The Big Picture

Mary Elizabeth Winstead expresses her excitement about revisiting Scott Pilgrim through a different medium, like the anime series, and how it resonated with her. Returning to the character of Ramona Flowers was an emotional experience for Winstead, as it brought back memories and allowed her to reflect on her growth since playing the role. While Winstead appreciates anime, she wasn’t heavily familiar with the genre before working on Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, but she was impressed with how it brought depth and beauty to the story.

Based on the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, created for television by BenDavid Grabinski, and executive produced by Edgar Wright, the Netflix anime series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off sees the cast of the original movie returning to voice their characters. While it’s not the sequel to 2010’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World that many fans had been hoping for, the eight episodes give an alternate perspective that, instead of Scott Pilgrim (voiced by Michael Cera), follows Ramona Flowers (voiced by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) on a journey to find who is responsible for his disappearance. And while the League of Evil Exes are still all there, it’s up to Ramona to investigate her way to an ultimate epic showdown.

During this interview with Collider, Winstead talked about how cool it was to get to return to a character she hadn’t played in over a decade and how it led her to reflect on who she was the first time around, what it was like to peel back new layers of Ramona Flowers, the appreciation she has for anime, and how she’d be game to do another season, but that it might be cool to wait another 10 years. She also hopes to return to her Ahsoka character Hera Syndulla, and said that making the upcoming TV series A Gentleman in Moscow with husband Ewan McGregor was a dream come true.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Release Date November 17, 2023 Cast Michael Cera , Mary Elizabeth Winstead , Kieran Culkin , Brie Larson , Chris Evans , Mae Whitman , Alison Pill , Ellen Wong , Brandon Routh , Jason Schwartzman , Aubrey Plaza Main Genre Action-Adventure Rating TV-14 Seasons 1 Streaming Service(s) Netflix

Returning to Her ‘Scott Pilgrim’ Character Felt Like Going Back in Time For Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Image via Netflix

Collider: It’s so wild to be talking to you about Scott Pilgrim and to have it be a new project. It feels like we’re in a time warp.

MARY ELIZABETH WINSTEAD: It’s so crazy! It really feels like going back in time. It’s amazing to get to revisit it in so many different ways. It’s really cool.

With Scott Pilgrim, there are the original books, the film, the video game, and now this anime series. They’re all different variations of the story, but Edgar Wright has said they’re still all canon. Was this series pitched to you as a new interpretation? Did you discover Ramona Flowers was the lead as you were reading the script?

WINSTEAD: I discovered it all in real time. It was all existing in Bryan Lee O’Malley’s and BenDavid Grabinski’s heads. They were off creating something really magnificent and just trusting that we were all game to do it, which we were. We were all really excited to do it, no matter what. We just knew it was gonna be cool and fun to get everybody back together again, in some capacity. Everything about it was really unexpected for me, that Ramona became the focus, that it became this really meta story about all of our lives in parallel and the characters and the journeys they go on. It was so universally resonant for me. None of that really hit me until I was actually in the recording booth going, “Oh, my God, you guys have done something really powerful and amazing with this.” So, it was a really special thing to get to unpeel the layers as time went on.

What was the best part about getting to play Ramona again? Were there challenges in returning to her, so many years after playing her?

WINSTEAD: It was a huge experience for all of us, making the film, and that comes with all the history of your old self. There were a lot of things that came flooding back for me, of just the person that I used to be, and having to go back to that and be in that body again. It was definitely more emotional than I expected it to be. I was like, “Oh, God, I’ve been taken back in time and I’m being myself at 24.” There’s just a lot of feelings around that. It was amazing to get to go on this journey with that version of myself and that version of Ramona and get to grow with her in this truncated time frame. It was almost like experiencing being myself at 24 and myself at 38, and in a few months’ time, I went through all that time with her, which was just amazing. It was a deep process that I totally didn’t expect. I just expected to go in and have fun, and it ended up being more powerful to me than that.

Making ‘Scott Pilgrim’ Was Influential on the Cast’s Formative Years
Image via Universal Pictures 

I would imagine this character was already special to you because of the following it’s had, and then it gives you all that self-reflection to come back to it. That must have been such a surreal experience.

WINSTEAD: It was absolutely surreal and unexpected. I think the reason why we’re so game to always come back to it and it has stayed with us for all these years is because it was really an influential thing that happened in our very formative years. There’s a lot to say around playing these characters and being a part of this project, and it means a lot to all of us.

Now that you’ve played these different versions of her, what was it like exploring the different sides?

WINSTEAD: A lot of it was getting the chance to show sides of her that I did feel were always there, but we just didn’t really have the time in a film version to explore it. What felt really special to me was going, “Yeah, all this is the fuller picture of Ramona.” Scott Pilgrim vs. the World wasn’t really her story, so now we get to see a version of it that is more her story. That was really amazing to get to go, “How does she feel about what’s happening?” Actually getting to see that expressed and shown through the anime was really amazing. Just to allow people to get to connect with her a bit more was something that I had always longed for, so to have that come to fruition was really amazing.

This series is anime, through and through. Had you ever watched anime? Did you know anything about anime before doing this?

