Jena Malone by Cameron Krone
Jena Malone is featured in the Spring/Summer 13 Cinema Issue of Twelv Magazine. We loved finding out a little more about our Johanna Mason, who we really admire as an actor and an artist. You can download Twelv for only $.99 HERE.
Jena Malone by Cameron Krone
Jena Malone by Cameron Krone
From Twelv:
What are your earliest memories of film or television?
I grew up in South Lake Tahoe and we only had one movie theatre there, where my older brothers and sister took me to see Jurassic Park the day it opened. It was the most visceral film experience I ever had.
Did you ever have any other career aspirations as a child, or was acting always at the forefront of your mind?
I still daydream about other professions. It’s such a beautiful thing to be young and have ideas that you want to materialize. If you fall out of the habit of chasing your dreams, what is there to look forward to as you grow older?
At what age did you start acting, and what drew you to the craft initially?
I was 10. My mother is an actress whom, when I was younger, would bring me backstage as a form of babysitting, and I fell in love with the hush of the theater, the play, the costumes, and mostly to see my mother’s transformation on stage into powerful, incredible women. We grew up poor but happy, so I was amazed to see my mom, who always worked 2 or 3 jobs and had little time for herself, step on stage in a dress and full hair and make-up and become a completely other woman. I knew very young that I wanted that taste of transformation.
Why are movies important?
Without the ability to create new myths for ourselves, there’s no way to be able share emotional and physical lessons we are learning with the next generation. Film is a form of myth-making at its greatest.
Do you have any icons?
Icon is too heavy of a word. I have people I respect and admire. Icons for me are images, ideas, they don’t exist in real life. They move you, inspire you, but at the end of the day you have to be your own hero.
Do you have any upcoming projects that you can share with us?
I just finished up Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which I’m very excited about, and am working on a photography show called “Trespass” while writing a short film that I plan on directing. I also am currently working on a film called Angelica, which is based on a novel by the same name and is a story about the disintegration of a marriage, and the repression of female desire in the 1880s in London. In addition, I directed a music video for a band called Lavender Diamond, for their song “I Don’t Recall”, which was the first time for me behind the camera, and was THE most rewarding experience of my life.
How do you find time to relax in between the filming and rehearsing chaos, and what do you like to do for fun in your off time?
Easy. Turn off my phone, get in my car, and drive north. (I live in Los Angeles.)
If you had one word to describe yourself at this point in time and in your career, what would it be?
Hungry.
Tell us something about you that most people do not know?
I’m obsessed with fermenting, and I know how to make a mean sauerkraut.
Where do you see yourself in 30 years?
I don’t see myself. Our body changes and reinvents itself every 7 years. If I envisioned what “now” would look like 15 years ago, it would be so far off. The hardest thing for any person is living in the now, and the now I see is full of things that need to get done, and so much gratitude for the things that already have been made.