“A few years ago, when I got the script for Carol (The Weinstein Company), I couldn’t imagine myself playing this part,” said actress Rooney Mara upon receiving the Spotlight Award for her role in the film at the Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards Gala held at the Palm Springs Convention Center on Saturday, January 2. “It was a time in my life when I couldn’t imagine playing any part, but it was particularly impossible for me to imagine myself playing the vulnerable naïve likes of Terese Belivet,” said the actress, clad in a short black Lanvin dress from Alber Elbaz’s final collection for the French fashion house. “Luckily, [the script] came back to me a year later,” she added.

“And now I can’t imagine not having had this experience, and that is in large part due to [the film’s director] Todd Haynes,” Mara said about playing the part of a young shopgirl working in 1950s Manhattan who catches the eye of an older woman played by Cate Blanchett in the film based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel, The Price of Salt (which Highsmith originally published under the pseudonym Claire Morgan). “I couldn’t have played this part if it weren’t for him and his deep understanding, love, and respect for women. He made me feel like it was possible to be vulnerable, possible to be naïve, and at the same time be complex as all women are,” said Mara.

Pictured: Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara at the Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards Gala.
Photo by Jeff Vespa