’50 Shades’ of Friendship — The ‘Book Club’ Cast Spills Behind-the-Scenes Secrets

Candice Bergen

How would you describe the plot of the film?

Candice: It’s about friendship, in this case between four women who reconnect and maintain their friendship through meeting as a book club. And it’s about the latest book they decide to read, some of them reluctantly, which is 50 Shades of Grey. Of course they all read it and their lives are transformed and upended, and it sort of brings them back to life.

What’s your feelings about your character of Sharon?

Candice: I was thrilled they offered this character to me, because she’s a federal judge, she’s intelligent and sort of the voice of authority, but with a sense of humor. She’s just a standup broad, and she’s lived alone for what feels like hundreds of years. She left her husband and they’re divorced, and she’s been living in this tiny desert of an apartment. So 50 Shades of Grey opens her life with a big flash, because I don’t think she thought her life was wanting until suddenly she realizes that it is. She ventures into the world of online dating and gets caught at it, because she goes online in her office, in her chambers, and her assistant comes in and sees her on screen and it brings every issue that it could. She gets very flustered, but does go online and it doesn’t go so well at first. But her friends are her anchors and we all needs anchors. Not ones that weigh us down, but anchors that ground us.

How relatable are the characters in the film?

Candice: Having that kind of constant support and truth-telling is vital for people, especially as they get older, which, God knows, most of us in this movie are. But you see the friendship constantly renewed on screen, and it’s funny and touching. I would love to be a woman going to see this film with my pals for the first time; it’s so warm and honest. The friendship between the four women gives each other the confidence to take a chance, whether it’s sort of revitalizing your marriage or starting a relationship. If they didn’t have these friends, they wouldn’t have stepped so boldly out.

Bonding On Screen and Off

Was there much of a real-life bond formed with your co-stars?

Candice: I met Jane when I was 17, and Diane I’ve known forever, but I was never close with either of them. With Mary, I’ve known her work and respected her for a long time. I think there was a friendship formed while we were making the movie, which was great.

You get to work with Richard Dreyfuss quite a bit on this. What was that like?

Candice: I had seen Richard Dreyfuss at an event honoring Diane Keaton, the AFI for a Lifetime Achievement Award. He’s a fantastic actor and has that kind of feral presence. I thought he would be great, and thank goodness he said yes. We had a wonderful time working together, because he has this insane confidence and is so filled with life and humor and he’s just not afraid to go anywhere.

What do you feel is inspiring about the film?

Candice: Through it all, the women are there for each other, and that gets you through the night. It’s a feel good movie, a funny movie, a comforting movie. And a sexy time if you don’t mind old people. It’s inspiring, because these are women who have navigated their way through what most women have had to deal with in their lives. They’ve found a way through it and they’ve reinvented themselves. It’s hopeful to know that it’s not over in a way. It’s just beginning.

Diane Keaton

Given that your character’s name is Diane, let’s start with discussing who she is.

Diane: The way she’s written, it kind of feels right up my alley, because in my past I’ve been fortunate enough to play a lot of insecure women, and I think she is an insecure woman. She just lost her husband, basically, and she has these two daughters who are, in a way, raising her now and are trying to change her when she’s kind of lost. She just isn’t very sure of herself and doesn’t know exactly what to do or how to manage it.

Which, one assumes, is where her friends come in?

Diane: She’s supported by her friends, but in a way she’s kind of giving up and really for her, it’s meeting Andy Garcia's character that changes everything for her, because she falls in love with him right away.

The Power of Friendship

How would you say friends help you overcome life’s difficulties?

Diane: Jane, Candy, Mary, and I helped each other as friends. I’m assuming the characters have been friends for 15 years, so you really trust them and that’s who you have left, because many people have disappeared in your life. I’m 72 and I’m playing my age, and it’s really hard to lose your loved ones. And then to have your kids take over and tell you that you're a kid, that's not pleasant. That’s really unpleasant. You’re always going to have something in the way, but you overcome that because when you really have trouble, your friends come in for you and help. It’s a bond. It’s a love, because finally we have people you can trust and you’re happy to be with them, because you have your struggles with them. It’s like family in a certain sense.

That theme of friendship seems to be an important one. Did that become reflected among the cast?

Diane: We were united together. Everybody was very generous and everybody was perfect for their parts. When you feel good about your part and you’re well cast, and you like the writing and it all goes well, it’s simple. But when you’re struggling, it’s much harder. But that wasn’t the way with this at all. Now we might become real friends, which is harder to do than you might think. Frequently that doesn't happen with people flying all over the place having these lives. You kind of get lost, so it would be nice if we could solidify our friendship. Maybe if we did Book Club II or something like that, then we’d have to be together again. That would be very nice.

