カメレオンのような女優

今更ながらRooney Maraの存在を気に掛けるようになったのですが、彼女は先月発売された米国版VOGUE2月号の表紙にもなっていて、彼女の特集記事を読めるようになっていました。今回はその記事を取り上げます。



TOEICを学習している人に対して「TOEICなんて流行に流されてしまって」と批判する人もいますが、いい年こいてミシェル・ウィリアムズだ！　ジェニファー・ローレンスだ！と流行の女優にときめいてしまっている自分はそういう批判をする資格はなさそうです（苦笑）

Rooney Mara: The Changeling
by Hamish Bowles | photographed by David Sims

Earlier in the year she worked with the antic Spike Jonze on the science-fiction romance Her, and with writer-director David Lowery on the independent Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, a love story set in the seventies in the hills of Texas. Meanwhile, her fourth project of 2012, Steven Soderbergh’s suspenseful thriller Side Effects, is released this month.

“It’s been very strange, jumping from one character to the next,” says the chameleon Mara. “All four of them were very intense experiences. . . . I really feel sometimes like those things are happening to me. Obviously they’re not. But it’s hard going from one to the next.

「カメレオンのような女優」という日本語的には今どき使わないようなブログ記事タイトルをつけましたが、僕のせいではありません。いろいろと表情を変える素晴らしい女優だと前回の記事で書きましたが、この記事では次々といろいろな役柄をこなして4作もの映画に出演したからか、the chameleon Maraと表現していました。といっても通常は「ころころ態度を変える奴」といった悪い意味になるようですね。

（オックスフォード）
chameleon
1 a small lizard (= a type of reptile ) that can change color according to its surroundings
2 (often disapproving) a person who changes their behavior or opinions according to the situation
a social/political chameleon

ミシェル・ウィリアムズもそうでしたが、自分の好みの女優（女性？）は決まってしまっているようです。シャイでありながらも、よりよいものでありたいという向上心を持っていることでしょうか。以下の部分を読むと向上心があり、自分に厳しい彼女を伺うことができます。

“And I’m hypercritical of myself,” she adds in a masterpiece of understatement. “Anytime I see anything I’ve done, I wish that it had gone differently because you figure it out as you go along, and you’re always discovering new things. I’d probably feel that way about anything that I did.”

シャイであることは彼女が女優になった要因の一つでもあったようです。「自分らしくあれ」ということが社会要請としてありますが、I can be someone else.というベクトルも芸術の分野ならむしろプラスに働くようですね。

And yet, a surprising degree of personal shyness has clung to the actress since early childhood. “I think that’s part of the reason I like acting,” Mara explains. “I can be someone else. I get to express a lot of things that maybe are hard for me to express in my normal life.” She relishes a role with an accent for this reason: “I just find it easier to lose yourself. I’d really rather hide behind the character. It’s like a party trick! Not that I go to parties.”

そんな彼女なので、プレミア試写会のようなものは苦手でnightmareと語っています。When we wrap a film and everyone claps and cheers, I turn redと撮影終わりのクランクアップでのスタッフのねぎらいでも赤面してしまうと言っていますね。

In fact, she finds the whole red-carpet experience “a nightmare! It’s a panic attack waiting to happen. I don’t even like people to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me. When we wrap a film and everyone claps and cheers, I turn red. And then I have to walk out onto the middle of this carpet and there are all these photographers, and they’re all screaming at you. And usually there’s a party at the other end of it, so it’s not even like I have solace at the end of the carpet! It’s like then I have to walk into my other nightmare!”

シャイである彼女ですが、for someone who loves to eavesdrop and people-watch, I feel like in the city you can be very alone and disappear.とありますから人間に対する興味は強そうですね。日本語でも「人間観察」と言いますが、英語でもpeople-watchなんですね。また、I think part of the reason is I’m like a sponge. If I’m in a group, I get exhausted immediately picking up everyone’s feelings. If they’re sad, I take it all on, and I can feel it. とあるので、人間の感情に対する感受性の高さもあるようです。というよりも感受性が強すぎてしまうので人が多いと疲れてしまうようです。

On the other hand, her roots are in New York. She was raised in Westchester and went to college in the city—and she plans to return east one day. “For me, the seasons are so powerful. The smell of the fall or the spring, it brings back so much.” And “for someone who loves to eavesdrop and people-watch,” she adds, “I feel like in the city you can be very alone and disappear. And so I love that because I like to be alone a lot. I think part of the reason is I’m like a sponge. If I’m in a group, I get exhausted immediately picking up everyone’s feelings. If they’re sad, I take it all on, and I can feel it.” Although it’s useful for her craft, “it’s just not that useful for life!” she says. “I’ll go to the grocery store or something, and come home and be exhausted because I’ve really picked up someone else’s sadness or shame . . . anything. It really affects me. I’ve had to figure out a way to turn that off, and that makes me a little bit more guarded.”

