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"I never even had a TV"
By Rudiger Sturm
Translated from German to English by Irma
www.spiegel.de
March 5, 2002
Jennifer Connelly has since 1984 been an actress, but it is her role in Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind" that has brought her closer to her breakthrough in Hollywood. Spiegel Online talked with the American actress about youth sins, Character-Archaeology and the advantages of owning an iPod.
Spiegel Online: Miss Connelly, after a rather long critical period you are now being awarded with prizes. You are even nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Relieved?
Jennifer Connelly: It is an honour when your peers award you. But you must never forget: It is not the awards that count, but the work. For me the biggest prize is that I actually got the part in A Beautiful Mind. I know that it sounds like something worn-out, but that is how I felt.
Spiegel Online: Before this we were used to see you in independent movies. Now you get big Hollywood roles like in A Beautiful Mind or The Hulk. Was that your career goal?
Jennifer Connelly: Just because a movie is an independent production, doesn't mean that it is more original or has more integrity. I think of A Beautiful Mind as a complex and grown-up love story. And if The Hulk were to be a 0815-Action project then I would not do it. But with Ang Lee as the director, the movie is definitely going to be very experimental and ambitious.
Spiegel Online: What you cannot assume of your earlier work like The Rocketeer or Career Opportunities.
Jennifer Connelly: I don't want now to talk bad about a specific movie - out of respect for the people that made it, and the fans that maybe like it. But as for my work in those movies, I cannot respect that. When you are younger, you don't really know what you do. But maybe I needed all that to learn.
Spiegel Online: However you did get a dream start with you movie career in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time In America.
Jennifer Connelly: But at that time I wasn't really what you can call an actress. I was just a kid in a movie that happened to be a good movie with a great director.
Spiegel Online: How did you actually become an actress?
Jennifer Connelly: To be honest with you, I have no idea why I started acting. I had no movie posters in my room, and I didn't earlier even have a television. I just remember that friends of my parents, who were in the advertising business, asked me to do something for them. After that it just escalated.
Spiegel Online: When did you realise that your career was going the wrong way?
Jennifer Connelly: There came a point where I said to myself: "The movies that you make do not reflect you. And because you make those movies you don't get the roles that you really want." I want to make movies with people that want to create.
Spiegel Online: And that is why you, in the last few year, have chosen tough parts, such as in Requiem for a dream?
Jennifer Connelly: It wasn't much harder than A Beautiful Mind. After all both movies have similar themes: the destruction of people. That is why there were phases during the shoots that weren't pleasant. But at the same time this work was also a satisfaction / fulfillment. I love it when I dig in such kind of characters - just like an archaeologist.
Spiegel Online: Does that mean that we, in the future, will experience you as a woman in those kinds of dramatic roles and situations?
Jennifer Connelly: After Requiem For A Dream I received scripts to pretty much every independent junkie-movie - with characters for dark and sorely experienced women. But I am not interested in repeating myself. I will rather seek new challenges.
Spiegel Online: Do you do your "Character- Archaeology" by yourself, or do you get inspiration from somewhere else?
Jennifer Connelly: I constantly need music around me. The main inspiration for my part in A Beautiful Mind came from Bjork's song Hyper-Ballad. I'd always bring a giant bag with hundreds of CDs to the set in case I needed a special song for a certain scene. But luckily there is the iPod now. It saves me from all the dragging.
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