This week a new drama is available on VOD starring Alicia Witt and Nick Stahl, and you can use Fan TV to find it by clicking the links and photos. In Away From Here Stahl plays a man returning to his hometown after a prison sentence, and Witt plays Lily, a waitress at the diner where he gets a job.

We got to speak with Witt by phone about her role in the new movie, her upcoming roles in Justified and A Madea Christmas as well as some of the memorable roles she played early in her career. It was just after Thanksgiving weekend so we began by talking about her Vegan Thanksgiving. Leave us a comment below about Alicia Witt and her latest dramatic work.

Fan Voice: What do you have instead of turkey for Vegan Thanksgiving?

Alicia Witt: The truth is, anywhere you are in the world you can find some pretty good turkey like substitutions. I don’t really like the ones that try to imitate turkey as much if that makes sense. I make stuffing and cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, all that stuff. So having something like a protein to go with it all really rounds out the meal well.

Fan Voice: I went to three Thanksgivings and by the second was regretting that decision.

Alicia Witt: We had invitations to three as well and we just chose to avoid all that driving, stayed in and watched a movie, had some whiskey and a nice dinner.

Fan Voice: You like whisky?

Alicia Witt: Yes, I do! Very much.

Fan Voice: What’s your favorite?

Alicia Witt: The one that we’re liking at the moment is Macallan 15 year, which is really for special occasions. The single malt scotches are really nice, especially at the end of the day.

Fan Voice: I had a Macallan 25 year once. It was spectacular.

Alicia Witt: Ohhhhhhh. Wow. That sounds like that would just about spoil you for everything else.

Fan Voice: It kind of does. So did you ever waitress while you were starting out?

Alicia Witt: I didn’t waitress but what my day job was when I moved to L.A. and was in that position of trying to make a living while not making a living as an actor, was I was actually a lounge pianist. I played background music at the Beverly Wilshire hotel for two and a half years, starting when I was 16. Actually even before that, when I was 15, I played for Sunday brunches. I had a little business card. I would do people’s weddings and birthday parties and that sort of thing. So I think I was really lucky that I was able to do that because unlike waiting tables, you actually get to really daydream a bit. I’m sure I would’ve spilled so much food on people if I had been a real waitress.

Fan Voice: Did you have to get somewhat good at waitressing with the prop food?

Alicia Witt: I do love to cook and I love serving people. I love having dinner parties and that sort of thing but then that’s my domain. I’m very comfortable with food, but if I were in a situation, I’ve been horrified in my life just seeing how some people treat servers and I have a short fuse. I don’t think I would have been very good at handling that sort of treatment. I have a hard time not saying what I think.

Fan Voice: Don’t you have to learn some diplomacy in this business?

Alicia Witt: Yeah, you would think. I guess I’ve learned some diplomacy. I’m still guilty of being way too honest a lot of the time. My friends know that I’m the first person their haircut looks like sh**. I’ve tried so hard over the years to get a little kinder about that sort of thing but the way I see it, I’d rather people be really honest with me too. I don’t like diplomacy as a rule.

Fan Voice: With a drama like Away From Here, was self-pity something you had to avoid in your performance? Because you did, I was impressed.

Alicia Witt: Certainly for Lily, I didn’t feel like she had much of any self-pity. That’s one of the things I loved about the character. I felt like she’s actually trying really hard to keep it together and the thing that’s magical about when she and James collide is that their walls come down almost against their better instincts. It’s like these two people who have spent so much of their life running away from their feelings and without even knowing each other’s history, they just kind of intuitively see that they’re in the presence of someone who’s experiencing a very similar thing.

Fan Voice: What sort of character work or rehearsal were you able to do for Away From Here?

Alicia Witt: I didn’t really have that much time to rehearse. I remember getting together with Bruce, the director, for lunch, for a brunch-like meeting the day before we started shooting but Nick and I didn’t really have much time to go over anything. I think we first said hello that morning at 5AM in the back of the van, but the good thing was that actually our first scene, it was boarded in such a way that the first scene that we filmed was actually the first scene in which we met, so I always love when that takes place. The awkwardness of actually working together for the first morning was, I think, reflected a little bit in those early scenes.

Fan Voice: Did you do any individual preparation then?

Alicia Witt: I didn’t do anything such as I know some actors like to do journal writing and all that kind of thing, but for me my process generally is I love music so I tend to find songs that I think reflect what the character is going through and I listen to them pretty nonstop while I’m preparing to take something on. I loved this script right away. I remember I was sent a whole bunch of them and sat down to read and there were quite a few not so good ones in the bunch. Then this one came along and for an actor sometimes you get asked to do things and sometimes you have to audition for them. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this was one of the ones that I wouldn’t have to audition for. They were already asking me to do it so I was very, very excited about that. I loved the character. It made a lot of sense to me. I don’t think I did any specific preparation for her. I can certainly relate to not revealing all of what’s going on with you and also being guarded. I think we can all relate to having been hurt in life, in relationships, in family situations and Lily is going through all of that so I felt like she’s somebody that I could easily have been if life had just dealt me a slightly different hand.

