Star Rebecca Hall didn't eat a bite on 'The Dinner'

Rebecca Hall’s name may not immediately ring a bell, but she’s done some good work in some really good films.

You’d know her when you see her, in other words, and you can see her in films like “The Prestige,” “Frost/Nixon,” “The Awakening” and “The BFG.” She also stars, along with Richard Gere, Laura Linney and Steve Coogan, in “The Dinner,” Oren Moverman’s drama about a pair of brothers whose families are embroiled in a horrible tragedy.

A lot of the film takes place at an absurdly expensive restaurant, with the four main characters around a table talking and arguing and trying to figure things out. Hall talked recently about the process of making the film.

Things To Do app: Get the best in events, dining and travel right on your device

Question: What attracted you to the film?

Answer: I read the script and it really stayed with me, it upset me, rocked me in some way. That’s something I think I look for.

Q: It’s one of those movies you think about for a while after.

A: I’ve only seen it once, and I think about it plenty. Not just because I was in it. Because I think it’s an extraordinary piece of filmmaking. It’s so unusual in places, and does so many assured yet counterintuitive things. I’m talking about the filmmaking. I found it quite interesting.

RELATED:  Review: 'The Dinner' serves up tense conversation

Q: I have to ask, the food – presumably in real life you weren’t sitting there eating the whole time you shot. Was it even real?

A: You know what, I think it was real, but I was so delirious half the time that I don’t think I even noticed the food. (They shot scenes in the wee hours of the morning.) I mean, I never eat in the film, you may or may not have noticed. I drink some wine. I don’t think anyone does. We circumvent that part of the evening somehow. I barely even noticed it. My main memory is Michael Chernus (who plays the host) doing those extraordinary explanations of all the courses, which were pretty much being written on the spot, actually. He’d keep delivering them and Oren would suggest that he add three or four lines of whatever, about whatever it was – earth-grown root or whatever it was – just hysterically funny. It was just preposterous (laughs). It’s just a very long-winded, poetic way of saying, here’s some food.

Q: Do you frequent that type of place?

A: (Laughs) No. I don’t know kind of what that restaurant is or whether it exists. I’ve certainly never been anywhere like that. I suppose, yeah, I mean I like to eat, so I’ll go to some nice restaurants. But my taste is probably a bit more simplistic and basic. I’d rather things taste good than be extraordinarily fancy.

I wish I could tell you who, because it would be a much better story, but I’m going to be discreet about it, but someone offered me on a movie set – they had a chef – they offered me a dessert that was made with liquid nitrogen, which is one of the craziest things. It hardly tasted of anything, but it was just the effect of this bonbon in your mouth, and all of this smoke came out (laughs). Very strange. One of the odder moments in my life, right there.

Q: It’s an awfully good cast. Did you ever sit back and say, hey, we’re doing some good work here?

A: (Laughs) Yeah, I mean, in every film I do there are always those moments where everyone comes together and really plays the same piece. And on this one even more so, because the way it was shot, it wasn’t really separated into conventional coverage, like we did someone’s close-up, or we did Laura’s close-up or we did Richard’s close-up. It didn’t work like that. Most of the time the camera was on a dolly and we didn’t really know what it was covering. We just knew that we had to play the scene, for real, all together.

Q: That is different.

A: And also we didn’t rehearse, because Oren likes to construct things out of a certain amount of chaos. He likes all of the danger that comes with actors getting together and saying their lines for the first time. He likes to get that on film. And because there wasn’t an enormous amount of blocking – we were sitting around this table – we were able to play these long scenes and just run at them and see what happens. All of us had no idea what was going to happen, but there were definitely moments where we’d finish a take and I thought, “Wow! That really came together” (laughs). A lot of it was improvised. It was a brilliantly written script, but there was also freedom within that to keep things alive and speak when you want to speak and make it feel natural and messy and overlappy and all that sort of thing. To be sharp and to keep up with the level of people who are consummate film actors, like Richard Gere, a brilliant actor of all variety, Laura Linney, and also brilliant improvisers like Steve Coogan, you really had to be very alert. That was very exciting to be a part of.

Q: There are some intense scenes. Of course you’re acting, but does it ever get uncomfortable when you’re really into it?

A: We know what to do as actors, and what that means is we know how to decide at a moment’s notice, when someone calls, “Action,” to believe entirely that what is happening is happening. You don’t fake it. If someone calls, “Action,” you choose to believe that your side of the dinner table and what is happening is real. And when someone calls, “Cut” you choose not to believe it anymore. In that moment, when you’re believing it, of course you feel uncomfortable. You feel what you’re feeling. But then you have some perspective on it and some understanding of it. That’s what makes you a technical actor, is to have perspective on that process. … We have to imagine and believe what we’re going through is what we’re going through. That’s the job.

MORE AZCENTRAL ON SOCIAL: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.