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Jennifer Connelly of "House of Sand and Fog"
By Shawn Adler
Cinema Confidential
December 26, 2003
Pity poor Jennifer Connelly.
Connelly is a stunning beauty with a graceful and steamy sexuality that catapults otherwise prosaic roles into film legend; is insanely wealthy by everyday standards; and is the possessor of a ferocious acting talent that culminated with her acceptance of a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for "A Beautiful Mind" and is on display once again in the Dreamworks holiday release, "House of Sand and Fog."
No, Jennifer Connelly deserves your pity because when she joined us for a roundtable discussion in LA for her upcoming movie, a film for which she might once again earn a well deserved Oscar nomination, all that seemed to be on the minds of many of my colleagues was her hasty divorce and recent marriage to her "A Beautiful Mind" co-star Paul Bettany. This isn't to say that she was attacked with the same ravenous desire of J-Lo and Ben or Tom and Nicole, of course, but then again, if her star keeps rising because of quality movies like "House of Sand and Fog," she has something to look forward to.
Pity poor Jennifer Connelly.
Q: So is this like the kind of thing you've dreamt about when you first started acting in movies, perhaps taking smaller roles, moving up and winning an Oscar, and then having the world thrown at your feet to the point where you can choose a film like this one?
JENNIFER: I'm very happy with the way things are going. I read this script before the Academy Awards last year and signed on to do it before any of that happened. I thought that it 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 really moving and powerful, so I was really excited to do it.
Q: Your character in this film is such a lost character. One of the things you keep hearing from people is, "She wasn't really sympathetic," or "I wasn't on her side," or "I didn't really like her." One thing that stars like to do is be loved. Would you say this was an odd or a brave choice?
JENNIFER: I think that neither of the two main characters are typically American cinema heroes. Ben's character hits his wife, I'm having an affair with a married man. In the novel it's written in alternate first person, so your sympathies switch. It goes back and forth. They're all pitted against each other because of 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 I think the movie captured that. There are times when I think that Kathy is very sympathetic. You understand what she's going through. She's this broken little girl for whom the house is a sort of lifeboat. You see her isolation. You see that all she wants is a family and she's never really had that. But then she's out of control and she's acting the way people do when they're desperate. I really liked that about the movie. I liked that it was a movie about flawed central characters full of contradiction. I myself thought that I wasn't liking her behavior, but then I don't always like my own behavior. I haven't known anyone who is perfect all the time.
Q: Your character is in an almost constant state of emotional turmoil throughout the film. How do you summon that much emotion over and over again?
JENNIFER: I try to do a lot of research before hand so I know where I want to go with a scene. I try not to get too stressed about it, because I find that's the worst thing. Once I've explored different options of what it can be, I just let it be. My experience is that if you get too attached to how you want it to come out the other side, you freeze. I try to trust that it will work out in the end.
Q: You speak of research. Did you find it helpful to read the book that the movie was based on?
JENNIFER: Absolutely. In this case, as I've said, since it was written in first person, it was sort of like having a character's journal.
Q: Was it helpful for "A Beautiful Mind" as well, since the book is in many ways so different from the movie?
JENNIFER: I thought it was essential to read the book and to meet Alicia. I wouldn't avoid reading the book, because then you can make choices about the script. You have to make changes, you have to distill a book to make it into a film. Ron Howard made choices to make things play better in the movie, but it's helpful to know where you are coming from.
Q: Vadim [Director Vadim Perelman] said you brought a vulnerability to Kathy that wasn't in the book. In the book she's trashier, etc. Was that a conscious thought where you said you understood this lost woman?
JENNIFER: I just thought about what it was that she really wanted. She wants her family and a place in life. She found herself in this situation of what we think of as a bad girl, but I don't think that was really what she wanted. In her fantasies I don't think she sees herself as the wild girl. For instance, when she goes out on a date, she's in a really dorky dress, not something trashy. That's the way she's seen from the outside, but that's not how she sees herself. I think you see that when she encounters the Naderah character, who seems like her iconic mother figure, how quickly she responds to her. You start to think that maybe if she had spent some time with a woman like that, things might have been different.
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