been to a slaughterhouse. I didn’t go to a slaughterhouse before to see what it was like or how cows were killed. I waited until the shoot, and it was a very shocking scene. We went there and the line was moving and you can just see these big things – I don’t know what they were they were just big pieces of insides. It was easier for me to do that because sometimes when you’re shooting a movie you have so many little surprises that you just have to be surprised yourself. You know what you’re character’s going to do, you know how you’re going to end but if you take those decisions not to do things before and just surprise yourself you will look real and that’s what I did.

Did your involvement with Ethan Hawke’s next project The Hottest State come about after making Fast Food Nation together?
Catalina: No, I met Ethan at the Oscars the year that I was there. He was with Richard Linklater and Julie Delpy. I met him very briefly and then I went to New York to see Hurlyburly and then I met him there again. He told me that he had a script and he wanted me to read it and it was a romantic story and I was a little scared because I’m not a romantic person myself so I said, OK, I’ll read it, of course.’ And I read it and I think it was a point in my life where I was very vulnerable and I loved it.