Jennifer Connelly's Mystery Revealed

 

 

By Shohreh Aghdashloo

Interview

February 2004

 

At age 14 she plaed a sleepwalker who could communicate with insects. Nearly twenty years later, this Oscar-winning actress is creating a different kind of buzz

Many associate Jennifer Connelly with recent film performances that brought her wide acclaim and awards-- Waking the Dead , Requiem for a Dream (both 2000), and especially A Beautiful Mind (2001), for which she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Others think back to her early career, which began with Once Upon a Time in America (1984) when she was still a child. Now 33, Connelly revels in her triple role as mother, wife (to actor Paul Bettany, Interview December/January 2004), and actress. In the recently released House of Sand and Fog she plays Kathy Nicolo, a downtrodden woman who struggles with an exiled Iranian family (played by Ben Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo, Connelly's interviewer here) over the deed to a California home.             PATRICK GILES

SHOHREH AGHDASHLOO: Back in 1984, Sergio Leone's film Once Upon a Time in America gave birth to a 13-year-old child star with a pair of smart, shiny eyes. Were you focused on becoming an actress at that young age?

JENNIFER CONNELLY: I wasn't a kid who had aspirations to be an actress. I had been doing some print work for friends of my family who were in advertising, and I was called in for an audition for Once Upon a Time in America . I remember I had to do a little ballet routine, and I had never studied ballet, so Lord knows what I did. I twirled around a bit, and remarkably enough, they cast me. I was 11 when we shot it. I got to go to Italy, and it was a remarkable experience. I had never been out of the country before, and I knew nothing about how people made movies. Everything was new, and I was sort of in awe.

SA: Could we say you were born an actress?

JC: I don't know. I think I was born an overachiever. I was really intent on listening to what was being asked of me, and I tried the best I could to fulfil what was wanted.

SA: After making Once Upon a Time in America , what steps did you take to ready yourself for your next movie role? Did you start taking any acting classes?

JC: No. I went back to school in New York City, and I was asked to do another   Italian movie, Phenomena [1985], with Dario Argento, a cult horror director. It had a very interesting logline:   I was a sleepwalker who could   communicate with insects, and my best friend was a chimpanzee. [ Aghdashloo   laughs ] It wasn't until years later that I started studying.

SA: Many child starts claim that stardom prematurely   took them from their childhood. Do you agree with that?

JC: It can be a difficult way to grow up, though it probably depends on each child's personality. I found it a bit stifling. I didn't realize until later on that it made me very self-conscious to feel so scrutinized and   under pressure to perform all the time in an undeniably grown-up world. So, that's the cost. The gift is that you get to travel and you meet remarkable people. I got to make headway on the path that's brought me here, and I can't imagine a better niche for myself--I'm so happy with what I do.

I think   the benefits outweigh the costs. There were times in my petulant teens when I wasn't sure about that, but I now I've had enough therapy that I'm over it.

SA: How is life at home for a child star? Were you taking orders from your parents, or was it the other way around?

JC: "Orders" sounds terribly harsh. I think our household was much gentler than that. My parents weren't huge disciplinarians. As a kid I remember them telling me to stop doing homework and go to bed. I wasn't terribly rebellious as a child.

SA: Were you an only child?

JC: Yes.

SA: How did that feel? I have only one child. Help me--I want to know how she feels! She says   she's all right, but   I have this guilty conscience that says, "Why did I not give birth to another child?"  

JC: I thought it was fine. When I was living up in Woodstock [New York, where Connelly spent much of her childhood], I was very close to my cousins, who lived nearby. I think of that as the precious time of my childhood. I spent a lot of time writing overly dramatic poetry. Like "Ode to my Teddy Bear." I created suicide pacts with my   stuffed animals. "I love you so much. If you   ever get destroyed on a conveyor belt in an airport, I promise I'll go with you." [ Aghdashloo laughs ] I guess it's good for your imagination, spending that much time alone as a kid.

SA: During the years of growing up acting, was there ever a time you felt like   "Enough", and wanted to start another life?

