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How often does a woman get to play the hero?
By Julianna Margulies
Interview
January, 2002
Let's call her a late bloomer. Twenty two films and nearly two decades into a prolific, id not widely lauded career, Jennifer Connelly is breaking out.
Connelly arrived with great promise as a 14-year-old, impressing in the epic drama Once Upon a Time in America (1984) . Then for years, due to a combination of bad choices and bad luck, she toiled away in largely B-grade movies, alternating between teen drivel and sci-fi camp. But by the late 1990s, a grown-up Connelly had begun to emerge in a number of grown-up films: the sleeper hit Inventing the Abbotts (1997); the darkly poetic Waking the Dead (2000); the desperate Requiem for a Dream (2000). And now her starring turn in the current A Beautiful Mind , opposite Russell Crowe, sees Connelly at the top of her game. Her Alicia Nash character, wife of Crowe's Dr. John Nash, could have easily been as dated as the Cold War era in which she lives - a stay-at-home wife and mother sacrificing her career for her schizophrenic husband - but Connelly plays her with an unmistakably modern strength and sass. Here, she talks with fellow actor Julianna Marguiles.
Scott Lyle Cohen
Julianna Marguiles: Hi, Jen. So you're in New York City right now?
Jennifer Connelly: I am. I'm sitting on my windowsill. It's one of those perfect late fall days.
JM: I'm in Dublin, where it's raining and cold. [laughs]
JC: Is it pouring?
JM: Actually, it's been really mild. I'm just slightly homesick, that's all. Oh, I'm supposed to tell you Aidan Quinn says hello. I'm doing this movie [Evelyn] with Aidan and Pierce Brosnan.
JC: [laughs] Aidan is so nice. Tell him I say hello. And lucky you. I love Ireland.
JM: This is your motherland, isn't it?
JC: My dad's family, yeah. So gorgeous. I was there years and years ago, and I wanted to stay.
JM: Yeah, I could see living there. It's incredible. Now, I just read the script for A Beautiful Mind , which I'm glad I did because instead of simply seeing it, I get to feel more internal with it. I absolutely loved it. I felt like such a loser because I was all by myself in my hotel room sobbing at the end.
JC: [laughs] I did that, too.
JM: Alicia Nash is such a great role! It was wonderful to see a well-rounded female character. Finally! [both laugh] What did you like most about playing her?
JC: Well, first of all, I had a very strong emotional reaction to the script when I read it. I think it's remarkable. And Alicia - she's so tough. Just the fact that she was studying theoretical physics at MIT in the '50s, I mean, that was huge. She has a remarkable strength to her.
JM: Is she still alive?
JC: She is. She's alive, and so is John [Nash], and they're still together.
JM: Did you meet her?
JC: I did. Before we started shooting I talked to her. It's a kind of crazy, great experience to be able to play a real person, and meet them.
JM: It's also incredibly scary, because you really want to get it right.
JC: And it was also slightly confusing because it took a while [for the actors] to find our way, because the script strays from Alicia and John's lives.
JM: How so?
JC: There are little things that weren't completely accurate, like our Alicia is a painter - the real Alicia isn't. So it was a bit strange in the beginning, trying to figure what was real. At first I said to Ron [Howard, the director], "I'm going to cut my hair off because she has short hair," and he's like, "No!" And I said, "But, I'm playing her," and he said, "No. We're making our own characters. We're telling our own story, inspired by their story."
JM: Had she and John read the script?
JC: Yeah. They read it.
JM: Were they happy with it?
JC: As far as I know, they were. They both seemed happy that we were telling their story, and happy with the way we were telling it.
JM: It's such a fine line. The movie I'm doing over here, Evelyn , is based on a true story, and the other night we met the woman it's about, and the writers kept trying to keep the actors away from her. [laughs] They didn't want her filling our ears with things in her life that weren't in the script.
JC: Right, exactly. Who is she?
JM: Her name is Evelyn Doyle. The story is about her father, who in the '50s won back his children, Evelyn being one of them, in the courts at a time when single parents weren't given the right to take care of their own children.
JC: Wow.
JM: But speaking of "real people," and I don't mean to sound Hollywood, but to me, your character, Alicia, was the hero in this story. She's the only one who stood by John and saw it through to the end. I mean, any other woman would've left.
JC: Oh, I agree. Alicia's an incredibly heroic woman. I was really happy about how she was written, and also how the script was preserved in the way that Ron directed it. He made her human. You see her struggle, you see her break down, you see her rage and her frustration, and it's real, you know? She's incredibly dedicated and committed, and she makes huge sacrifices for John because she loves him so much.
