As you cans see, we have been getting a lot of interviews of Taissa promoting her HBO new drama series The Gilded Age lately. Be sure to check out Taissa’s interview with Collider chatting all things on new drama, as well, her career.
“For me I have such an interesting start with it because I don’t think the ‘aha moment’ of I need this in my life came until I was already working a bit. My older sister Vera’s obviously an actress and she directed her first film, this indie film called Higher Ground 10, 11 years ago, and it was my first job when I was 15, and it was to play the younger version of her character. I think I filmed the movie [in] eight days. She asked me to be in it and it was more just because I looked like her and she asked me to. I couldn’t say no. I was like, ‘Okay, this is a cool experience,’ and then after that I went back to my normal life.”
“I think it was the first time I worked with an acting coach, and it was for In the Valley of Violence. I was a little nervous because the character was a little bit bigger than anything I’ve done. In the Valley of Violence is done by Ti West who’s a great horror director, but it was kind of like a weird hipster Western movie, and it was the first time where I got to see how someone — not just going on natural instincts. You break down the scene, you break down the emotions and to me, the emotions started feeling like a mathematical equation. It was like, ‘Oh, if you had this and you’re feeling this and you add a little bit of this person’s response,’ you know? It kind of felt like an equation to me and I loved that. And it was after working with the coach and really building up my skills to do this job because, sure, you have natural instincts, but if you don’t work at it, if you don’t practice and if you don’t learn how to properly start approaching a scene, you can only run for so long. I had the natural part of it, but once I got the book smart part of it, it really just sort of cemented, ‘I’m so f*cking lucky. This is it! This is what I want to do!’ I don’t know what it was. By the end of the job I was like, ‘Oh, I want to hold onto this. I need to do everything I can to work hard and be able to keep moving forward.’”
“When I was auditioning for it, I had a hard time. I remember I read once with my husband. I didn’t like the tape … I tried to make the self-tape twice and I wasn’t happy with it. I don’t know why I wasn’t clicking or responding to Marion. I sent in a tape and I was like, ‘I feel fine about it. It is what it is.’ And then casting, the producers they really liked it, but it was like, ‘It’s clearly not right for Marion, but we really, really like you. Will you read this character?’ And I was like, ‘Okay! Why not?’ I was down to try it because, again, perfectionist, I felt like, not that I failed at the other tape, but I was like, I didn’t fully connect. So I was happy to have a second shot with Gladys and that taped in two seconds and I was like, ‘Oh, I know this girl. She’s so many versions of 16, 17-year-old Taissa.’”