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Interview with 'House of Sand and Fog' Star, Jennifer Connelly
By Rebecca Murray
Romantic Movies
December 30, 2003
Jennifer Connelly goes head-to-head with Sir Ben Kingsley in the dramatic thriller, "House of Sand and Fog." Connelly portrays Kathy, a lonely, desperate woman whose home is ripped away due to a bureaucratic mistake. Kingsley co-stars as Massoud Amir Behrani, a former Colonel in the Iranian Air Force who seeks refuge in America and by purchasing Kathy's repossessed home, sets in motion a tragic chain of events.
Soon after accepting the role of Kathy, Jennifer Connelly was nominated for an Academy Award for "A Beautiful Mind." Says producer Michael London, "Jennifer committed to it right before she won the Academy Award for 'A Beautiful Mind,' and she was immediately deluged. But she remained extraordinarily loyal to our project. I think she understood Kathy, and knew in her bones that she could take this character and give her the kind of dimension that she has. I don't think there is another actress who could have played Kathy with such power and grace."
JENNIFER CONNELLY ('Kathy'):
It seems you're not afraid to do anything. Is that true?
Yes, I'm not afraid of anything in life. No, I'm joking. In terms of this job, I was really excited to do it. I thought it was a really interesting story. I thought it was interesting to be able to play a woman who's in this time of crisis, who is deeply flawed. I thought that was really interesting that the characters are all really flawed. You don't see many movies that leave it unclear as to who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. And I liked that about this movie.
How was co-starring with Ben Kingsley?
He's fantastic as an actor, I think, and was really lovely to work with. He was attached to the movie already, and I'm a huge fan of his and was very excited to work with him. I thought he was perfectly cast for the part.
Was this movie as intense as making "Requiem for a Dream?"
She was a character who was so far out of control at times that it was hard to deal with her. You didn't know if you always liked her in the way she was behaving. And that was interesting for me. I think "God, I'm just not liking myself now as a human, this girl that I'm being." That was a kind of uncomfortable feeling at times. I thought it was appropriate in the story, and kind of at the heart of the story was that both these charactersÉ He is abusive with his wife and that's sort of part of the fun of the movie is that they're all sort of - at times you understand their points of view and at times you find them reprehensible. In terms of doing it, it was a really safe environment with a great group of people and talented actors who I was working with, so it was a very supportive environment.
Was it all acting or was it more personal?
It's a weird thing. I don't really know how it works. I can't quite put my finger on where it comes from but at the end of the day, I didn't really have the option of bringing it home and carrying it around with me too much - just because of my circumstances.
Because you were pregnant?
I was pregnant at the end of it and I had a then five, almost six-year-old who was there with me and who wanted to play at the end of the day. [He] was often in the trailer hanging out. And a husband who would make fun of me for taking myself too seriously.
Did you have a goal of starting with small roles, doing good work, getting the Oscar and then being offered everything?
I'm very happy with the way things are going. I read the script before the Academy Awards that year and signed on to do it before any of that happened. I thought that was just a beautifully written script, a 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.
Playing Flawed Characters
As an audience member, you go back and forth between sympathizing with each character.
I really liked that about the movie. I think that neither of them is a typical American cinema hero. None of the central characters. For Ben's character, his was life and I'm having an affair with a married man.
I think that in the novel, it's written in the first person, sort of an alternate first person, so there's a chapter written in Lester's point of view and one written from Behrani's point of view and one from Kathy's point of view, and it goes back and forth. You're sympathies shift. They're all pitted against one another in a way in this conflict, but because of the way it's structured, you understand everyone's point of view. You find yourself siding with one and then the other, and feeling sort of torn. I think the movie captured that. I think there are times when Kathy's very sympathetic. You understand what she's going through and she's sort of this broken little girl who's desperately clinging on to this - the house is sort of like a lifeboat for her. You see her isolation, you see her with Nadi's character and 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 and she's acting the way people do when they're desperate, which is acting out and spilling over everywhere. I really liked that about the movie.
I liked that it was a movie that had flawed central characters. I liked that they were all contradictions. It felt a bit scary to do it because I thought to myself, "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.
You seem to be in a constant state of emotional turmoil throughout the movie. How do you summon up that much emotion? Is it exhausting?
