What are you looking for at this stage of your career?
Vanessa Hudgens: Variety, and that’s kind of what it’s always been. I love mixing it up and pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I think that’s how you grow, and then your comfort zone’s that much bigger and you keep pushing yourself more and more from there.
So where do you go from this comfort zone?
Vanessa Hudgens: Genres and situations. I haven’t really been able to… I said earlier that I haven’t been able to do fantasy, but I did Sucker Punch which is kind of a fantasy. There are so many different things to play and I live a life where I love seeing all the different aspects of life and storytelling and fantasies and thrills. There’s so much. The possibilities are limitless. Till the day I die, I know that I won’t be able to do enough.
Like The Frozen Ground, Gimme Shelter is based on a true story and each of the characters is based on one or more real life people. Do you find these roles that are rooted in reality more appealing to you?
Vanessa Hudgens: For sure. I think that it’s more appealing to humanity in general because if we are going to a movie and spend $12 or whatever it is, you actually want to get away and have it be so far from reality like Twilight or something like that. Or you want to find healing, you want to have compassion and you want to be able to grow, and I think that these true stories really allow you to connect with other people even though it is still on the screen. It allows you to really feel certain things that maybe you have never felt before, and the fact that it’s based in reality, you know that these emotions are very real and they are prevalent. So I think it’s really healing honestly to see movies that are based on true stories. It builds so much more compassion and empathy.
It’s very admirable that you’re taking on all these roles. How have each of them in their ways changed you or showed you something new?
Vanessa Hudgens: Recently all the roles that I’ve done have really just showed me that I am willing to go on the extra mile and actually really put the work in. It showed me that I’m very dedicated to what I do which is nice to remind yourself of, and it has made me grow so much being that I’ve been able to look in first hand at what’s going on in the world and around me. I feel like I’ve lived a pretty sheltered life growing up and then I was in the industry when I was very young, so certain aspects of these girls’ lives that I’ve been playing I’ve never really experienced. The more you know, the more you’re a fuller person. So it just made me grow for sure.
Speaking of living a sheltered life, talk about the time you spent in the pregnancy shelters with those girls.
Vanessa Hudgens: It was amazing. I am so, so grateful I had the time to go and stay there because it really allowed their stories to become reality rather than just a story. They really opened up to me and they shared their stories with me, and I just got to witness firsthand how strong these young women are. It’s crazy though. In the beginning it was a complete shock. I had never been around girls that young who were pregnant, but it was interesting because I really got to look at their lives and see that they are still just girls and they have the same needs than any other 16-year-old would have. But due to their situation it’s easy for people to judge, and I hate that. So it was really nice to really be able to see the humanity and the love that these girls have.
Now Kathy DiFiore has very strict rules in her shelters like no cell phones and no outside contact…
Vanessa Hudgens: I definitely broke the no cell phone rule on the first day (laughs).
Should we not print that?
Vanessa Hudgens: No you can (laughs).
How much did you try to get away with?
Vanessa Hudgens: Not a lot. I think just in the beginning being in this environment was such a shock to begin with. And just knowing that I was going to completely disassociate myself from the life I am used to was terrifying. It’s really scary, and for me to be out there on my own… I didn’t have any family with me. It just really made me get into that mindset and to be able to become one of the girls in their same circumstance. But yeah, I called my mom and said, “Why am I doing this?” After I got over the initial shock and got out of the way of myself, I just dived in and it was amazing because I would work on my script at the shelter and if I had me questions I would go to the girls and asked them what they thought. But for the most part I just tried to be one of them. I tried to like the same things that they liked and just become a little 16-year-old girl who is staying in the shelter with a baby (laughs).
How long were you in the shelter?
Vanessa Hudgens: I was there for about two weeks before we started filming, maybe a little longer.
That concludes our interview but we’d like to thank Vanessa very much for talking with us. Be sure to catch Gimme Shelter as it’s now in theatres.