"Pilgrim's" Girls: Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Ellen Wong

The colorful, comic book and video-game-based comedy actioner Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is chocked full of kick butt, strong and outspoken women. Two of them, quirky Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) whose hair color changes almost daily and high schooler Knives Chow (Ellen Wong), who is overly exuberant about well... everything, are both in love with nerdy but cute Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) who plays in a band and ends up fighting all seven of Ramona's "evil exes" while trying to let Knives down easy.

We're interviewing Mary and Ellen on the lot at Universal Studios in L.A. and it's a really candid and fun gurlchat. Ellen admits that, during a martial arts fight, she actually cut Mary's face (and Mary is okay with it), both girls worked amazingly hard on training and executing all the stunt-heavy action and both ladies say they loved their fashion forward looks in the fantasy/action film. Both girls are spilling their fave Michael Cera moments from set as well!

Picture Mary looking the polar opposite to her character Ramona. She's wearing her dark brown hair up in well ordered curls pulled to the back of her head and is in a slim green dress topped by red sweater and very high heels. Ellen is looking casual, modern and cute. It's dishin' time.....

TeenHollywood: You girls really get to kick butt in this film.

Both: Yeah!

TeenHollywood: How much fun was that?

Both: It was so much fun.

Ellen: Going through it, Mary and I weren't like 'Oh yeah, we're going to play these female characters who kick ass'. It was more like we were really concentrating on the circumstances of each individual. Girls like this exist and it's neat to see females in these sort or roles where they're equal to their male counterparts. It's neat to see that they can be so strong. It's cool.

Mary: Absolutely. I think when we walked on set and saw how many talented, funny interesting, strong girls there were in this film, it was great. Not only to be playing such a cool character and to be playing somebody so strong and interesting but to have so many female characters in one movie who represent so many different types of strong women was really exciting. I found so many more women to admire in my own life which is inspiring and cool and I felt so lucky to have been a part of that.

TeenHollywood: Ramona has seven evil exes who Scott Pilgrim has to fight. Did either of you have any evil exes who reappeared to complicate your life or give the current boyfriend problems?

Mary: [smile] Oh, I've had a couple of pestering, past individuals who've kind of come around. Certainly no fist fights or anything like that but little annoyances here and there I would say.

Ellen: I've been asked that question and feel like I'm so boring because I don't have anything like that. I don't know but I'll give you a shout if it does happen.

TeenHollywood: Ellen, your look in the movie changes and Mary, you change hair but did you like the look or keep anything from the wardrobe?

Ellen: I got to keep some of the clothes from my wardrobe but that was because there was this little joke in the costume department that my look was really boring. I was always wearing a hoodie and jeans on the set so they gave me some of Knives' clothes and said 'Try to wear some of this'.

I cut off twelve inches of my hair for the role and also wore a wig so I definitely went through a lot of different changes. The look of the character coincides with what she's feeling on the inside too. You see so much change in her and that's pretty much what she's going through on the inside too; trying to figure out where she fits in, what works, what doesn't.

Mary: I loved it all. I loved the way that it helped me become a different person. I didn't really take anything from Ramona's wardrobe because I couldn't really imagine actually using any of it in my own life because I'm so different from Ramona in the way that I look and dress but it was fantastic as far as getting into character. It made a huge difference for me.

TeenHollywood: At Comic Con, was it surreal to see people dressed up as your character Ramona?

Mary: Yes! It was very surreal. I took photos with a bunch of Ramonas. They even had hammers that were exact replicas of what I used in the movie. It was pretty amazing. I think we were all pretty overwhelmed by the whole experience, just seeing the fans there and feeling that excitement and their genuine passion and love for these books and then hearing their cheers and laughter when they watched the film, it was like 'Wow! We really got it right' because these are the harshest critics if you got it wrong. They really reacted to it in the most positive way I could imagine.

TeenHollywood: Did you also notice the number of girls who had real Ramona haircuts wondering around Comic Con?

Mary: Oh, like their own hair? Oh yeah.

TeenHollywood: Were you like 'Right on!' or was it a little bit creepy?

Mary: Oh, I think it's cool. I actually got a haircut to match Ramonas when I got the part, I sort of cut my hair in that style to get into character even though I was wearing wigs through the whole thing. It's fun. It's cool. I think that goes to show how representative it is of a generation. That's what they want to look like and not to emulate the movie necessarily, but because it's a cool haircut. I think it goes to show how Bryan (Lee O'Malley, the comic creator) really got it right.

TeenHollywood: How did you get the part, Ellen?

