Gina Gershon (Patrick McMullan)

At Monday night's Killer Joe screening at the Tribeca Grand, hosted by The the Cinema Society and Bally, Gina Gershon went into detail about her preparations for the film--in which she plays an uncharacteristically zaftig victim of violence. Of the filming location in Louisiana (the film's set in Texas), Ms. Gershon told us: "I love New Orleans, it's my favorite place--lucky for me, I wanted to gain a bunch of weight, so I went to my favorite breakfast joint every day, I could eat whatever I wanted."

"I thought she needed to be a little bit heavier," she noted. Was it a note from director William Friedkin? "He didn't care. But I'm living in a trailer--she's not gonna be a skinny Minny. She felt tough, so I wanted a belly. A muffin!"

Mr. Friedkin has directed such classics as The Exorcist and The French Connection, but refused to place Killer Joe in comparison to the rest of his oeuvre. "I have no idea, you have to ask somebody else. I don't criticize my films--I don't like one better than another. Some have done better, financially, than others. They become like your children, even with all the mistakes--and I tend to only see the mistakes."

Mr. Friedkin had a mixed experience in Louisiana, which he described as "very hot, very uncomfortable--but they have great crews down there. It's the new Hollywood." Not that Mr. Friedkin needs the trappings of Hollywood: "I've made a film in Mosul, Iraq!" he told us, before lamenting the outcome of the past decade's war in Iraq.

Screenwriter Tracy Letts is moonlighting as an actor for the revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, previously staged in Washington and Chicago--and Mr. Letts has been gathering the cast for impromptu rehearsals. "We closed production about 18 months ago and we knew at the time, 18 months is a long time... get together over at my house so that when we go back into rehearsals in September, we won't be starting from scratch."

Mr. Letts, as well, spoke to the film's Southern setting: "Well, I'm from Oklahoma and I live in Chicago. The flyover states. I mean, aren't you sick of things set in New York and Los Angeles? There's a great big world out there that doesn't live in the entertainment capitals of the world!"