Mary Steenburgen

How would you describe the friendships depicted in the film?

Mary: First of all, Book Club is about friendship. I think it’s more common to see men being friends in their own male way in movies. But this is a female friendship and it’s not a b—hy friendship. It’s not a competitive friendship. It’s a friendship born of knowledge of people over a long period of time. It’s women who have leaned on each other repeatedly for many decades, and they have a book club that offers up that thinly-veiled excuse to drink wine and talk. There’s a lot of talk about men, but there’s a lot of talk about life, a lot of truth-telling things that only a friend can tell you.

Did you and the other ladies become friends through the process of making the film?

Mary: In real life I had worked with Candice Bergen a little bit, which I treasured. I had met both Jane and Diane, but never worked with either one of them. And so in the movie I’m pretty sure you can see me literally falling in love with all three of them, because that’s what happened to me and my heart. They were funny and brilliant and honest, and we all sat in a garage of the hose that was supposed to be my house — which, by the way, is also supposed to be Candice’s house — and that was our “green room” where we just talked about life. Those conversations were so precious in a way, because then when we went back in and did scenes together, something had happened to us. You could feel the friendship. Maybe it wasn’t decades old, but you could feel it was real.

Character Growth and Sexual Awakening

What on your views on your character, Carol?

Mary: She’s probably the nurturer of the group, and in some ways the truth-teller of the group. She’s not afraid to do things that should frighten her. She’s had a really good marriage and a really good family, but her marriage is in a place right now where it feels as though her husband is rejecting her or going through his own kind of dark night of the soul. He’s played by Craig T. Nelson, who I love. Carol is in need of her friends. It’s a moment in time where each of us needs this group of women quite a lot. We have each other’s backs, and it’s funny and lovely. The thing I love most about it, or the response so far from people so far is that so many young people have told me they’ve either seen it and love it, or they can’t wait to see it.

Do you think we ever really stop growing as people?

Mary: One of the messages of the film is that there isn’t this moment where you’re cooked. Like, if you’re waiting to be wise at a certain age, or above it all in some way or have nothing left to learn, or not able to get your heart broken or whatever you it is you think makes you cooked at a certain age, you're wrong. We’re here to prove that’s not true. Have we acquired some wisdom over the years? Yes, but we’re still hungry.

What’s your feeling about Carol’s sexual awakening in the film?

Mary: Well the book we decide to read, 50 Shades of Grey, is supposed to stimulate our minds, but it causes each of us to ask, “Where’s that part of me that’s sexual? Where’s that part of me that wants love? Where’s that part of me that wants romance? What’s happening with that part of me?" So it kind of creates havoc in our lives, illuminating the fact that my husband and I are just two ships in the night in a lot of ways. Definitely in the bedroom, but in lots of other ways, too. That’s how it shakes up Carol’s life.

Friendships Reel and Real

Do you feel Book Club is an ode to friendship?

Mary: It’s a nod to friendship that is sturdy and that’s rolled with the punches over the years. We’ve all had times that we were mad at each other or we hurt each other, and we’ve all had to apologize and come back in there and dive back in there. We’ve been through births and deaths and all the things that friendships go through, and growing older in a world that really celebrates youth and tries not to think about growing older. What I love about this movie is that it celebrates it.

I came into it with a great deal of excitement about working with these women. I felt like I’ve done this for a long time, and I still have tons to learn about it. I’m 65. I made my first movie when I was 24. That’s a long time. And when the fear would come up of, “Why should you be there with these iconic brilliant women?”, it was a nice thing for me to go, “I think you’re here, because you’ve earned it. I don’t think it’s a total fluke that you’re here.” And when I was with them, the sheer joy of being in scenes with those three women was wonderful. Not one second of diva behavior off screen or on. It was just, like, “Boom! We’re all here to play and we’re here for each other.”

Jane Fonda

How would you describe the themes of Book Club?

Jane: It’s about friendship and sex. It’s about aging and the importance of a woman, because it’s a film about women being able to decide from a fully authentic place when she’s ready to give up hope of a relationship, hope for sensuality, hope for a love affair. it’s not meant to make people who are older and not having sex feel bad about it. Nobody has to keep on being sexual later in life, but it should be up to us to make the decision. I know from my own personal life that it’s only over when you decide it’s going to be over, and what that ‘it’ is can be anything. It doesn’t necessarily have to be relationships with a man or whatever. It can be staying curious, staying inspired, staying involved with life and trying to make a difference in those kinds of things.

