Jena Malone, 29, was acting in films at the young age of 12, starting with the Angelica Huston-directed Showtime picture Bastard Out of Carolina. She moved onto more movies with Jodie Foster's Contact, Susan Sarandon's Stepmom and Jake Gyllenhaal's Donnie Darko.
Recently, she joined The Hunger Games cast with Catching Fire and will close out the franchise in two more sequels.
During her downtime, Malone releases experimental music as part of the duo The Shoe, with keyboardist Lem Jay Ignacio. Recently the duo took over various Thompson Hotel locations on a brief tour and Chicago was one of their stops. Fans were treated to a concert in the afternoon and a special intimate invite only show upstairs.
Windy City Times talked to the two experimental music gurus on the roof of the hotel as the sun came down.
Windy City Times: First off, how did you two meet?
Lem Jay Ignacio: We met at a Christmas party like six years ago. I was the house pianist at the party.
Jena Malone: It was a Christmas carol party. It was an art party in Los Angeles.
Lem Jay Ignacio: She came up to me and said she wanted to sing "Winter Wonderland" in mythical Portuguese.
Jena Malone: At that point I was such a beginning freestyle artist but I was using mythical languages to help me find melodies because I wasn't fully ready for things to unfold with different melodies and rhythms. It became gibberish but I call it mythical languages, which sounded like Spanish.
Lem Jay Ignacio: It sounded a little like Portuguese but it was basically gibberish. So we met onstage and she was singing this 10-minute rendition of "Winter Wonderland." You could hear Parson Brown amongst the gibberish.
Jena Malone: It was a really fun show!
Lem Jay Ignacio: I just followed her and she went left, right, up and down. After the show, we were having a drink and wanted to hang out.
Jena Malone: I told him that I had built a new instrument called The Shoe and I wanted to bring it over to jam.
Lem Jay Ignacio: She came over to my house and she didn't leave for a year.
Jena Malone: He had to kick me out! [All laugh.] I didn't live in L.A. so I just wanted to hang out.
Lem Jay Ignacio: She was traveling from Lake Tahoe at the time. It wasn't like, "Let's start a band or record an album."
Jena Malone: It was an art project.
Lem Jay Ignacio: We would stay up all night jamming and improvising. It was a lot of fun but then it blurred into being a band.
Jena Malone: We looked at songs and came up with the whole EP. That was five years ago.
Lem Jay Ignacio: We came around each other again last summer. We have a musical friendship. We go away and come back when we don't have other projects.
Jena Malone: We actually started recording the album I'm Okay July 4th.
WCT: So a year ago in 2013.
Jena Malone: Yes, it is crazy.
Lem Jay Ignacio: We spent four months on it.
WCT: The Shoe refers to a musical instrument you play?
Jena Malone: At first, it was a steamer trunk because I was living in Lake Tahoe experimenting with music. I taught myself Pro Tools. I have made two albums by myself as Jena Malone and her bloodstains. That was my first band and I had 12 tracks per album. I was really digging in.
Lem Jay Ignacio: It is really cool stuff. It was three in the morning with Jena in a dark bedroom.
Jena Malone: I had spent so much time recording in my room that in order to become a better artist, freestyler and storyteller I felt I needed to take it on the street and start performing for people. I put all of my instruments in a steamer trunk, bought a generator and drove down to L.A. I decided to play on street corners to people because that is the most terrifying thing that I could ever do and will learn the most from.
Before I even did that I met Lem Jay and we started jamming. Then I realized that is what I needed to do!
Lem Jay Ignacio: We were doing that in my garage for a few months then we decided to do what she just talked about and go to street corners, bridges, and rooftops.
Jena Malone: I wouldn't even tell him what we were going to do. I would tell him to meet me at an address. Sometimes we wouldn't tell anyone or just invite a few friends. We could just play for the birds and the atmosphere. As a freestyle artist you want to vibe off the different elements. For me playing under a bridge I am going to tell different stories.
Lem Jay Ignacio: We would set up in front of a laundry mat or a liquor store in L.A. This is first time we are doing something more traditional with this hotel tour.
Jena Malone: It is still pretty improvisational doing random things at a hotel. You never know where we are going to play.
Lem Jay Ignacio: Even before this we were freestyling in the elevator and the roof. We are doing that in every hotel.
Jena Malone: They basically allow us to explore the hotel for about two hours and we create content for them. We can't invite anyone to these moments because of capacity and would be against spontaneity. Today we played songs for a toddler on the floor in front of the hotel. We just set our amps down and started playing for her. It was so beautiful.
WCT: Does the fame get in the way of what you are trying to do?
