After teaming up for last year’s “Your Sister’s Sister,” actor Rosemarie DeWitt and filmmaker Lynn Shelton are reuniting for “Touchy Feely,” which premieres this week at the Sundance Film Festival.
In the movie DeWitt plays a massage therapist who finds her work and personal lives in jeopardy when she abruptly develops an aversion to touching people. To research the part, DeWitt spoke with real therapists and admits it changed her perception of the job.
“Not in the way I thought it might, in terms of looking at the body,” she says. “More in that there’s a real person there with a whole life that is kneading and working their way into the most vulnerable, private parts of your body. So now, for me, it’s not just an anonymous person in a room. This person has opinions on me, on my body.”
DeWitt still gets massages, but she adds, “It hasn’t ruined it for me, but it definitely isn’t the same.” Added Shelton, “It’s a strange thing. I mean, you wouldn’t get that close with your good friends or co-workers.”
Also in the issue, we look at what the 2012 Sundance Festival at the Academy Awards meant to this year’s Oscar race, and actor and Sundance Festival vet Annika Marks gives Sundance visitors advice on the places and things every festivalgoer should see and do—and not do. For these and more stories, pick up a copy of the issue on newsstands Jan. 17.