The "Playful" Rachel McAdams

Beautiful, very talented actress Rachel McAdams always has a gleam in her eye when we meet with her. She has a great sense of humor and is very candid in her answers to our questions. Since she came down from Canada to co-star in the wacky comedy The Hot Chick, Rachel has shown her amazing acting range in the ultra-romantic The Notebook and as the high school gal we love to hate in Mean Girls. Rachel made us all wary of flying in the thriller Red Eye and again tickled our funnybones in Wedding Crashers. Now you can catch her as a modern, budding blogger/journalist opposite Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck in the mystery thriller State of Play.

Always stylish, Rachel wore a black and white silk water color blouse with black skirt and very high black heels for our interview. She toyed with a braided necklace that finally fell off during the chat. Oh well, a very minor wardrobe malfunction. We wanted to know what it was like for the actress to turn the tables and be asking questions as a journalist, working with older pros like Dame Helen Mirren and Russell Crowe (Rachel only has a few scenes with Ben) and we established the fact that she actually does blog regularly and loves her fancy costume wardrobe in her upcoming film Sherlock Holmes opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law.

TeenHollywood: What was it like to be on the other side of the Q & A for a change? Instead of us firing it at you, you got to be the person asking questions as a news blogger in State of Play.

Rachel: That was pretty fun actually. I was shadowing Journalists a little bit. We were introduced to some people at the Washington Post and it was funny because they were tricky. They would turn the questions around and I would have to keep saying 'no, this isn't about me, this is about you'. So it was funny, that's their job and they're doing it 24-7.

TeenHollywood: Yep, we're like that all right. As a public figure yourself, how is your relationship with the media? Is it a love/hate kind of thing?

Rachel: Yeah, I mean it's sort of a Catch 22. You have to bring awareness to things that you're doing, and that's the way that world works, but you also want your privacy. It's hard to balance those two things and walk that line.

TeenHollywood: Would you ever try your hand at writing some blogs?

Rachel: Well I do actually write a little blog with two of my friends, which is called Green Is Sexy. It's greenissexy.org. So I get a lot of practice. We have a tip that changes every day and we spotlight people and places, so that's sort of where I get some practice.

TeenHollywood: Do you do this under your real name?

Rachel: Yup.

TeenHollywood: What made you get involved with that?

Rachel: We were just talking one day, a good friend of mine and I, and just realized we both had a real passion for it and wanted to do something. And then we have a friend that's a real computer wiz, and we just thought this is something with a low footprint that we could all do from whatever city we were in. That is one of the greatest things about the internet is that you can become part of this community and you can find people who really care about the things that you care about so quickly and so efficiently in bringing people and information together. So it was kind of born from there, and we've been doing it for about two years.

TeenHollywood: You've said that you weren't that great with e-mail. Are you getting better?

Rachel: I had to get better with computers in general. They were tired of my phone calls asking 'how do I cut and paste?' Yeah, it's been a great education actually and I think it's so important to stay with the times and keep on top of that stuff. And it's changing whether you want it to or not, so there's a great advantage to technology.

TeenHollywood: Are you addicted to any particular blogs or do you Twitter?

Rachel: I am not a tweeter. I just heard about Twitter for the first time, and it's all I've heard about ever since. I'm really ignorant.

TeenHollywood: If you're not online that much, do you subscribe to newspapers?

Rachel: I don't subscribe to newspapers. I listen to the radio, I listen to CBC, NPR and I find it's something you can multi-task to. You know eat your breakfast, and drive, and get your news at the same time.

TeenHollywood: When we talked to Kate Beckinsale for Nothing But the Truth, she said she found that the journalism community sort of had their equivalent of the acting community, like the one who gets the awards, the one who everyone resents. Did you find that to be true?

Rachel: There's not a Pulitzer for bloggers, I don't think. It's a bit of a rat race. Actually one of the journalists we were working with, they won some serious awards this year. I can't remember what it was for. He actually texted me and said we're winning the awards, and it was quite a big deal. It's like winning the Oscar for journalism.

TeenHollywood: Did they show you around the Washington Post? Did you go where the paper is printed or just in the newsroom?

Rachel: They took us all over and I met people who worked on-line. I met young people and the people who have been doing it forever. There is a difference, there's a real shift. It's interesting.

TeenHollywood: Did they seem to be getting along with each other?

Rachel: They were on opposite ends of the building [laughs].

TeenHollywood: When you were talking to some of the reporters at the Post, did any of them indicate that they had ever been in similar situations as in this film? Being shot at, diving under cars, stuff like that.

Rachel: There were a few times where [a journalist] who was kind of consulting on set, would stick his head in and say 'you guys know this doesn't actually happen. It's totally illegal to be taping this person', or whatever it was, so he'd kind of reign us in sometimes. Or sometimes we'd veto him and say 'Shhh! It's a Hollywood film.' But some people, especially in Washington, they talk about not being able to reveal their sources and having had to make some really difficult decisions sometimes when you know people's reputations or their lives are on the line. They're dealing with the law and they're dealing with politicians, and I think it can get kind of heavy duty.