JM: And on top of it all, she has a child. You're a mom - could you function knowing that you couldn't, at certain times, trust the father of your child.
JC: I can't even fathom it. Not at all.
JM: There are some hard scenes in the movie. Did you enjoy making it?
JC: We shot largely in chronological order, over many decades, and the beginning was fun. Those early scenes with Russell, they were quite lighthearted. And then as the story went on, it got incredibly grueling. We had this center section of the movie where it's the challenge of the two of them, John and Alicia, living together and dealing with John's illness and there's a lot of conflict. It was very painful.
So it wasn't really all fun, but it was fulfilling and deeply satisfying. I felt like I really had my hands full, and I like that feeling.
JM: Yeah, it's nice to submerge yourself fully in a character.
JC: And to draw on your resources, to be tested.
JM: Is this one of the bigger films you've worked on? In the sense of budget, the actors and the director?
JC: Yeah. I worked on some big-budget movies when I was younger but, in a way, this is the first one I really feel responsible for.
JM: Do you feel a difference working on a big studio film compared to an independent? I'm not talking about money, I'm talking about the set and the vibe and -
JC: - the pace. The pace is very different. You have more time. On a shooting day with a movie like this, for example, you'll have two scenes to do, as opposed to an independent where you'll have maybe five scenes to do. We had one scene in A Beautiful Mind that we shot for three days. And we had a nice, long rehearsal period. We did read-throughs, we rehearsed on the soundstage, and then we went to some of the practical locations and rehearsed on set.
JM: God, that's such a luxury! People don't understand that when you don't get to rehearse, it's so difficult to just come up with things on the spot.
JC: It was wonderful. I love rehearsals. I think they make a huge difference. To be able to flesh things out and out a scene up on its feet and walk through it ... ultimately it saves so much time and makes things so much more interesting, you know?
JM: I do. [laughs] You know, I'm fascinated to find out what actors do in their downtime. When I worked on The Newton Boys [1998] with Dwight Yoakam, Ethan Hawke and Vince D'Onofrio, they would all be writing and playing songs, and on another movie I worked on, one of the actors edited his own film in his trailer. What do you do?
JC: Wow. What I do, and this might sound geeky, is practice yoga in my trailer. I don't want to do something that's incredibly distracting that takes me away from my characters, but I also don't want to sit there and ruminate on what I'm doing, because then I'm just in my head. I find that doing yoga for however long my break is, even if it's 30 minutes, helps me to stay open and present. And, of course, my son [Kai] comes to visit, on appropriate days.
JM: Do you find it hard working and being a mom at the same time?
JC: Yes and no. I'm lucky in that I work on a movie and it's really intense for three months and then I'm home and I'm a full-time mom. I love working, but I also love my time in between films, so acting is a win-win situation for me. It's kind of remarkable. I love hanging out and being a mom, but a few months will go by and I'll be like, "Oh my God, I can't believe that I haven't found anything that I feel passionate about!" [laughs] But something always comes up that I love and that I really respond to.
JM: And does it help you to make your choices if you're not passionate about something because ultimately you want to be there for Kai?
JC: It's not only for Kai; it's also for me. I'm in to make things that challenge me and things I think will be worth seeing, so it's torturous for me to work on something that I am embarassed by, that I don't relate to, that I feel like I can't do something good with. And I've done it , a number of times, [laughs] and it's misery, so I'm trying not to put myself in that situation anymore. Wow. You're so good at this!
JM: I am? [laughs] I got so excited about doing this interview that I read all of your press, the script and watched all of your films and though of what I would want to be asked as an actor.
JC: My God, that's so thorough! Thank you!
JM: I did have one other question, though. Have you done any theater?
JC: Never. But I have the desire to, if it's a really small theatre. [laughs] I think I'd love it.
JM: If you love the rehearsal process, you will. I think you'll find it rewarding to play complete arc in one night. To have a beginning, middle and end that you actually control is such an amazing feeling as an actor. So that's what I was thinking, watching all your work this week, being that it's been Jennifer Connelly week. [both laugh]
JC: I feel guilty that you went through all that.
JM: No, I really enjoyed it. It's been fun.
JC: It has. Give me a call when you get home.
JM: I absolutely will. All right, take care.
JC: You, too. Say hi to Aidan for me! Bye.
Julianna Margulies will soon begin work on the thriller Go Ship for Warner Brothers. Opposite: Top by Cacharel. Jeans by Earl Jeans. Cuff by Tom Binns. Cosmetic colors and lipstick by Aveda, eye color by Laura Mercier. Styling: Kate Young for Management Artists Organization. Hair by Oscar Blandi for Oscar Blandi Salon. Makeup: Genevieve for Sally Harior.
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