Ellen: My agent called me 'Hey there's this really great role'. I had this little paragraph of lines for Knives Chow and I had to put myself on tape pretty much in just a few hours so I sent in a tape. I went and got all the books and got really into it and was like 'I shouldn't have done that because I really want this role and if I don't get it, I'm gonna be really sad'. I did several callbacks and a fight test and I got to meet the stunt team. I flew to L.A. and did a screen test with Michael Cera. This is all over about six months of my life then I got the part.

Mary: Ironically enough it was offered to me which is ridiculous. That's very rarely happened to me in the past even for small little supporting roles. I'd have to go in five times and then not get the part. So I certainly was shocked that a film like this would be offered to me but I think it's a testament to [director] Edgar [Wright's] imagination, the fact that he saw me in Death Proof and he said 'That's Ramona'. He knew it because he trusts his gut enough to know that I could pull it off so it's all thanks to him.

TeenHollywood: Your characters are both in love with Scott Pilgrim. Can each of you give us a Michael Cera moment, whether it's funny or endearing?

Ellen: Oh, there's so many moments with Michael. This was my first film and I was so nervous. On the first day, and the first scene I shot was where Knives was at the door meeting Scott's bandmates for the first time. I was so scared and so was she in that moment. Here I am, by myself behind this door and Michael opens the door with 'You promise to be good?' and I deliver my line, he closes the door 'Cut'. Michael opens up the door, peeks his head out and goes 'Ellen, you're doing a really good job. Keep it up' and that just goes to show you what a genuinely nice guy and sincere he is.

Mary: I have a lot of moments like that as well. He's so sweet and genuine and after spending a few days with him you just love him. His sense of humor is sometimes really kind of subversive and he kind of messes with you a little bit. It took me a while to figure that out. It's not in a way that's out and out funny. Sometimes he likes to just needle in there.

TeenHollywood: What did he do?

Mary: I remember one of the first days that we were training, I was just trying to make conversation and the whole thing with Rihanna and Chris Brown had just happened and I was like 'Michael, did you hear what happened with Rihanna and Chris Brown? Is this crazy?' And he was like 'Who are these people? I don't know what you're referring to. Brianna? Is she a musician of some sort?' And I was like 'Oh my gosh, you don't know who they are? I feel stupid. Rihanna and Chris Brown...' and I was explaining who they were and two days later I was like 'He knows who they are. He was messing with me'. It was constantly stuff like that in really subtle ways that I eventually sort of figured out. He was always doing stuff like that.

Ellen: He could walk up to you and say stuff like 'I'm half Chinese' and you'd be like...

Mary: Really?

TeenHollywood: Hilarious. Can you talk your relationships in the film? Both of you had to have a true relationship with Scott Pilgrim in order for us to care about the movie. Talk about how important that was and how you developed it.

Mary: Ramona really rides that fine line of being likeable and unlikable and doesn't really show her emotions. So, how do you like a person who is that guarded and who never smiles? It was certainly worrisome to me, on some level, that there would be an audience who would be like 'What's her appeal?'. So, I felt like I really had to bring some sort of humanity to her and I had to really show that there was some attraction and love when she looks at Scott even thought she might not show it in the same way that Knives shows it; quite the opposite way.

Especially in our whole love scene sequence, it was really important to me that we really connected on that and that that really worked. I was really happy the day that we shot that because I really felt that I could see my character falling for Scott in that moment and I could feel it all being so real.

Ellen: I think, with Knives, it's hard because she was not thinking too much about what Scott was thinking about her. Everything she goes through in the film, it's her first time feeling it. I think she's so uninhibited, her feelings are so unconstrained and, in a way, I think Scott was dating her because she's easy but she doesn't see it that way. She's going on this ride, this journey and trying to figure out what it means to be in love, what it means to have your heart broken. She didn't know how to put up her guard or judge certain situations or scenarios because she hasn't yet been tainted by the realities of this world.

TeenHollywood: A lot of people are calling Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World the first of its kind. Do you see that and do you see it as a great role model film? Will you be pissed off if people start to copy it?

Mary: It's going to be interesting. I know that there will be films coming out that will say 'If you like Scott Pilgrim, you'll love...'

Ellen: But, it's an exciting journey to be part of a film that's so refreshing and new and different. We were saying that it's kind of like the Brat Pack films that John Hughes created with the ensemble cast and having characters you can relate to but it's our generation of that kind of a movie. I think it's cool to be part of something like this.

