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Prose and Connelly
By Joseph Patel
Flaunt
December, 2003
It takes three and a half long minutes from the moment Jennifer Conelly walks into the Brooklyn coffee shop before I realize that the beige-colored sling she's wearing around her left shoulder is not a purse or messenger bag. Connelly is embracing the crisp autumn afternoon with a simple black weater and jeans -- a casual look that does nothing to deflect just how graceful she is.
On screen playing despondent, haunted characters, or here, innocuously drinking an iced coffee in her neighborhood haunt. Connelly is the personification of sultry, all languishing, long curves and slow-moving radiance. Hers is a simple, elegant beauty- little, if no makeup, straight. black hair, none of the dolled-up accoutrements that others use to tweak their appearance and their psyches.
Then it gurgles. Or half-gurgles. It isn't a bag that Connelly is wearing around her shoulder, it's a baby carrier. Her very new (seven-weeks-old), very tiny (football-length), very adorable son. Stellan, lies inside and rustles awake from a long afternoon slumber. Connelly looks upon him, smitten, the newest addition to her family; which now includes 6 year-old son, Kai, and new husband, Paul Bettany, her costar in A Beautiful Mind. Kai, whose father is photographer David Dugan, joins us during the interview. Het's got dark hair and his mom's wonder-filled eyes. "He's a great kid", Connelly says with a coy smile. "He changed my life."
Connelly, 33, has the kind of career that isn't supposed to happen in Hollywood. She began as an actress who filled quiet, eccentric roles in largely pop- and B-movie fare like Some Girls, The Rocketeer, and Career Opportunities. where Connelly was known more for her tank-top shrouded bust than her acting might. How she ended up with in Oscar last year for Best Supporting Actress in A Beautiful Mind was largely because of the roles she chose during the middle stage of her career: dark, desperate and often haunted people in dark, desperate and often haunted flicks. When people went back to gauge Connelly's talents in movies like Waking The Dead and Requiem for A Dream, they discovered that she was a legitimate acting force, who could grasp the largeness and subtleties of a character.
She returns to this type of role with her upcoming turn in House of Sand and Fog. Connelly brings her Oscar clout to the film and, along with its December release, is already a contender for the springtime awards.
The fiercely intelligent, sarcastic engine inside of Connelly thrives in roles that subvert the happy ending. Yet she seems more content and settled than at any other time in her life, grounded by her new family reality in Brooklyn, close to where she grew up in Brooklyn Heights. "It's all very exciting, isn't it?" she purrs, in a drawl that sounds southern, but isn't. I'm kind of mad for it.
Joseph Patel: Is motherhood easier for you the second time around?
Jennifer Connelly: It really is. In the sense that I'm not as panicky as I was. I feet more confident that I know how to keep him alive. I remember when I brought Kai home thinking I can't believe I'm the person in charge of this little thing. It was really scary. But its harder having two. I could just sit and state at Kai when he was a baby. Take naps when he napped and that sort of thing. Now there's his brother. there's a lot more juggling.
This might sound silly, but have you always been so matronly? Was this how you saw yourself .. because you play these edgy characters?
Yeah- I was always one of those girls. I was. I think I wanted to be a morn for a while. Probably sort of one of those classic "wanting to look after someone else because I needed looking after." you know? I think it's great. For me, in my life, the whole kid thing has been great. I know it doesn't have the whole edgy, sexy thing to it. But [Kai] has changed my life so much for the better.
Instantly?
Everything got better with him. Sort of instantly yeah
What was unresolved in your fife before that?
Um, a few things. I think I can tend to be really kind isolated you know? And having kids, at least having Kai? He's really social. So that was interesting, having to negotiate life with someone who demands that. We have play dates and people in the house. I was always quiet, in my room, writing by the candlelight. And here's this kid who's funny and vibrant and sort of with a really different personality. That has been a great influence in my life.
And married life, too, right?
Yeah. Because, God, knowing that you're not leaving if you get pissed oft? That's interesting. Knowing that you have to own up to things and grow up. Oh shit, this situation isn't going to change? Oh shit, I have to deal with it? But that's good, you know? And he's a good one to be married to.
So? New home, new family, your career has a new sheen post Oscar. You seem to be in a really good place in your life.
It really is. I'm not used to being able to say, basically, I'm quite happy with my life. I'm not the best at that. I'm really content in some ways but I can also be quite sort of doomsday-ish and pessimistic. This is a really good thing. It'll be interesting to see how this works. Being happy and playing depressing people. See if it plays.
In a lot of your movies, you play heavy, involved roles. Does it take some negotiating to go back and forth between fiction and reality, to decompress?
On Waking the Dead it did because I loved making the movie so much. I was really depressed when it was over, a bit weepy. On Requiem for a Dream, I felt a bit toxic. It was a bit hard to arrange with my personal life, and the two worlds were so different. The mom thing and that world. It was a bit hard to function. I'd need time to decompress from this reality to go into that one. But it was all right. It was a good hard, you know? I went to Costa Rica with [Kai] and my best friend afterward and we spent two and a half weeks sort of walking around, floating in the ocean.