でも彼女は単なるシャイで引っ込み思案だけで終わらなかったから今のハリウッドでの地位を築けたのでしょう。行動に移すべきところはしっかりと実現させる強さのようなものがなければ競争が激しい社会ですから生き残れていないでしょう。そんな彼女の行動力の強さを示すエピソードがアフリカを援助するNGOを立ち上げ役員になっているということでしょう。

Eventually Mara found a place at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she was able to create her own major. “I was just so uninspired in a regular classroom,” she remembers. She took a course called Writing About Africa and did a research paper on child soldiers that inspired her to travel to the continent to volunteer. She ended up working in an orphanage in Nairobi’s Kibera, an enormous slum, where it is believed a million people live in one square mile of squalor. “It was very . . . surreal,” she remembers of her first few days. “I just felt so overwhelmed, hopeless. But it was an incredible experience, and I formed this amazing bond with a lot of the kids there.” Back at NYU, she organized her curriculum around creating a nonprofit, now the Uweza Aid Foundation.

“I knew I wasn’t going to be able to change the way things were there,” she says, “but at least I could help the few kids that I grew to love and care about.” Mara’s foundation has created a boys’ and girls’ community center in Kibera. “We have a soccer league and a journalism program, an art program, and tutoring. It’s not reinventing the wheel, it’s not changing hundreds of thousands of lives, but it’s something. And for those kids that go there and get to go to soccer every week, it means a lot to them.

彼女がPresidentとBoard of Directorsを務めるUweza Aid Foundationのサイトを訪れてみましたが、彼女の存在が分かるのはOur Teamというコーナーだけで、他はケニアの子供たちとNGOの団体の活動が紹介されているだけでした。「わ～た～し、ボランティアしている心やさしいわ～た～し」といった安っぽい人間ではない人がハリウッドにいるとほっとしますね。

Rooney Mara
President, Board of Directors
Rooney founded an organization called Faces of Kibera in 2007 after first traveling to Kenya in 2006. She has returned several times since then and Faces of Kibera and Uweza have worked closely on joint projects. In 2011, the two organizations decided to pool resources and merge to work more efficiently and effectively.

（団体の紹介文）
Introduction To Uweza

Uweza is Kiswahili for ability and power. Uweza Foundation fights the cycle of poverty that persists in Kenya's Kibera slum. We nurture and build upon the already existing capabilities and resourcefulness of Kenyans through community-based empowerment programs. All of our projects are developed and/or run by Kenyans, primarily residents of Kibera who are dedicated to the betterment of their community.

Uweza is a 501(c)(3) organization registered in the State of Illinois and a registered NGO in Kenya. Current projects include a soccer academy, journalism and art clubs, traditional dancing group, educational sponsorship, and life skills training.

この団体のサイトを見ていて、NGO設立にあたり税控除の申請を財務省に出したようですが、その許可を示す文書も公開されていました。こういう文書を見ると、TOEIC対策をしてきた方はスラスラ読めるのではないでしょうか。

Dear Applicant:
we are pleased to inform you that upon review of your application for tax exempt status we have determined that you are exempt from Federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions to you are deductible under section 170 of the Code. You are also qualified to receive tax deductible bequests, devises, transfers or gifts under section 2055, 2106 or 2522 of the Code. Because this letter could help resolve any questions regarding your exempt status, you should keep it in your permanent records.

Organizations exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Code are further classified as either public charities or private foundations. We determined that you are a public charity under the Code section(s) listed in the heading of this letter.

Shortly before the end of your advance ruling period, we will send you Form. 8734, Support Schedule for Advance Ruling Period. You will have 90 days after the end of your advance ruling period to return the completed form. We will then notify you, in writing, about your public charity status.

Please see enclosed Publication 4221-PC, Compliance Guide for 501(c)(3) Public Charities, for some helpful information about your responsibilities as an exempt organization.

2007年から2008年の文面はどの団体に対しても一緒のようでした（笑）

http://www.handsacrossthesea.net/images/Hands_IRS_Tax-Exempt_Status_Letter.pdf

http://www.handsacrossthesea.net/images/Hands_IRS_Tax-Exempt_Status_Letter.pdf

どうでもいいことですが、2011年ごろのはShortly beforeのパラグラフが抜けていました。

http://bcmac.info/Information/Corp%20Info/BCMAC%20501c3%20Determination%20Letter.pdf

http://www.cleantechlosangeles.org/media_CleanLA/files/501(c)3.DeterminationLetter-3v-c32.pdf


今回のVogueの記事とこのような通知レターを見比べるとはっきりしますが、そもそも扱われているものが違うんですよね。I feel like in the city you can be very alone and disappear.のような心情を吐露するものと、税控除御の告知文では次元が違うのは明らかですよね。

洋画や洋楽が好きで英語も好きな人は、感情を表現したりすることの方がしっくりくるでしょう。僕自身もRooney Maraの言葉に共感したからこそわざわざ記事にしました。もしかしたら、洋画や洋楽が好きで、仕事で英語を使う見込みがない人が英語の勉強としてTOEICをやるのは悲劇かもしれません。

一方で、このような通知文を読んでTOEICっぽいなと感じることができた方は、フォーマルなやり取りの文の感覚がつかめている人ですね。忙しいビジネスマンに英語を覚えてもらう場合、優先順位は感情表現よりも、このような通知文がしっかり言えることに違いありません。少なくとも自分が経営者だったら、フォーマルな基本的なやり取りをまず覚えてもらうように研修プログラムを組んでもらいます。給料をもらう以上、気さくに話すというよりも、きっちりと仕事を進めてくれる人でないと困りますからね。

全部をきっちりとできたら素晴らしいですが、時間は有言ですから、なかなか難しいですよね。そうなると、どうしても自分にとっての優先順位を決めて取り組むという、当たり前の結論に戻ってしまうんでしょうね。