Fan Voice: What were some of the songs for Lily?

Alicia Witt: I can’t quite remember. I feel like maybe some Alison Krauss, some Shawn Colvin. I’m thinking of “Don’t Know Why” by Shawn Colvin. That was probably one of the ones I listened to.

Fan Voice: Was the theme of forgiveness important for you to explore?

Alicia Witt: Well, definitely. That was one of the themes that I loved regardless of circumstance. It’s something most people can relate to and I certainly can. It’s not only forgiveness of other people’s transgressions or mistakes that they’ve made but when you can forgive someone else’s, you are also forgiving yourself. And I think so often when people are as judgmental as they can be, they’re often just really full of anger at themselves for their own mistakes.

Fan Voice: I love to talk about your classic roles as well. Was Mr. Holland’s Opus a big one for you?

Alicia Witt: It turned out to be. It was something that I did, I was still playing piano for a living when I did that movie. I was 18 and I had already had a film at Sundance but it hadn’t all kicked in yet. I was pretty unaware of the fact that that movie was going to have the kind of impact that it did. I learned to play the clarinet for it and then it was later that year that I got my first job on a series, which let me quit playing the piano. Then Mr. Holland’s Opus came out the following year, so yeah, that was a really exciting time.

Fan Voice: But was it clear in the script that that was a pivotal character?

Alicia Witt: Yeah, definitely. I was pretty naive though, especially then. I still am to a certain extent about what things people might still be talking about years later. I knew that working with Dreyfus was a special experience, and he was really good to me. He never made me feel like I was inexperienced or that I didn’t know what I was doing. Wow, the job they did on making him look as young as they did for those early scenes which are when I was there, the ‘60s period of the film, that was amazing. I remember walking onto the set the first day that we were going to shoot, and I’d already met him, and I didn’t even realize that he was in the room. He looked so different.

Fan Voice: So when you were a child on Dune, was that not an attempt to start a young acting career?

Alicia Witt: It really wasn’t. It was a complete coincidence and I had been on a variety show that my mom had basically submitted me for when I was five. Two years later, that show repeated and the casting director happened to catch it and got in touch with my parents through the white pages. Then next thing I knew I was auditioning for David Lynch in New York. It had never occurred to me or my parents that I would have that kind of career. We lived in Massachusetts and I didn’t know anybody who did it, but I think for my parents especially, getting to meet some very experienced actors and seeing that they were level headed and smart and kind, and that it was actually a very respectable way for somebody to make a living was a key element to them being so supportive of me doing it when I got a little bit older.

Fan Voice: What will you get to do on Justified?

Alicia Witt: Oh, I am playing, there’s a whole new family being introduced this season and Mike Rappaport is the head of this really bad crime family that’s based out of the Florida Everglades. I’m his sister and the two of us are basically trying to keep our family together, but I’m a paralegal and sort of riding a fine line between family allegiance and trying to make a better life for myself. So basically we’re this other section of the Crowe family that’s going to wreak some havoc on Raylan Givens’ life this season.

Fan Voice: Is it from the books or an all new character?

Alicia Witt: I’m pretty sure it’s a new character. I know that Dewey Crowe has been on the show off and on from the beginning. He’s our cousin, so this is a whole other bunch of Crowes that we haven’t met before.

Fan Voice: Do you have a funny or dramatic role in A Madea Christmas?

Alicia Witt: My role is a little more straight. I don’t have a whole lot of over the top silly stuff to do in that, but it was fun to try and keep from laughing at what Tyler Perry was doing. I’m looking forward to seeing it.

As Alicia Witt would later explain, it’s taken her awhile to get to a place where she no longer carried her characters with her offscreen. Still, to hear her co-star Nick Stahl tell it, there’s one element of her character in their new film “Away From Here” that she has in common onscreen and off.

“You’ve got an amazing memory,” Stahl said. “It’s impressive. I don’t remember half this stuff, but you bring it up and it all comes back.”

For Stahl’s deeply troubled former youth pastor James, that’s an issue as he tries to carve out a new identity for himself as a past indiscretion continues to haunt him, yet with the aid of the waitress (Witt) at the local coffee joint where he starts out as a dishwasher, he’s liable to find the stability he needs to get back on his feet. What keeps “Away From Here” on its toes, however, is the chemistry between two old pros in the still quite youthful Witt and Stahl, who balance each other out nicely as burgeoning couple that steps gingerly towards a serious relationship.

Despite a shoot that featured Witt’s earliest call time on record and a long journey to the screen, the two fondly recalled their time making the intimate drama, working together for the first time and reflecting on how their approach to acting has changed since when they both started as kids.

How did you get interested in this film?

Alicia Witt: I felt like the character really was someone that I related to very strongly right away, and she seemed liked somebody I could easily have been if life had dealt me different cards. There was nothing in her wariness or her openness that I didn’t relate to and I loved the balance that she strikes between having been hurt, and put up some really big walls, and also taking the chance at letting this stranger in because she can almost intuitively tell that he’s going through something similar.

