SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Patricia Highsmith had a talent for murder - on the page. She was an American novelist known for psychological thrillers, especially five that are centered around the charming and amoral Tom Ripley, including "The Talented Mr. Ripley." But when we meet Patricia Highsmith in 1995 in a new film, she's staring at a blank page at her typewriter in Switzerland, unable, it seems, to tap out more than a word or two. She gets a visitor - young man named Ridgeway, dispatched by her publisher to plead with her to write a sixth Ripley mystery.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A TALENT FOR MURDER")
ALDEN EHRENREICH: (As Edward Ridgeway) Give me a chance.
HELEN MIRREN: (As Patricia Highsmith) Why should I?
EHRENREICH: (As Edward Ridgeway) Because I'm as obsessed with Ripley as you are. He is the most beguilingly evil protagonist in literature.
MIRREN: (As Patricia Highsmith) I am not revisiting Ripley. I don't believe in evil. You see, we all have a dark side, Mr. Ridgeway. One day you'll be looking in the mirror, and there he'll be - the devil, smiling back at you.
SIMON: "A Talent For Murder" stars Helen Mirren and Alden Ehrenreich. It's based on a play by Joanna Murray-Smith. And Alden Ehrenreich, who has also starred in "Hail, Caesar!" and won a Tony this year - and he also once played Han Solo - joins us from New York. Thanks so much for being with us.
EHRENREICH: Thanks for having me.
SIMON: Young Mr. Ridgeway is a fan of Patricia Highsmith - has almost a total recall of her work. So how does that set off their relationship? Does she find that flattering or spooky?
EHRENREICH: I think she thinks he's a bit of a sycophant. He's a young editor coming from New York, trying to make his way in the publishing world. And he shows up at her house in Switzerland and - to save his job, basically. He's the last person in the company who's willing to go spend time with her. An editor went before him and hasn't been heard from since. So there's already kind of a spooky mystery element at the beginning, and he's fighting for his life to convince her to sign this contract and write a new Ripley novel.
SIMON: She's got a suggestion, though, as to something they might do, doesn't she?
EHRENREICH: Yeah. So what - we end up starting work on a book together eventually, and she really puts Edward in the hot seat. And as we write that book, we cut to images of Rome and the book as we're writing it. And I play the Ripley character in the book that we're writing.
SIMON: Did you immerse yourself in the Ripley novels of Patricia Highsmith?
EHRENREICH: I did. Yeah. I hadn't read them before. I'd read some of her short stories. But I read "Talented Mr. Ripley" and some of the later ones. And then I went to a publishing house, Liveright, here and spent time with some young editors who were sort of doing the job that Edward does in the film. And there was an editor working there who had just finished editing Highsmith's diaries. And when I said I was working on a movie about Highsmith, her face went white because she'd stayed up late reading the intimate diaries of this woman whose mind was not a very pleasant place to be in.
SIMON: Yeah. One point, one of Patricia Highsmith's neighbors calls her an old Texas battleaxe. And I don't know. It's hard to disagree. I mean, the...
EHRENREICH: Yeah.
SIMON: ...Highsmith that Helen Mirren portrays is hateful, bigoted and bitter, right?
EHRENREICH: Yeah. And unfortunately, I think that was, in many ways, accurate. I think she's certainly a character. It's not a documentary about her. But Highsmith had a real - some real anger, some real rage, some real bitterness. Much of it, you can look back at her personal history or relationship with her mother and understand. But she was not an easy person to get along with, from all accounts.
SIMON: Yeah. What made her a great writer, do you think?
EHRENREICH: What I find in the first book, especially, is that, like, the reason Ripley jumps off the page is there's such a genuine personal connection to him. I think she's, in a way, identified with him as someone with a lot of self-loathing who was desperate to refashion themselves as a different kind of person and become an urbane, sophisticated woman of the world, in the way that Ripley wants to become Dickie Greenleaf. And I think there's a genuine passion and interest about crime and murder and its motives that she had. So her work, even though it's in a genre, sort of transcends that genre because it's so deeply felt.
SIMON: They wind up baiting one another with some unforgiving observations.
EHRENREICH: Yeah.
SIMON: She calls him a snail. He says, ah, there's nothing worse than a writer who can't talk, but they've already written.
EHRENREICH: Yeah.
SIMON: And I sort of wonder - is this therapy, play or creativity?
EHRENREICH: What happens over the course of the film is that Edward shows up as this very timid person who has - who lacks any kind of self-assuredness. And Highsmith, in a way, hides behind bluster and cruelty and being sort of a provocateur. And over the course of the film, she really forces Edward to find his voice in a certain way or access a darker, edgier side of himself. And so by the time they're throwing barbs at each other, I think she's - probably respects him more, even if she's being hurt by it at the same time.
SIMON: Let me ask you some biographical questions, if I can.
EHRENREICH: Yes, please.
SIMON: You were discovered by Steven Spielberg at a friend's bar mitzvah?
EHRENREICH: Yeah. I was 14, and I made these very silly videos with a friend of mine. And we showed them at a friend of mine's bar mitzvah, and he was there. And he saw me in this video and thought I was funny or had something, and I got brought in for a meeting at DreamWorks. And that was how my career began.
(LAUGHTER)
SIMON: That's amazing.
EHRENREICH: It's more amazing if you see the video because the video is very embarrassing and very silly and bawdy. And when we showed it to our family, they said, you shouldn't let anyone see this, you know? It's too embarrassing. So yeah.
SIMON: It's also interesting to know Steven Spielberg never stops working, does he?
EHRENREICH: I've run into a lot of people who actually have a similar story, where he saw them in a play or a thing. And he gave people these opportunities, which is a very benevolent way to use the power he has.
SIMON: Yeah. Does this film make us contemplate if we all have an evil person somewhere inside of us in danger of taking over?
EHRENREICH: I think so. I thought about, you know, the sort of Jungian idea of the shadow - that there's parts of our self that we disidentify with and lock away. And the film is really about one person saying to another person, hey. Unless you find access to this other part of yourself - in this case, it's a darker part of himself, but I think it could also be a light part of somebody's self if that's what they've locked away - then you won't be yourself. You won't be whole. And in this case, I won't take you seriously, in the context of the film. And so it does, I think, beg certain questions about, you know, what parts of us have we put into our shadow, and how can we rediscover that and become more fully who we are?
SIMON: Actors have to have a shadow, I guess, don't they?
EHRENREICH: Yeah. Well, I think that's one of the great opportunities of getting so lucky to have a life in the arts, where you're playing these different characters. These different characters actually - maybe an actor can't access their own rage, but the character has to express this certain rage, and so the actor has to find it. And so you get to live different lives, and you get to live out different parts of yourself than you otherwise would.
SIMON: Alden Ehrenreich stars with Helen Mirren in the new film "A Talent For Murder." It's in theaters now. Thanks so much for being with us.
EHRENREICH: Thanks for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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