How is that reflected in the film?

Jane: In the movie, my character is concerned because I’m afraid that my friends have given up when they’re not really ready to give up. So my role is to kind of get them thinking about things that they haven’t thought about in a long time. I think she’s the maker of trouble; she’s stirring up the pot and is, like, "Come on now, get off your chairs and let’s have some wild fun. It’s not too late, let’s do it." She’s bold, but she’s not totally honest with herself.

So how does Vivian shake things up?

Jane: The rule of our book club at this stage is each of us have our month to bring in a book that’s been a bestseller, and this one has been made into a movie. I decide I want to stir the pot up and I want to get my girlfriends thinking about sex, which none of them have thought about in a long time. So I bring in Fifty Shades of Grey to try to titillate them and get them thinking.

And she’s someone who has a need to be in control, isn't she?

Jane: Yes, Vivian wants to be in control. She’s very afraid of being out of control. She owns the hotel she lives in, and when you do that — from the food you eat to the people who carry your luggage — you know all of these people. It’s all pre-decided that there’s no surprises. And then this man, who she wants and was in love with, she turns down, because her early experience in life is that if you love someone, they’ll leave you and then you’ll be really hurt and vulnerable. But she sees him and it totally throws her, but then she pushes him away.

So what impact does 50 Shades of Grey have on her?

Jane: For her, the book isn’t a big eye-opener, but she knows it will be for the other women. It’s just fun for her to scandalize them a little bit; she knows they’re going to go home and be reading this and going, “Oh my God!”

Reflecting On Her Co-Stars

How do you view the importance of female friends in real life?

Jane: I don’t think there’s anything as important as my female friends. They give me backbone, the put starch on my backbone. They inspire me. They make me better and they make me laugh.

And your female co-stars in this films?

Jane: Well, I’m the mama bear. None of us are in the news anymore, and we’re all cognizant of that. I also think we’re all aware of the importance of friendship now. In my younger days — I’m just speaking for myself — I would make a movie and I’d like someone and we’d be friends. Movie would be over and you’d move on. I find with this film, all of us are pretty intentional about staying in touch. We want to foster a relationship between the four of us. I’ve never worked with any of these women before; I've known Candy superficially since she was 17 years old. I sort of passed out when I saw her, because she was so beautiful and smart and funny.

Diane, I’ve only watched from afar, but with tremendous admiration and interest. She’s such an unusual person — you can tell by the way she dresses, and that’s just the outward manifestation. I’ve made a point of reading all her books to my great joy and pleasure and enlightenment. And Mary is, to me, like the perfect human being. Her heart is as big as the soundstage; she is so generous and multi-faceted. I mean, she’s a singer, a songwriter, she has a place in Nashvile where she works with musicians. She’s a very interesting, beautiful soul with so many sides to her.

Your love interest in this film is Don Johnson. What was that like?

Jane: I’ve known Don, again, superficially for a long time, but never really well. When I had a war organization in Hollywood, he would come to all the meetings. I found out later it was because he was trying to pick up the pretty girls. But I saw him in a movie that a friend of mine made and he was so good and he looked so good, and his acting was so deep, that I said to Bill Holderman, our director and writer, “Let’s ask him if he’ll do it with me." And I’m so glad I did, because we got along really well.

Lessons Learned from Book Club

Do you think Book Club offers any “lessons” for the audience?

Jane: It’s important for young people to see a movie like this, because we want them to be less afraid of getting old. I have spent time in cultures that are not youth-focused and they’re happier cultures. So we want to try to reduce this tendency to have anti-aging. I guess the main reason that everybody’s so afraid of getting older is because we don’t look as good, but it also may unconsciously be because we’re moving closer to death, and people don’t want to die. But let’s get over the fear of death. There are cultures who are not so afraid of death. They say, “Come and get me. I’m going to live fully and I’m not afraid of you.” That’s a good attitude. So I think people will feel hopeful and inspired by this movie.

Has it been a challenge to accept yourself as you’ve gotten older?

Jane: For some of us, the journey to authenticity is a very long one into our seventies and eighties. But I will say it’s alright to be a late bloomer. As long as you can accept yourself before you die, you’ve achieved what God, the high power, the cosmic God, us, whatever you consider that larger force is, intended. What that force expects of us during our time on Earth is to become authentic before we die. Some people achieve it sooner, but I’m definitely a late bloomer. A lot of us spend way too much time trying to be perfect, which is an impossible, toxic task. The goal is good enough. One of the things that I like about Book Club is none of us are perfect, but we’re all good enough and we al come to that understanding by the end of the movie.