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5 minutes with Jennifer Connelly
By Ivor Davis
The Manila Times
January 14, 2004
HALFWAY through a recent interview, Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly uncurls from the couch in her hotel suite and quickly excuses herself. It's not movie star behavior; she's simply obeying the call of her newborn son Stellan, who wants to eat.
Stellan was born in July to Connelly and her Beautiful Mind husband, British actor Paul Bettany. (Connelly also has a 6-year-old son, Kai, from a previous relationship.)
As a breastfeeding new mother, Connelly stops everything for Stellan's feeding time.
In her new movie, House of Sand and Fog, Connelly, a beautiful, unpretentious and down-to-earth actress, plays Kathy, a recovering alcoholic, one of the walking wounded of life, whose sloppy ways result in losing her family home over an unpaid tax bill.
Into the picture comes Iranian immigrant Colonel Behrani (Ben Kingsley), whose purchase of the house at an auction's bargain price leads to a terrible and tragic outcome. The movie is based on Andre Dubus III's best-selling novel.
Connelly is playing against type following her Oscar-winning stint in A Beautiful Mind and her recent role in The Hulk. The actress, 32, first caught our attention when she was in her very early teens in Sergio Leone's l984 epic Once Upon a Time in America. She went on to work steadily in movies like Inventing the Abbotts, Pollock, Requiem for a Dream and Waking the Dead. A Beautiful Mind gave her Hollywood's most coveted trophy and a new, high-profile career.
Question: It looks as if things couldn't be better for you.
Answer: Life is quite good right now. I'm very happy. Work has been good and I like this new movie very much. I've got a new baby and a new husband and home. There's been so much change this year.
Q: Did you take this role before you won your Oscar?
A: I signed on before any of that happened. I thought that was just a beautifully written, really compelling story that was really about something.
There aren't that many that you read every year that are that moving and powerful, so I was really excited to do it.
Q: Kathy is not a very sympathetic woman.
A: That would have been silly to do it otherwise. Neither she nor Ben Kingsley's character is a typical American cinema hero. It would have ruined the movie if we tried to make her a likable hero. That wasn't what the movie was about. They are all pitted against one another. But because of the way it's structured, you understand everyone's point of view and you find yourself siding with one and then the other, and feeling sort of torn. I think the movie captured that.
Q: Don't you have to make her somewhat sympathetic to be able to play her?
A: There are times when she is very sympathetic and you understand what she's going through. She's this broken little girl who's desperately clinging on. The house is her lifeboat. In her fantasies, she didn't see herself as a trashy girl out at parties and being wild. You see her isolation. I think you understand that all she wants is a family and that she's really never had it. But then she's out of control. I really liked that it was a movie that had flawed central characters.
Q: Was it exhausting for you to have to swing through all the many moods of this character?
A: It felt a bit scary to do it because I thought, "Oh, God, I'm not liking her behavior right now." But I don't always like my own behavior. I haven't known anyone who's perfect all the time and I thought it was interesting to put characters like that up there.
Q: How was it working with Ben Kingsley?
A: He's a fantastic actor. He's respectful and kind to everyone. He's the consummate professional who knows what he's doing and it makes him lovely to be around. There's no fanfare when he comes in. He does his job and then you see it on the screen and go "Whoaaaa. It's extraordinary."
Q: Did you read the book on which the film is based?
A: Absolutely. In this case because it was written in the first person it was sort of like having your character's journal.
Q: Did you also read A Beautiful Mind?
A: I thought it was essential to read the book and to meet Alicia and talk to her. I wouldn't avoid reading the first material. Then you can make the choices if you have to make changes in the script. Ron Howard made things play better in the movie. But it's always great to know where you've come from.
Q: How is Kai coping with his new brother?
A: A bit boring for him because he sees this thing that doesn't want to do anything but eat and take my Mom away from me and I'm trying to teach it tricks and it's not responding. He's so patient with my time being taken over by the little one. I don't know how women do it when they have twins or even two kids close together.
Q: And what about juggling two children and a career?
A: Well. I took off after House of Sand and Fog, because I was pregnant at the end of it. So I'm going to go back to work after January on Dark Water, which Walter Salles is directing. And then I'm doing a comedy if they'll ever cast me. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm thinking I'm going to do it.
Q: What's Dark Water?
A: A thriller, sort of an old-school scary movie&emdash;lots of psychological suspense.
Q: Where is home these days?
A: We finally moved out of my really dodgy small apartment that made us all cranky in the West Village to a townhouse in New York. It was horrendous&emdash;sort of like a lab experiment&emdash;like if you put mice in a really small space and just leave them there for a little bit and see how they try and kill one another. It was kind of like that. Now we've moved. We have no furniture and no place to sit because we haven't had time to get anything. Paul also has an apartment in London.
Q: Has Oscar changed your life?
A: Yeah, in that I have more opportunities in work, which is great because I love my job and I'd love to keep at it as long as they will have me.
Q: Will you and Paul work together again?
A: I hope so. I'd love to. Just think of all the free rehearsal time they'd get. I don't know that we'll have too many opportunities to because we've gotten resistance. People want that sort of fantasy, "Are they going to hook up&emdash;or not?" So I don't know that we'll get too many shots. We'll wait for something really great that we can do together because I think we'd work well together.
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