The Telegraph:
On seeing herself in 'The Killer Inside Me': "I don't like watching myself on the big screen at the best of times. I hardly recognised myself in this one. I'd gained a little weight. I wasn't working out... right before then I had been working out a lot and had become super muscular, which I didn't like either. It wouldn't have been right for that part, I wanted to look plainer. Not glamorous. Small town. There is something kind of masochistic about her. She wasn't easy to empathize with."
On getting spanked by Casey Affleck: "There were a couple (of spankings) in there when I thought, 'God, Casey!' He got a bit of power behind it. It was definitely real. It depends on your sense of humor where you draw your boundaries. After about the 20th spank we all started to laugh because you become quite comfortable with the idea and it becomes about the technical side of things."
"I've known Casey for so long that you can't help but laugh every now and then. I'm pretty comfortable with my body. I'm imperfect. The imperfections are there. People are going to see them, but I take the view you only live once, and, hey, I'm getting spanked today!"
Here's the scene from the original Jim Thompson novel:
The door opened an inch or two. Then, it opened all the way and she
stood looking at me.
“Yes?” she said coldly.
She was wearing sleeping shorts and a wool pullover; her brown hair
was as tousled as a lamb’s tail, and her unpainted face was drawn with
sleep. But none of that mattered. It wouldn’t have mattered if she’d
crawled out of a hog-wallow wearing a gunny sack. She had that much.
She yawned openly and said “Yes?” again, but I still couldn’t speak. I
guess I was staring open-mouthed like a country boy. This was three
months ago, remember, and I hadn’t had the sickness in almost fifteen
years. Not since I was fourteen.
She wasn’t much over five feet and a hundred pounds, and she looked a
little scrawny around the neck and ankles. But that was all right. It was
perfectly all right. The good Lord had known just where to put that flesh
where it would really do some good.
“Oh, my goodness!” She laughed suddenly. “Come on in. I don’t make a
practice of it this early in the morning, but …” She held the screen open
and gestured. I went in and she closed it and locked the door again.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” I said, “but—”
“It’s all right. But I’ll have to have some coffee first. You go on back.”
I went down the little hall to the bedroom, listening uneasily as I heard
her drawing water for the coffee. I’d acted like a chump. It was going to
be hard to be firm with her after a start like this, and something told me I
should be. I didn’t know why; I still don’t. But I knew it right from the
beginning. Here was a little lady who got what she wanted, and to hell
with the price tag.
Well, hell, though; it was just a feeling. She’d acted all right, and she
had a nice quiet little place here. I decided I’d let her ride, for the time
being anyhow. Why not? And then I happened to glance into the dresser
mirror and I knew why not. I knew I couldn’t. The top dresser drawer
was open a little, and the mirror was tilted slightly. And hustling ladies
are one thing, and hustling ladies with guns are something else.
I took it out of the drawer, a .32 automatic, just as she came in with the
coffee tray. Her eyes flashed and she slammed the tray down on a table.
“What,” she snapped, “are you doing with that?”
I opened my coat and showed her my badge. “Sheriff’s office, ma’am.
What are you doing with it?”
She didn’t say anything. She just took her purse off the dresser, opened
it and pulled out a permit. It had been issued in Fort Worth, but it was all
legal enough. Those things are usually honored from one town to
another.
“Satisfied, copper?” she said.
“I reckon it’s all right, miss,” I said. “And my name’s Ford, not copper.”
I gave her a big smile, but I didn’t get any back. My hunch about her had
been dead right. A minute before she’d been all set to lay, and it probably
wouldn’t have made any difference if I hadn’t had a dime. Now she was
set for something else, and whether I was a cop or Christ didn’t make any
difference either.
I wondered how she’d lived so long.
“Jesus!” she jeered. “The nicest looking guy I ever saw and you turn out
to be a lousy snooping copper. How much? I don’t jazz cops.”
I felt my face turning red. “Lady,” I said, “that’s not very polite. I just
came out for a little talk.”
“You dumb bastard,” she yelled. “I asked you what you wanted.”
“Since you put it that way,” I said, “I’ll tell you. I want you out of
Central City by sundown. If I catch you here after that I’ll run you in for
prostitution.”
I slammed on my hat and started for the door. She got in front of me,
blocking the way.
“You lousy son-of-a-bitch. You—”
“Don’t you call me that,” I said. “Don’t do it, ma’am.”
“I did call you that! And I’ll do it again! You’re a son-of-a-bitch,
bastard, pimp …”
I tried to push past her. I had to get out of there. I knew what was going
to happen if I didn’t get out, and I knew I couldn’t let it happen. I might
kill her. It might bring the sickness back. And even if I didn’t and it
didn’t, I’d be washed up. She’d talk. She’d yell her head off. And people
would start thinking, thinking and wondering about that time fifteen
years ago.
She slapped me so hard that my ears rang, first on one side then the
other. She swung and kept swinging. My hat flew off. I stooped to pick it
up, and she slammed her knee under my chin.
