Mary Elizabeth Winstead on marriage to Ewan McGregor and the dark side of Hollywood: ‘If I wasn’t flirting enough, they’d say I was cold’

In 2006, Mary Elizabeth Winstead – later of the eye-popping action comedy Scott Pilgrim vs the World – was asked to audition for a Quentin Tarantino movie. Every young female actor in Hollywood wanted one of the parts in the film, a B-movie pastiche called Death Proof. A specific dress code was also in place: meet the director while wearing short-shorts, tank tops and flip-flops. Writing in her 2018 memoir, the Girls5Eva actor Busy Philipps recalled sitting among “a waiting room of scantily clad clones”. Winstead was one of them, and did end up getting a role in the film. She loved working with the Pulp Fiction auteur. She has nothing but praise for him even to this day. But still…

“If that were to come to me now, I’d be like… ‘What?’” Winstead laughs, momentarily breaking her poise with a grimace. “At the time, it was just like… ‘OK! Flip-flops, check! Better get a pedicure, check!’ I didn’t question