WINSTEAD: I certainly have an appreciation for it, but I can’t say that I’m someone who watches a lot of it. It’s similar to when I signed onto the movie. Everybody would always ask me if I read graphic novels and I would be like, “I can’t say that I’m a huge graphic novel reader, but I love Scott Pilgrim.” This was a similar thing. When I watched it, I was blown away with just the beauty of it, which I think comes from that style. What they were able to create through the visuals and the music, there’s a real quality about it that feels very deep and personal and beyond what you would expect from a “cartoon.” I can see that that is the anime style that brings a lot of that, which is really lovely.

Would you want to do another season of this? Are there things that you would still like to explore with her, or do you feel like when you do something like this, that it’s better to leave it as a self-contained retelling instead of risking it not being as good?

WINSTEAD: I think we would all be so happy to do more, just in the sense that we love these characters and we love getting an opportunity to be together. But the reality of it is that this was a lightning in a bottle moment where we all got to come back after 10 years and revisit these characters with all the changes that have occurred since then and the people that we are now. Bryan and BenDavid did such an amazing job of infusing it with all those journeys and feelings, and I think doing another one might make more sense in another 10 years, to see what feelings come out of that time frame. So, I don’t know. The ball is in their court, in terms of whether there is another story to tell that would have that same magical feeling.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead Hopes to Do Another Season of ‘Ahsoka’
Image via Disney+

Have you thought about what you would want to explore with Hera, if you get to do more of Ahsoka? What an awesome character that is.

WINSTEAD: She’s such an amazing character. There’s such a wealth of experiences that we could bring to [Hera], in terms of either going back and showing a bit of her backstory, of what led up to the moment where we see her in Ahsoka, or at least just feeling it through getting to know where she’s at now in her journey. It’s so hard to talk about without giving away things that might have been discussed in the past. All the fans of her and of Rebels know that there’s so much that can be done with that role, so I would be really excited to get to go down that path.

Do you get tidbits or details from Dave Filoni? Do you even try to get information from him, or is he just a locked vault when it comes to secrets and spoilers?

WINSTEAD: He’s pretty open when it comes to things he would like to do. He lives and breathes Star Wars and there’s an infinite amount of things that he would like to do, that he could do, and his brain is firing on so many levels. I just try not to get too caught up in it because you never know what’s really going to be able to be accomplished and what’s going to make sense within all the storylines. I just wait until they call for me, and then I’ll be like, “Oh, cool, they’re actually going with that idea,” or “Oh, I guess they decided not to.” I just try to go with the flow. But it’s great to get little hints at his process and his frame of mind. It’s really cool.

When it comes to the acting of it all, whether it’s something like Ahsoka where you’re in everything with the costume, the makeup and the prosthetics, or something like Scott Pilgrim Takes Off where you’re bringing the character to life through your voice, what are those discoveries like in finding different ways to perform like that? You get to use your full body and physicality for Ahsoka, but there’s so much added as well.

WINSTEAD: Yeah, it’s interesting. Both of those experiences were very new for me. Stepping into Hera, I’d never been a different color with prosthetics on my head to try and manage. There have become these technical things that you have to become aware of that, as an actor, normally I’m not. In a way, it was really nice to be challenged in new ways, after having been an actor for 20 plus years now, to still be like, “Oh, this is something I have not done before and I have to figure out how to navigate this.” Similarly, with stepping into the recording booth [for Scott Pilgrim Takes Off] and not really having much voice acting experience and going, “Okay, how can I be true to Ramona and very natural and real, but also pop up my voice a little bit more, so that the emotion is really being expressed that way?” It was just another new challenge. I feel really grateful that I’m still getting those opportunities to be challenged in new ways.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead Said Making ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ Was A Dream Come True
Image via FX

You also have A Gentleman in Moscow, which sounds like a very interesting character exploration. What appealed to you about telling that story and playing that character? What are you excited for fans to see with that?

WINSTEAD: It’s an incredibly beautiful, sweeping epic story. It just encompasses so many universal themes of love and loss and war, in a way that really pulls on the heartstrings, but it’s also funny and odd. I think it’s a brilliant book, and I think people who love the book will hopefully really be excited to go on the journey with these characters. To get to be in that time period, from the twenties through the fifties, and to get to play it out with my husband and do these really fun, passionate scenes together, was just so exciting. It was really a dream come true.

It feels like when you tell a story like that and you’re acting with somebody who knows you as well as your husband would, that there’s no hiding and you can’t fake it. And it would be the same for him with you.

WINSTEAD: Yeah, it was the best. It was so easy, especially with the emotional scenes where we got to connect that way. It wasn’t very hard to imagine that it was real because it’s your real partner there with you. It was a really great way to get to act. It was amazing.

You’ve done some pretty incredible projects and some pretty great work in them. But what is the most nervous you’ve been, before stepping on set for the first day of filming?

WINSTEAD: Oh, gosh, I was probably quite nervous, in terms of my recent work, for Hera, just because of all that comes along with that, and really wanting to do justice to the role and also make it my own. There are so many layers of nervousness that come along with stepping into that world. And then, when I think about my early work, it’s just all nerves, all the time. It’s just a blur of nervousness. But in my more adult career, I would say stepping into Star Wars was a nerve-wracking experience. I was very grateful to have people like Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau and Carrie Beck, who were just so cool about it and so loving and warm and supportive. They made it much easier.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is available to stream at Netflix. Check out the trailer:

Watch on Netflix