Jena Malone: No; I get so lost in the moment. Maybe if I were more aware of people judging or looking at me.
Lem Jay Ignacio: I'm totally judging when I'm playing for you: "There's that girl in The Hunger Games! I don't know what to play next!"
WCT: That's some pressure so don't mess it up.
Jena Malone: If anything it raises the stakes. That creates more risk and lessons to learn. It makes it more interesting in a way.
WCT: I read that you were raised by two moms.
Jena Malone: Yes, and in the '80s when it wasn't cool. Ellen wasn't on TV so they were "roommates." They were not out and ready to talk about it. They raised me and my godmom's two kids. It was amazing. I loved having two moms.
WCT: That's good to hear. There can still be a bit of a stigma.
Jena Malone: I don't think nowadays as much.
Lem Jay Ignacio: It is fading.
Jena Malone: When I was younger it was about 90 percent a stigma and now it is, like, 10 percent. I think it has been out phased. The nuclear family is so new.
WCT: I saw a gay following today at your performance downstairs.
Jena Malone: I know; it was so cute with a whole line of boys! I was wondering who they were and so sharply dressed. When I asked for a word to the crowd for the freestyle, one yelled, "Circle Skirt!" That was all I needed to hear.
WCT: Talking about The Shoe, those shoes are amazing. How many pairs do you own?
Jena Malone: These I love. I brought six pairs on tour just because I'm a girl and I like to mix it up. I only brought two pairs with heels. It is mostly all flats.
WCT: So you have a whole closet of them?
Jena Malone: I have a lot of clothes and shoes. I'm a big girl about it.
WCT: Your song "Dead Rabbit Hopes" sounds like it could be in a movie. Would you want your work to be on a soundtrack?
Jena Malone: Of course. We want our songs to enter into whatever they should be. You create them for yourself and others then release them to the world and however they want to manifest is great, whether in a sixteen year old girl's headphones or a film or a commercial. I am really interested in the shelf life of how it exists beyond you. I am not trying to control that.
Lem Jay Ignacio: It will kind of just happen.
WCT: Jena, you were on Broadway in Doubt. Would you want to do musicals?
Jena Malone: I grew up doing musicals. My mom was in musical theater when I was younger.
Lem Jay Ignacio: You got the bug.
Jena Malone: I got the bug! I know so many musicals by heart. One night in Tahoe we did a musical rendition of Into the Wild.
Lem Jay Ignacio: Into the Woods—you were in the movie Into the Wild. Can you imagine? Emile Hirsch has the best voice! [All laugh.]
Jena Malone: We both kind of have musical upbringings.
Lem Jay Ignacio: We always used to freestyle fake Sondheim.
Jena Malone: We wanted to do that today but we didn't because we started with "Fancy" by Reba McEntire instead.
Lem Jay Ignacio: I think we recorded that night in Tahoe when we did The Shoe's version of Into the Woods.
Jena Malone: I have it.
WCT: We need to get that out into the world. What artists have influenced you? I heard some Bjork, maybe, in your performance.
Jena Malone: I like Bjork. I like storytellers like PJ Harvey, Neil Young, Nina Simone and Van Morrison. I love new albums by Lana Del Rey and Foster the People. I love Katy Perry when my 16-year-old sister is in the car. We play it super-loud!
WCT: Do blondes have more fun?
Jena Malone: All the time. Are you kidding me? I'm having the most fun in my life.
WCT: You have two more Hunger Games movie coming out. Someone told me your character Johanna Mason is a lesbian.
Jena Malone: It's ambiguous. I think she is much more bisexual. I don't think she's intimidated by either gender or in love with either gender. It's about power for her.
WCT: Is the training intense?
Jena Malone: Yes when we did Catching Fire, but not bad for the other ones. I enjoy it and have fun with that stuff. I never go to the gym so I like when someone tells me I have to go to the gym.
Lem Jay Ignacio: You get paid for working out.
WCT: You have the film Inherent Vice coming out, with an incredible cast.
Jena Malone: It is the gift of my life. I love Paul Thomas Anderson. I think he is the most original voice out of American filmmaking in the past hundred years. Getting to work with him and seeing how he works is great. There are like 65 actors in the film. It was such an honor.
WCT: Do you ever get intimidated by these big stars?
Jena Malone: I get more intimidated by everyday people more than stars. There is a calmness with seeing the same people every day. I am more intimidated by 16-year-old girls that I respect or writers or musicians, people that do what I don't do at all. Well, I guess I'm a musician now. [Laughs]
Follow The Shoe on Instagram and Facebook.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1, will be released Nov. 21 and Inherent Vice Dec. 12.
