Character actor Linden Chiles who plays office worker Artie (who offers Marnie a Danish) was Interviewed on August 22nd 2012 in Los Angeles:
“I showed up ready to shoot on my first day, after wardrobe & makeup & so forth. I’d been over my few lines a hundred times or so it seemed AND I was nervous. I opened the sound stage door. It was completely dark and empty or so it seemed. I thought I’d come to the wrong place. Usually these cavernous dens are a beehive of activity. But not this time. I stood there for a moment and as my eyes adjusted I could make out dozens of ghostly figures rushing about. The place was a beehive but you could’ve heard a pin drop. Right about then an AD showed up and introduced herself & took me over to meet Hitchcock. He gave me a soft pudgy handshake & we went right to work in the office set with Tippi & Mariette Hartley. Hitchcock & I hardly spoke another word. He was very quiet & had next to nothing to say about my performance, but he shot the hell out of those few pages. Covered every angle. I’ve never worked with a director who did such exhaustive coverage.
“And he never deviated from the script. Many directors like to “mess around”, improvise, rework the dialogue, play with a scene, get the actors input – not Hitchcock. We shot it word for word I don’t recall how many days we spent in that office, Several as I recall. We only shot 2 or 3 pages a day. Everything was choreographed, every move, every line. I always felt that the movie, Marnie, suffered from a lack of spontaneity. Except for Sean Connery who is brilliant, whose performance jumps off the screen, all the other actors seemed flat, unreal. Just my humble opinion, of course.”
Mariette Hartley who plays office worker Susan was interviewed on December 3rd 2012 in Los Angeles
“I had such a limited time with him, mine was the same size part as Linden’s, only a little larger. I had none of those experiences with other directors that I had with Hitch and I have mixed feelings. I was new to film and working on Marnie was my first experience. Hitchcock had seen me in Gunsmoke and hired me. He and I had a wonderful time, with great repartee, he was very funny and giving, showing me the storyboarding which were exquisitely beautiful, I was so thrilled. Hitch had his own look, I feel so blessed that I was able to work with him and it was pretty amazing.”
Extracts from Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie, 2nd edition published in July 2013
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