I try not to. I just do a lot of research beforehand so I know where I want to go on the day of the scene. I do as much preparation as I can and then I try not to get too stressed about it because I find that's the worst thing. I try just to, once I know what the different options of what it could be, I try to just let it be when I get onto the set. In my experiences, if you get too attached to how you want it to come out the other side, I just wind up freezing up. II just think about what everything means to her and what the situation is and sort of throw myself into it and trust that it will work out in the end. And hopefully it will.
Did you read the book before the script?
Absolutely. In this case, as I said since it was written in first person, it was sort of like having your character's journal.
You brought a vulnerability to Kathy that didn't seem evident in the book. Was that a conscious decision?
When thinking about it, I just thought about what it was she really wanted. What she really wanted was her family and a place in life. I think she found herself in this situation as being sort of what we think of as bad girls, you know, taking drugs and having this sort of rock 'n' roll husband. But I don't think that's what she wanted. I think what she wanted was to be married and have children and quite a simple life. You know, sort of a house and kids and that sort of American dream. In her fantasies I don't think she saw herself as a trashy girl out at parties and being wild, which is why I thought when she goes out on a date, she's in this really dorky, flowered dress as opposed to a really trashy number. That's the way she seems from the outside, but I don't think that's how she perceives herself. I think you see that with Nadi, when she encounters Nadi, who seems like a kind of an iconic mother figure. And how quickly she responds to her and sort of melts, and you sort of start to feel that this is a place where if had she spent time with a woman like this, things would have been really different.
Handling Stress, the Oscars, and Family Life
If you were in this character's situation, what would you have done?
It's so hard to say because I don't have the same psychology. You know what I mean?
Would you change lawyers?
That's impossible to say. I probably wouldn't be in the same situation. I don't know that I can put myself there. Sometimes, in theory, I mean I find even with myself, in theory, you know how you want to behave in a stressful situation, when you're in crisis. But often you don't [act that way] in the moment because ultimately, you wish you'd respond in a certain way, but that person is really pushing your buttons. You're really stressed out and you're really depressed about something, and how you respond emotionally is really different from how you think you might theoretically sometimes.
Did apply your own feelings of stress to this character?
She's quite fiery too at times, you know, when she's combative with Behrani, and when she goes to the legal aid office and she's not getting what she wants. She can be quite petulant as well. So I wasn't thinking of trying to manifest her stress in the way that I do. But I certainly experienced it myself in my own way. I thought she got very desperate in it because she didn't have anyone to anchor her. She didn't have anyone or anything to anchor her. She's experiencing that desperation and because it's not being tethered, it starts spinning around and it's kind of a vortex that just drags her down. I've experienced that a couple of times and I've learned to sort of find some wayÉ That's a bad situation for me, but I think that she didn't really have any place to put it or anyone to pull her back in. Her stress manifested in a very watery kind of way, like she was just spilling over all the time.
If you get nominated again, would you approach the Oscars any differently than last time?
I don't know. I think that I might be able to be a bit more on the ground about the whole thing. It was a really sort of a 'deer in the headlights' kind of experience for me. It's so overwhelming and I found myself going in so many directions in my head. When I get stressed, I tend to get very quiet. I think people misinterpreted my device for dealing with stress, which is I get very inward, as sort of apathy which it wasn't. I get really shy. I might be a bit more relaxed about it. I don't really know. But it's a bit early to talk about that.
How is life with two children and a career?
I took off, clearly, after this because I was pregnant at the end of it and continuity issues [laughs]. 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 [laughing]. If they'll ever cast me, I'm doing a comedy. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm thinking I'm going to do it.
Will you and Paul Bettany work together again?
I hope so. I would love to. I would love to work again, and just think of all the free rehearsal time they'd get. But, yeah, I don't know that we'll have too many opportunities to because we've gotten resistance, I think. We'd be so excited to work together, but I think people want that sort of fantasy, "Are they going to hook up or are they not going to hook up? Is it going to be...?" So I don't know that we'll get too many shots. We're going to try and choose wisely. We'll wait for something really great that we can do together because I think we'd work well together.
Will you do a "Hulk" sequel?
I don't know if one is being done.
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