Without doubt one of the most entertaining films of the year, Pain & Gain finally makes its way to DVD and Blu-ray, as we now have the opportunity to watch Michael Bay’s action-packed thriller all over again (though whether that makes the real life story any easier to comprehend remains to be seen). To mark the release – on December 23rd – we spoke to one of the stars of the piece, actress Bar Paly.
Paly takes on the pivotal role of Sorina, an opportunist immigrant, desperately hoping to make a name for herself in America as an actress, who gets caught up in the absurd scheme plotted by a trio of bodybuilders. Paly discusses how much she has in common with the role herself, her love for the comedy genre, working alongside Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg – while she also gives us a little teaser about her two forthcoming projects, Non-Stop and Million Dollar Arm…
Perhaps not to the same extent, but you yourself have had to work on making a name for yourself in America, coming from a foreign country. Could you at least relate to the role in that respect? Yeah, I guess so. Sorina also has this dream to become an actress and I can relate to that. In general, I can also relate to the American Dream which is the key theme of the movie. Though I’m not as naïve as Sorina is about how show-business works!
Sorina is a very sympathetic character and deep down she’s quite a tragic case. Was it a challenge to portray that side to the character when the film is so flamboyant and comedic?
For me it was important to keep her real in a way. As funny as she was, it’s important for her to be real. I kept on reminding myself what the great qualities about her are. She’s also based on a true character, because the entire movie is based on a true story, so I kept on going, okay, what kind of woman is she? She’s naïve about certain things, but she’s also extremely strong. She came from communist Romania and she made it all the way to South America and then gets into the US, just to pursue her dream because she wanted it so badly. That’s a strong woman, not everybody could have done that. I know I wouldn’t be able to. She never gives up, she always looks at the positives in things. Even when Mark’s character tells her he’s not a real director and he’s been fooling her, again she comes from this place where she needs to believe something good and she believes what she wants to believe, because she’s not the brightest crayon in the box. She just has to find the good and believe it will happen. So I kept on coming back to those good qualities that I admire in her. That made her a little bit more compelling.
The film is hilarious in parts – do you enjoy doing comedy?
I love doing comedy. I’m so grateful that this was my breakout movie to show the world, because I believe comedy is my strong suit sometimes. Not to say I don’t enjoy doing heavy drama, but I find comedies make going to work everyday a lot of fun To play these wacky, crazy characters and these worlds that you don’t get to explore, like strip clubs, bodybuilders and crime – as an actor I’m such a good girl basically, I would never get to experience those kind of things – it’s a lot of fun.
Do you feel you ever have to overcome any boundaries based on stereotype? Because you have a very naturally glamorous look about you, and people may not necessarily associate that with comedy.
You know, I don’t remember who, but when I was little somebody told me that it’s turning your disadvantages to your advantages, that’s how you make it. If you don’t expect comedy from me, then great – but let’s use that to my advantage because people will be even more surprised. Like, damn, she’s funny! To take people’s expectations and say, ‘oh yeah? I’ll show you…’
It must have been great to not only find a role that allows you to be comedic, but to keep your accent too?
Yeah when I went to the audition and saw it was Michael Bay, who I’m a big fan of, then saw it was based on a true character from Romania, and it’s a comedy… It basically said “Bar Paly” underneath it. So I called my agent and said, ‘I want in – do anything you can to get me into the audition room’ – so yeah the comedy, the accent, it’s everything I wanted. I definitely got lucky, it’s the perfect role.
It’s a brave role too – did you have any apprehensions at all? Or were there any scenes you felt quite nervous about shooting?
Definitely the dancing scene, I was nervous. First of all because I’ve never danced in my life, well, not like that especially. I had about two weeks before the movie started to train with an actual dancer who taught me to dance on a pole and do all the moves and I’m extremely non-athletic, so it was scary. There were a lot of extras too, cranes everywhere, it was a big set and there were a lot of people watching me, so I was like, oh God, so yeah that was nerve-wracking. But after I did that first scene, Michael announced to everybody that it’s my first time doing it and that I did great, and everybody clapped so it relaxed me before doing five more takes after that [laughs].
Of course this is all based on real-life incidents. How much research did you do into the real life Sorina?
Actually it was a little bit hard to find any information on her, because she went off the radar after the whole thing happened. So I got most of my information from the article that movie is based on, I spoke to the writer who wrote the article – who was also present in the courtroom. So I just asked him a lot of question, and he’d seen her and experienced her testimony first hand. He told me that the courtroom was generally quite empty cos it was such a long trial, when she was testifying it was a full house – which was an interesting little detail.
So what’s Michael Bay like to work under?
He knows exactly what he wants, which makes the job so much easier. The fact he’s so fast-paced, I just love working like that. I like that excitement. You never get bored of waiting for the lighting for hours, or staging and stuff like that. He’s very present in his movies, well, in Pain & Gain he is, at least.
And how about working with Dwayne and Mark? We’ve interviewed them both before and they’ve both got so much charisma and character – it must have made for a fun set to be on?
It really, really was. On my first day I just flew in from LA to Miami and I had barely slept, and I came in to do a hair and make-up test, not on set or anything. I’m standing talking to one of the make-up artists and then I feel this huge shadow coming over me, and I look back and it’s Dwayne standing above me, cos he’s so big and tall, and he says, ‘Hi, how are you? I wanted to meet you, it’s going to be a lot of fun, welcome to the set’, which just shows how awesome they are as people. Such a huge star and yet he still came out to say hi to me and welcome me to the crazy family they had going on there. They really are great people.
You’ve got two huge roles coming up soon – Non-Stop and Million Dollar Arm. Can you tell us about those projects?
Non-Stop is a thriller with Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore and it’s very exciting and I’m admiring everybody involved. Julianne I idolise. She probably thinks I’m a little slow because the first time I met her I couldn’t get my words out [laughs] but it’s been an amazing experience and is going to be a greta movie. Million Dollar Arm is with Jon Hamm and Alan Arkin and again that’s beyond anything I’ve ever expected.
PAIN & GAIN is out now on Digital HD, and released on Blu-ray and DVD on 23rd December.
