The Sessions

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One more new movie when you read more

Best actress nominee Helen Hunt stopped by the press room at today's Oscars Luncheon, and she chatted warmly about her film The Sessions, as well as the woman she portrays, Cheryl Cohen-Greene. She shared what it is she likes about the real-life woman so much and the sweet compliment she got from her after shooting the movie.

On the reaction to her film The Sessions: "I find that this movie makes for interesting conversation, and not for all the obvious naked reasons. Once people have seen it, they go up to me and go like this [puts her hands on heart]."

On what she likes about Cheryl Cohen-Greene: "Other than my daughter, who is 8 and radiating that kind of positivity, I've never met someone [like her]. . . . It's the lack of weirdness and the pure enthusiasm that she had. I feel like I got some of it. I wish I had even gone further."

On Cohen-Greene's reaction to Hunt playing her: "She wrote me a note when the movie was done, saying, 'Thank you for understanding my intentions with Mark.'"

Based on a true story, The Sessions stars John Hawkes as Mark O'Brien, a journalist whose lifelong polio affliction has left him paralyzed from the neck down. When Mark gets an assignment to write about the sexuality of the disabled, he panics a little, because he doesn't quite feel equipped: Mark is a virgin. In the name of research and, later, a newfound personal goal, Mark sets out to lose his virginity with the help of a sex surrogate, Cheryl Cohen Greene (Helen Hunt). While the premise may sound like an awkward mix of the raunchy and the emotionally manipulative, The Sessions avoids both. Yes, there is sex and there is poignancy, but at its core, The Sessions is a tender comedy with laugh-out-loud moments.

Though Mark O'Brien and Cheryl Cohen Greene are real people, The Sessions isn't a biopic acquainting you with Mark's entire life. Filmmaker Ben Lewin chose to focus on one specific time period and important experience in Mark's life (based on Mark's article "On Seeing a Sex Surrogate"). You don't need breadth to really feel like you've gotten to know Mark; all you need are the eloquent words of the dialogue and the excellent actors who deliver them. To find out what else I thought of The Sessions, just keep reading.

Helen Hunt stars opposite John Hawkes in The Sessions, as a sex surrogate his disabled character hires. Hunt recently sat down with me and a few reporters to talk about her role in the film. She discussed her character, Cheryl Cohen Green, and why meeting the real-life sex therapist helped her performance. She was also frank about the nudity the movie required, as well as her reaction to seeing her costar Hawkes in a darker role in a different movie. Check out the interview below and look out for The Sessions when it opens in limited release this week.

This was your first time working with John Hawkes, and it's a much lighter role for him. What were you expecting?
HH: I didn’t know what to expect because I had seen Winter’s Bone, but I didn’t think I was going to meet that guy; I hadn’t seen Martha Marcy May Marlene, which I am really glad I hadn’t seen. I saw it afterward and I was horrified.

When your character first meets Mark, she makes it clear that she's not a prostitute.
HH: Well, the first half, I think — when you do a biography, you get the essence of the situation. The essence of the situation is like, "Yes, we’re going to have sex; yes, you’re going to pay me; it’s not exactly like I need to be paid up front because I’m a hooker," so I think that was the spirit of the experience in real life and the spirit of the movie. And she makes a point, which I got from Cheryl’s mouth, which is, "I have nothing against prostitutes — this is just different," and I think the way that my character articulates that is pretty perfect. She says, "A prostitute wants your return business, and I don’t."

There's lots of nudity in this film. How did you mentally prepare for that part of the role?
HH: There was really nothing to do mentally to prepare. I mean, I did all of my homework for the part, which would hopefully distract me from the fact that I was going to be so very naked.

Read the rest of Hunt's interview after the jump.

In The Sessions, John Hawkes plays polio-stricken Mark O'Brien, a writer who hires a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt), after he decides he wants to lose his virginity. The film, which comes out this week in limited release, is already garnering Hawkes award buzz for his very challenging role — real-life journalist Mark was confined to his bed and paralyzed from the neck down. It's also a surprisingly funny performance, and I recently chatted with Hawkes with a group of reporters to talk about how this part differs from his darker, previous roles, the physical issues of playing Mark, and the relationship he created with Hunt.

What kind of preparation did you do to play Mark?
John Hawkes: Do you have an hour? It was a lot of [reading] young Mark's writing, which was a key into his inner life. He'd left us a biography, which was finished posthumously, called How I Became a Human Being. The physical side was a challenge. I may have even begun there. Jessica Yu's genius short film documentary Breathing Lessons was the greatest tool that an actor could have. That was the physical start — there was Mark, interviewed, and his polio-ravaged body. His attitude, his sense of humor, his literal speaking voice — once I saw that film, which was maybe a week after accepting the role, that changed everything. I learned to type and turn pages of books and make telephone calls with a mouth-stick. I made my own at home and worked until I got to the props department and they got me a better one when we got to shoot.

How was it working with Helen and shooting your awkward but intense love scenes?
JH: Helen and I didn't know each other, had never met before we were cast in this film. We had a couple of script conferences with the director Ben Lewin, where we'd sit on either side of him and we'd just go scene by scene and ask about certain lines, but Helen and I didn't really talk to each other through that process. We were kind of speaking through Ben, and we found out that Mr. Lewin was going to give us the great gift of shooting the sex surrogate sessions — how's that for alliteration — in chronological order. That was the greatest gift we could have received; we could build our relationship on camera, so without speaking about it, we gave each other a great deal of distance, kind of avoided each other, and the very first surrogate scene that you see between she and I is capturing moments that are happening for the very first time. We didn't rehearse much. It was unwieldy, awkward, unfamiliar, unintentionally funny, and all those things are things that we wanted.

To read more of Hawkes's interview, including how he feels about the Oscar buzz, just keep reading.

Oscar nominee John Hawkes is already generating award season buzz for his performance as a man crippled by childhood polio in The Sessions. Now grown, Mark (Hawkes) is seeking the help of a professional sexual surrogate (Helen Hunt) who will assist him in losing his virginity. At the persuasion of his nurse, a nervous Mark concedes to the idea and even gets the blessing of his priest (William H. Macy), who assures him that God will give him "a free pass on this one."

The Sessions premiered back in January at the Sundance Film Festival and has already been lauded as a crowd-pleaser and critical favorite. I was prepared for this to be a total downer, but the trailer hints that there's as much comedy as reality in this sweet, if not slightly uncomfortable, film. The Sessions opens in limited release on Oct. 26, and you can watch the trailer after the jump.