Nick Stahl: Yeah, and something really spoke to me about Jamie, whose whole journey [was about] leaving this darker past behind, trying to make a new start for himself, and [having] a lot of his demons getting reflected back to him through his relationships. Overcoming these things and coming up the other side [made it] a really beautiful story.

Did you spend any time together before shooting to develop the relationship or was it best not to have too much prep?

AW: What’s great about this story is that at the beginning of it the two of them are actually strangers. We’ve met a couple of times before, but we certainly didn’t know each other very well, so the first couple of scenes where you see them meet in the film are actually the first couple of scenes that we filmed. That slight awkwardness you see is real and it was such a joy to get to work with Nick. I felt we are very similar kinds of actors in that we love playing off the other person and not rehearsing a whole lot, mapping out exactly what’s going on at every beat of the scene and letting the life of it takeover. It was a real joy.

NS: We didn’t end up having a whole lot of time to just know each beforehand, but it actually worked out real well. We spent a lot of time during the filming actually hanging out.

AW: I remember that one scene where we were playing pool we shot [after] one of the nights I performed [a concert] in New York where we did the shoot and Nick had come out, which was really nice, but then we had insomnia. We were texting at each other at like two in the morning, “Are you awake?” “Yes, but it’s so late.” Then the van showed up to take us to work at 3:55 a.m. and when I saw the movie, I actually did not remember filming the scene that we did that morning. It was a pretty good scene I think, but when I actually watched it and I was like, “Wait, when did we shoot this?” I think we were both so completely tired that we were giddy.

I’ve heard Alicia describe before how her connection to acting has changed over the years – that she used to draw more from personal experience and now there’s more of a separation – and since you both began working at such a young age, it seemed like a rare opportunity to ask you both if that’s true, in what ways has that evolved?

NS: For me, with age and experience has definitely come wisdom when it comes to what I do. I feel like I’ve gotten better and learned with every film I do and if I didn’t, it wouldn’t probably be as interesting because I still love it. When it comes to the process of actually acting itself, I would say some things have changed, but in a roundabout way it’s remained the same. I’ve gotten better at it, but it’s kind of remained the same through the process of it but when it comes to affecting my personal life, like she said, I’ve learned to separate it to a degree.

There’s clear distinction between who I am in my life and what I do. When I was a kid, I had a lot of my self-esteem and my self-worth squarely aligned with acting. If I didn’t get a role in something, I didn’t feel very good about myself, to be honest. That was my gauge of how good I felt about myself. It wasn’t as healthy. You are not able to sustain that because the one thing you’ve got to learn is you are going to get rejected [as an actor] about a hundred times more than you are going to get accepted. You’ve got to learn that pretty quick.

AW: And I agree with everything Nick’s said. For me, which is probably what you had heard me say, was that I felt that I used to take the work home with me a little bit more. If my character was going through something rough, I found that it transformed me in a way that’s not necessary for the work and also not healthy. I would do anything for a role. I love diving into it and really feeling what the character is going through, but I found through experience and trial and error that that stuff doesn’t really make the character better. Coming home at night and being in a lousy mood and taking it on people that you care about isn’t necessarily going to make you do better work in the morning. In fact, it’s much better for me to just really leave it on the set, come home and be, then go back into it well rested the next morning. That’s been a big change for me.

Has the process changed as the industry has? I imagine the amount of time you have for these smaller indie films has gotten even shorter.

NS: You don’t have as much time to rehearse generally, but [Alicia and I] have somewhat similar way that we approach projects, which was nice. You show up on smaller movies and let it happen more. Sometimes I’ll lose a certain spontaneity or a certain something, and I like doing a little bit of a rehearsal, talking about it and jumping in and seeing what happens. That’s definitely what we did on this one.

AW: One of the coolest things about short shoots is that out of necessity, you just don’t get to rehearse things to death and I’m with Nick. I prefer not to. I prefer to let things happen as they happen, which isn’t the way all actors work, but it’s lovely that we got to work together on this and share that. A month-long shoot like this one was is a really nice length. I’ve also done films that are two-week shoot and there’s something magical about that too, but you also end up missing shots sometimes.

This one has actually taken a little bit of time to come out. With some distance, are you happy with it?

NS: The script was real good and it turned out a lot like it was written. Sometimes you get surprised from the script to the final product and if anyone just wanted to do more with what I thought it might be. I found it was really well made. I was really happy with it.

AW: You never really know. It was a great experience to shoot, but you don’t really know if you are acting in it how it’s going to turn out. You know how they are going to edit it or which shape they are going to choose or how the lighting is going to wreck it up, or is it sad music or who knows what. Films can get mangled in all different ways that you didn’t expect and it was really happy experience watching it for the first time. I was very, very proud of it and couldn’t wait for people to be able to see it.

“Away From Here” is now available on iTunes and on demand.