What about House of Sand and Fog?
It was really interesting doing House of Sand and Fog because I was so happy, and I was playing someone suicidal. Paul would come to work with me and do really annoying things like sit in my trailer and make fun of me. I'd have a suicide scene to do and have Radiohead playing and he would be playing his guitar, singing, "Oooh, look at me, My name's Jennifer and I'm really quite depressed."
What did you like about the House of Sand and Fog script? There's a lot going on there.
I think politically it's quite sound. I think that's interesting, this story about these people who are sort of marginalized and sort of slip through the cracks and are let down by our society. The cops assume that this family is in the wrong because they're immigrants. My character sort of falls through the cracks, not supported by her family, [and the] legal aid system lets her down. She's this depressive ex-addict-alcoholic, who's on the fringes as well.
And nobody wins in the end.
And they didn't win in the end and it's very un-American in that way But I also like the fact that everyone's culpable in the story. You really understand everyone's point of view.
You have an interesting career trajectory; early on making these flighty pop movies and then doing serious, dark, critically acclaimed fare like Waking the Dead, Requiem for a Dream before getting the Oscar.
Those earlier parts, there wasn't much thinking going on. I was 14 when I made Labyrinth. I was just kind of doing what I was offered that I liked. And I think it was harder for me to get jobs that I was interested in. I think I got stuck in a little bit of a rut for a while, where I wasn't being considered for the roles I wanted to do.
What period was that?
My twenties. Every once in a while I could get one but it was pretty hard. I think I was sort of like, the girl from Career Opportunities for a while. That's really not my style. I don't know how I became that girl but I really didn't want it. I think Waking the Dead was the first movie that turned it. I fought really hard to make that movie. I thought it was a really sweet movie. When that movie wrapped, I was just in tears. It was like the end of a really great relationship and I just mourned it for ages.
You had to fight for it?
Yeah, I don't know that they... I don't know how hard it was to get in the door initially. It was a bit of a fight just to get in the door. And Requiem for a Dream was a big fight too. I liked both of those. There are things in each of them that I really cared about. They were important movies for me.
Now you're a big, mainstream actress. Does that feel odd?
What does it mean to be a big mainstream actress? I've just been trying to go with the movies that I feel like I could do, you know. I'm really terrible. I had this conversation with Paul. We talked about trying to see each movie for what it is and not every movie has to be this sort of labor of love, that some movies can just be funny or they can be entertaining fluff or just scary. Until now, I've had a really hard time of that. I think it's been a problem where I try to invest in everything so much and want everything to be perfect, and trying to have such high standards. I don't know where I sit with that yet.
You could do a comedy.
I wouldn't mind doing a comedy. It's hard to find comedies that are really funny, that really make you laugh, you know?
What are the post-Oscar roles you're getting?
It's really disappointing how few good roles there are to do. I'm really in a bit of a bind. I mean, it's this dilemma that I'm having. I really want to work and I know I have a lot of choices, but with all these choices there isn't anything that's jumping out. A lot of movies try and be polite, or everything gets tied up too nicely in the end or you've seen it before or it's really sappy or sentimental. I would love for that to be me, but it's just not.
What about Oscar time? There was a lot of attention on you.
It's all very surreal. I was really exhausted at that time. It's sort of shocking. It's a really different life for me. You're traveling around doing massive amounts of press. It's such a funny thing, isn't it? It's a huge honor, being considered in that way. It's this huge honor and yet, then you're thinking... of course it's just timing all these sorts of other things. I found it a very strange thing to sort out.
Lots of scrutiny on you then, especially afterward, what you looked like, what you said.
Yeah, the scrutiny. I think I felt a bit sort of in shock and a bit shy over the whole thing. Then I got scrutinized over that! Yeah, there was a lot of scrutiny in that situation. "Does she not care?" "Why is she so somber?" I tend to get a bit quiet when I get overwhelmed, you know. I think it's about as simple as that.
Does it dissuade you from the entire world of acting? Especially when you have the option of family life?
Paul and I were talking about just staying in the house and carving totem poles. I don't think there's a huge market for it right now. I sort of indulge fantasies sometimes about having a really, safe life inside of the house, where I can close all the doors and carve totem poles.
Bad economy.
Yeah. It's just not viable. Then people would really talk bad.
Is she depressed?
Yeah! So I think I'm here and I might as well be in the world. I think it's a good niche for me. I like making movies. It's a really good job. I like life on set. It's sort of weird. Sometimes it really backfires and it's really awful. But even when it's really bad, there's something about all those people kind of thrown together. It's always different but there's always a consistency to the flavor of it somehow. Set life... I kind of like the early calls, the weird hours of the day, the makeup room banter, the little quirks, watching people negotiate. I love it. It's pretty interesting.
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