TeenHollywood: How do you think your character Della is different at the end of the movie from the beginning? What's the character's journey?

Rachel: Well I think her and Cal [Russell Crowe's character] sort of meet somewhere in the middle. I think that she realizes that it's hard to be objective and be a great reporter. I think she realizes that things aren't so straightforward and that it's hard to have a sexy story and tell the truth. I think she just comes to realize that things aren't so cut and dry and that it's kind of a tough gig, especially when you get out from behind the computer [laughs].

TeenHollywood: Russell [Crowe] was such a gruff, old dog character in the movie, and you were a young whippersnapper. How did you two get along?

Rachel: We got along really well. We really hit it off so it kind of developed naturally. We had a bit of a disagreement our first meeting, which was true to our characters, so it was kind of perfect. We both had opposing viewpoints and were very stubborn and wouldn't relent. So we fell into it quite naturally and we became friends and I really enjoyed working with him. So it kind of just happened that way.

TeenHollywood: The disagreement was?

Rachel: I don't even remember now, I think it was about giving the photographs to the police or something. I can't remember who said what, but we were having an argument about something we were going to have an argument about.

TeenHollywood: Funny. With the talent on this film, did you feel a little bit like your character in the sense that you were watching some great actors at work, and learning while working?

Rachel: Yeah, I mean I was definitely the least experienced of everyone in that film, so I definitely felt like a bit of a fly on the wall sometimes. And the scenes with Helen [Mirren] and Russell were great to watch them go at each other. And I just kind of sat there and just took it all in. They were really inspiring to watch the way they work.

TeenHollywood: You must have felt you had the chops to keep up.

Rachel: Well, in comparison I was a little nervous to begin with. My first meeting was with both Russell and Helen at the same time. I admit I was a little shaky, a little nervous and my hands were even shaking when I shook Russell's hand. But it was great, they were all really supportive and I was really excited to be there.

TeenHollywood: This film is also about a Washington scandal. Did you research at all in the political realm?

Rachel: Yeah, we spent some time on Capital Hill as well, and there was this guy there that's been in that world for probably his whole life and he kind of took me around and introduced me to some of the politicians. He took me to some press conferences, and I sat with some Congressmen, and I got that side of things as well. It was so valuable, actually shooting in Washington itself at a time where there was all this election fever and it was a great education.

TeenHollywood: You have a pretty big year where you have this film, you finally have The Time Traveler's Wife coming out and you just wrapped on Sherlock Holmes. What's this year going to be for you?

Rachel: Oh, who knows, it's going to be busy, that's for sure. It's already busy. I don't know, it's exciting, I'm really glad that everything's coming out, I'm glad it's not all coming out on top of each other. I'm really excited the films are all very different, which is great, and we'll see what happens.

TeenHollywood: We've been talking about The Time Traveler's Wife for a long time, what's the holdup?

Rachel: We wound up doing an additional shot and Eric [Bana] was the hold up, he had to shave his head for a different role. For Star Trek, I think. And so we were waiting on his hair. It was an additional scene in the meadow so we were also waiting on the meadow to look the way it did, so we were waiting on the seasons. Basically, we were waiting on nature and Eric's hair [laughs].

TeenHollywood: Have you seen the final film, because there are a lot of people out there who are very curious about it, like me? I read the novel.

Rachel: I haven't seen it recently; I saw a very, very rough cut a long time ago. From what I remember then, it's quite focused on the relationship. There is time travel in it, obviously, and it's kind of cool in the way that they deal with it. But really Robert Schwentke, the director, explored the relationship and how you carry on with the love of your life when you have this imposition, to say the least.

TeenHollywood: What can you tell us about Sherlock Holmes? How might it be different from other Sherlock Holmes incarnations?

Rachel: I mean it's pretty big. I didn't realize how big it really was until I stepped on the sets and they were just massive. And it's in true [director] Guy Ritchie fashion too. It's lots of fighting and explosions. From what I've seen, obviously Robert Downey Jr. is an amazing actor and so is Jude Law and they make a wonderful duo. Everybody has their preconceived notions about Watson in particular. Everyone's very much like, 'Watson's supposed to be like this' and I just think Jude is a perfect Watson, oddly enough. They're really perfect together. That's kind of the love story, actually. I play, supposedly, Sherlock's love interest, but it's really Watson [laughs].

TeenHollywood: You said you were surprised. Did you expect it to be more like a British costume parlor drama?

Rachel: Well, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if it would be kind of a satire of Sherlock Holmes in some ways, or if they really would want to boost up the comedy. It's a really nice balance of the two, it's quite serious and quite heart pumping, and at the same time there's humor and these light moments too. I've seen just a little sizzle reel of it and it looks beautiful.

TeenHollywood: Did you get to wear any cool costumes?

Rachel: Yeah I did. I get the best of both worlds because Irene goes undercover and she wears men's clothes, but she also wears these beautiful, really outlandish bustles and she wears hot pink all the time. She's not afraid to stand out in a crowd.

TeenHollywood: Is there a fantasy career you would love to have?

Rachel: Anything to do with food.