Sucker Punch's Emily Browning: on weapons, singing, and Vancouver food

Emily Browning sat down with the Georgia Straight in a Beverly Hills hotel room to discuss Zack Snyder's visual extravaganza Sucker Punch, in which she plays the lead character Babydoll.

As a supplement to the feature we ran in this week's issue, here are some additional quotes from Browning.

On guns:
What Browning discovered that her extensive weapons training for the film endowed her with was a different kind of power: knowledge.
“I don’t necessarily condone gun use in everyday life. It’s not really for me. But in terms of this fantasy situation where we were getting to play make believe essentially, it was really cool and fun to be that kind of tough character. But also the idea now, if I were ever in that situation where there was a gun near me and I needed to protect myself, or if somebody had a gun and I was being threatened with a gun, I would know exactly what was going on. I know exactly the mechanics of that thing. And I think that’s an empowering feeling.”

On her samurai sword:
A handmade samurai sword was specially made for her measurements, with the entire story of the film engraved in pictures on the wakizashi blade with a handle (reduced to her hand size) made of black rayskin.
“They gave me the sword at the end of the shoot. We finished filming a bit over a year ago and it’s still stuck in customs. Such a shame. Because Australia hates weapons.”

On singing on the soundtrack:
Browning told the Straight that Snyder wanted her to sing for the audition because of the film's musical element. She said that she had never sung before in her life and didn't want to sing. However, they liked her voice so much that she ended up recording cover versions of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", the Smiths' "Asleep", and the Pixies' "Where Is My Mind?" (a duet with Yoav).
“It actually began because Zack and I were talking about our favourite music and I told him that the Smiths was my favourite band. And he said, ”˜Oh, I know Morrissey.’ I was like, ”˜Uh, what?”¦Then a couple of weeks later he said, ”˜I have the rights to the Smiths song for the soundtrack.’ I said, ”˜That’s amazing.’ He said, ”˜Yeah, do you wanna sing it?’ I said, ”˜Uh, okay.’ It’s terrifying but how can I turn that down, you know, if Zack believes in me enough to ask me if I wanted to do it and the fact that it’s a Morrissey song, it’s kind of like I couldn’t really say no.”

On Vancouver:
What does Browning love most about Vancouver, where the movie was shot? The food.
“All the girls would hang out all the time together. And we would go out to dinner every night. My favourite place is—do you know Café Medina? Do you know where you get the waffles? That place is so good. I would go there like three times a weekend. It’s so awesome. We’d all go there to breakfast all the time.”

On her next film, Sleeping Beauty:
“It was really fun for me to contrast making this huge studio film—that was visually very stunning and beautiful—and then going on to this tiny Australian independent film with no budget, and it was really more about the story. Visually it’s beautiful, but it’s very pared down and simple and sparse”¦and I think that’s something I aim to do, make films that contrast one another.”
She adds: “I have a short-attention span. I get bored easily. I don’t want to do the same thing over and over again.”

You can follow Craig Takeuchi on Twitter at twitter.com/cinecraig.