Mary: Absolutely. When we saw it at Comic Con and we felt the reaction and how it made us feel ourselves was like I think we've created something that's really going to hit people in a way they aren't expecting and that's just really exciting.

TeenHollywood: Can you both give me favorite scene and most challenging scene?

Mary: I think our favorites and the most challenging are the same scene. We both loved our fights so much because we worked so hard on those and it's so rewarding to see it on screen.

Ellen: I remember walking into the room and seeing the big pyramid and we were like 'It's here! Let's do this!' It was the time for us to finally implement all the stuff that we were training for here on top of this pyramid. It was cool.

TeenHollywood: You trained really hard for this, right?

Mary: Yeah, absolutely and the fights go by in a flash so it seems like 'Oh, they must have shot that in a day'.

Ellen: In ten minutes.

Mary: No. Each fight took at least a week or a week and a half to do.

Ellen: Yeah, I think the last one was like two and a half weeks. We were shooting on that location for almost two months.

Mary: On that pyramid. We started calling it 'The Pyramid Movie' and we were like 'Can you believe Chris Evans is in The Pyramid Movie? It was kind of surreal being in that same place every day.

Ellen: Yeah. It was a /Groundhog Day/ thing. You wake up, 'Oh, you again'.

Mary: In the same clothes.

Ellen: 'Let's do this differently today'.

Mary: So that was definitely the most challenging sequence of the whole film.

TeenHollywood: Mary, can you talk a little bit about being in The Thing? Was that awesome?

Mary: Yeah. It was pretty awesome. I just wrapped it two or three weeks ago. I'm so excited about it. I think everyone involved was really passionate about making it a really great film for the fans of the John Carpenter version and also for people who have no idea. It was really focused on performance and the intensity and the paranoia and suspense and also really awesome animatronic and puppeteering work and special effects in it.

TeenHollywood: Who do you play?

Mary: I am a scientist.

TeenHollywood: I don't think there was a woman [in the Carpenter version] There was one who was more just eye candy in the original [1950's version].

Mary: Yeah, they're bringing a female into the mix and it's interesting because it shakes up the dynamic a little bit. I think it's a good way of separating it because it's not a re-make, it's a prequel so it's a completely different group of people. You're not trying to recreate the same characters that were in the John Carpenter version. We're trying to bring in new ones. Having a female there makes it its own story. The way they interact is completely different having a girl in the middle of all of that.

TeenHollywood: I'm sure you're a strong girl, though. I'll bet the Scott Pilgrim fight training helped out when you got to the set of The Thing, right?

Mary: Oh yeah, I kick all sorts of alien butt! I didn't have to do any training for The Thing. There were a couple of the same producers on that so it was a Universal film as well. So they were like 'Oh, Mary can handle that' so it was cool.

TeenHollywood: But, Ellen, you were training a lot before this movie, right? You were already a martial arts expert.

Ellen: Yeah. I was training in Tae Kwan Do and still do. I also was sparring competitively as well but I had to stop during the filming process. I started taking up weapons to do double short swords and Bo staff. I was so used to fighting Tae Kwan Do style and sparring so it was actually very difficult to learn how to fight for film because it's so different. You're not actually hitting the people.

Mary: No, you're not allowed to [laughing].

Ellen: You have to stop and it was really hard to control myself so I felt like even though I had the martial arts training, I was the one who was having the hardest time getting because I would naturally want to go all the way with my move as opposed to stopping [pulling the final blow].

TeenHollywood: Be honest. Did you ever blow it and hit Mary?

Ellen: I'm not gonna lie. There was a moment where I'm sitting on top of the pyramid crying because the paramedics had to come to take Mary because I kind of slashed her face with my knife. This is true.

Mary: And it's so funny because, at first, I was kind of freaking out because I was in a lot of pain but as soon as it was over, I was 'Ellen, no, it was my fault'.

Ellen: Mary, I'm so sorry. But it's funny because when we were training for it we had this huge space. We had all this room to move around and when we started shooting, we had this little space at the top of a pyramid and we've got an entire crew up there too so it was different.

Mary: And it turned out fine but it was a shock at first.

Ellen: You can't have seven fights without an accident.

TeenHollywood: Whoa, back up. They gave you real knives?

Ellen: They were metal and pointy. You couldn't slice cucumbers and tomatoes with them, maybe faces but actually I think it was after that incident that they put little foam tips on them and I was like 'I feel so downgraded'.

Mary: They were so careful after that. That's why I felt bad is they were like 'We have to be very careful with Ellen. She's dangerous. I was like 'It's not her fault! It's my fault'.

Ellen: Those knives have a life of their own.