I stumbled backwards on my heels and sat down on the floor. I heard a
mean laugh, then another laugh sort of apologetic. She said, “Gosh,
sheriff, I didn’t mean to—I—you just made me so mad I—I—”
“Sure,” I grinned. My vision was clearing and I found my voice again.
“Sure, ma’am. I know how it was. Used to get that way myself. Give me …
a hand, will you?”
“You—you won’t hurt me?”
“Me? Aw, now, ma’am.”
“No,” she said, and she sounded almost disappointed. “I know you
won’t. Anyone can see you’re too easygoing.” And she came over to me
slowly and gave me her hands.
I pulled myself up. I held her wrists with one hand and swung. It
almost stunned her; I didn’t want her completely stunned. I wanted her
so she would understand what was happening to her.
“No, baby”—my lips drew back from my teeth. “I’m not going to hurt
you. I wouldn’t think of hurting you. I’m just going to beat the ass plumb
off of you.”
I said it, and I meant it and I damned near did.
I jerked the jersey up over her face and tied the end in a knot. I threw
her down on the bed, yanked off her sleeping shorts and tied her feet
together with them.
I took off my belt and raised it over my head …
I don’t know how long it was before I stopped, before I came to my
senses. All I know is that my arm ached like hell and her rear end was
one big bruise, and I was scared crazy—as scared as a man can get and go
on living.
I freed her feet and hands, and pulled the jersey off her head. I soaked a
towel in cold water and bathed her with it. I poured coffee between her
lips. And all the time I was talking, begging her to forgive me, telling her
how sorry I was.
I got down on my knees by the bed, and begged and apologized. At last
her eyelids fluttered and opened.
“D-don’t,” she whispered.
“I won’t,” I said. “Honest to God, ma’am, I won’t ever—”
“Don’t talk.” She brushed her lips against mine. “Don’t say you’re
sorry.”
She kissed me again. She began fumbling at my tie, my shirt; starting to
undress me after I’d almost skinned her alive.
I went back the next day and the day after that. I kept going back. And
it was like a wind had been turned on a dying fire. I began needling
people in that dead-pan way—needling ’em as a substitute for something
else. I began thinking about settling scores with Chester Conway, of the
Conway Construction Company.
I won’t say that I hadn’t thought of it before. Maybe I’d stayed on in
Central City all these years, just in the hopes of getting even. But except
for her I don’t think I’d ever have done anything. She’d made the old fire
burn again. She even showed me how to square with Conway.
She didn’t know she was doing it, but she gave me the answer. It was
one day, one night rather, about six weeks after we’d met.
“Lou,” she said, “I don’t want to go on like this. Let’s pull out of this
crummy town together, just you and I.”
“Why, you’re crazy!” I said. I said it before I could stop myself. “You
think I’d—I’d—”
“Go on, Lou. Let me hear you say it. Tell me”—she began to drawl—
“what a fine ol’ family you-all Fords is. Tell me, we-all Fords, ma’am, we
wouldn’t think of livin’ with one of you mizzable ol’ whores, ma’am. Us
Fords just ain’t built that way, ma’am.”
That was part of it, a big part. But it wasn’t the main thing. I knew she
was making me worse; I knew that if I didn’t stop soon I’d never be able
to. I’d wind up in a cage or the electric chair.
“Say it, Lou. Say it and I’ll say something.”
“Don’t threaten me, baby,” I said. “I don’t like threats.”
“I’m not threatening you. I’m telling you. You think you’re too good for
me—I’ll—I’ll—”
“Go on. It’s your turn to do the saying.”
“I wouldn’t want to, Lou, honey, but I’m not going to give you up.
Never, never, never. If you’re too good for me now, then I’ll make it so
you won’t be.”
I kissed her, a long hard kiss. Because baby didn’t know it, but baby was
dead, and in a way I couldn’t have loved her more.
“Well, now, baby,” I said, “you’ve got your bowels in an uproar and all
over nothing. I was thinking about the money problem.”
“I’ve got some money. I can get some more. A lot of it.”
“Yeah?”
“I can, Lou. I know I can! He’s crazy about me and he’s dumb as hell.
I’ll bet if his old man thought I was going to marry him, he—”
“Who?” I said. “Who are you talking about, Joyce?”
“Elmer Conway. You know who he is, don’t you? Old Chester—”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I know the Conways right well. How do you figure
on hookin’ ’em?”
We talked it over, lying there on her bed together, and off in the night
somewhere a voice seemed to whisper to forget it, forget it, Lou, it’s not
too late if you stop now. And I did try, God knows I tried. But right after
that, right after the voice, her hand gripped one of mine and kneaded it
into her breasts; and she moaned and shivered and so I didn’t forget.
“Well,” I said, after a time, “I guess we can work it out. The way I see it
is, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
“Mmm, darling?”
“In other words,” I said, “where there’s a will there’s a way.”
She squirmed a little, and then she snickered. “Oh, Lou, you corny so
and so! You slay me!”
