Wearing a high-collared, sleeveless dress in a print of brightly colored blocks, with her platinum blond hair in a pixie cut, Michelle Williams meets me at the door as if we were shooting a scene from “Mad Men” together. “Do you need a bottle of water?” she asks brightly. “We’re trying to keep everybody hydrated today.”
Throughout our conversation in a Manhattan rehearsal studio — on what is indeed the hottest day of the year — the 31-year-old Williams seems far more relaxed and confident than the last time I saw her, which was two years ago after the Cannes premiere of “Blue Valentine.” And why shouldn’t she be? Since that time, Williams has been twice nominated for best-actress Oscars — for “Blue Valentine” and again for “My Week With Marilyn” — and the death of Heath Ledger, her former boyfriend and the father of her child, is now four years in the past and no longer a hot topic for the tabloids.