JC: When I was in my late teens I was very uncomfortable in my skin. I had gotten so self-conscious, and it was very hard to show up at work every day. I was getting caught inside myself. And I was working on movies that weren't the kind of movies that I wanted to see necessarily, so that was frustrating. So, for both of those reasons I questioned whether it was something I wanted to continue with. But instead of giving up, I decided to take more responsibility for my work. I rechose if for myself. Frankly, I didn't know what else to do. [ laughs ] I thought about doing something with my hands, where I wouldn't feel so scrutinized or watched, but I learned to become more at peace with myself and find ways to feel more comfortable.

SA: Would you be willing to let your children start up in this business early, as you did?

JC: I would encourage my kids if they had any interest in music, or theatre, or painting, or sports, but I don't think in a professional way.

SA: How important would you say your children's education is to you?

JC: Really important. I loved school, and I hope they'll enjoy it too. It's such a gift. I wish I could go back sometimes. Kai [Connelly's older son] is now going to the school that I went to as a kid, and he loves it. It's his own world, and it's his first introduction to the world away from our family.

SA: Being a mother and having a career--is it hard? How do you do it?

JC: I spend a lot of time looking at pieces of paper with schedules on them--which is dreadful for me because any sort of paperwork makes me nervous and itchy. There's my career, Paul's career, Kai having his schedule, and Stellan [Connelly and Bettany's infant son]--it's a lot of work to keep us all in the same place at the same time.

SA: Your character from Requiem for a Dream , Marion Silver, and your Kathy in House of Sand and Fog are two pained women, yet you, Jennifer, are a happy woman who likes to have fun. So let me ask you: Where do you find your characters?

JC: Well, in both cases, they came from novels, so I had books to reference. From the outside, I suppose there's a similarity between these women in that they're both on the fringes of society, both struggling with addiction, and both in downward spirals. Marion was so much in denial that by the end of the movie, she had built up this exoskeleton and wasn't engaged in what was happening to her. I think Kathy had a very different trajectory. Everything in her life is pulling apart, and she's so intractable in her position that she only sees the Behrani family--your character, Nadi, and Ben's character--as people on the other side of an argument, not as human beings. It isn't until she comes into contact with your character, this iconic symbol of maternal love, that she starts to peel those things away. And by the end of the film you realize that she's just this little girl who needs to be mothered. She needs a family and a home.

SA: Kathy is a young woman who has no family to turn to at a time of crisis in her life. She does not have any friends, and we do not see any neighbours come to help her. In other words, she is alone. What would you say the film is trying to communicate? Is there a message here about the disenfranchised?

JC: Well, I think that the movie looks at intolerance, and I don't think that Kathy is the only one who suffers intolerance. Ben's character, your character, my character--these are all marginalized people. I think they're intolerant towards themselves because they're not fulfilling what they feel people want from them; they seem to be filled with self-loathing because of that, and subsequently, they're intolerant of one another. Toward the end of the film, they come to understand one another when they are able to finally put their biases aside and really listen to one another. There's something poignant there, and there's a sort of love between Kathy and Nadi that we feel could be brewing--a shared humanity and understanding. When they start accepting one another for what they are, as opposed to quickly judging and dismissing one another, it seems that a lot more kindness and peace follows. Certainly the tendancy to quickly judge and dismiss leads to tremendous tragedy in this movie.

SA: Would you say you're a Method actress?

JC: No. I've studied with different coaches over the years and I did theatre studies at university, and I think I've taken bits and pieces here and there. I try to learn from my mistakes and from people that I think are brilliant. I spend a lot of time on research. I love doing research. A lot of what I do is done before I get to the set, making choices, reading things. I like to make things very specific for the character--to have a good understanding of her psychology and history, what she wants, who she's afraid of, who she thinks she is, who she wishes she were. I like to spend a lot of time thinking about those things so that everything has a specific resonance in a scene. It makes it easier to arrive on the set as flexible as possible in regard to working with the other actors.

SA: Which leaves room for improvisations.

JC: Yeah. It's a wonderful thing when you're able to work with people who are present and fully engaged in the scene with you. That's when something magical happens, and that's when I love acting the most.

SA: Oscar Wilde believed that no man is truthful. Give him a mask, he said, and he will tell you the truth. Do you think we can be truthful to ourselves without masks?

JC: I think it's difficult to be really honest. But that's a big enough subject to think about from my own little corner--I don't know if I can make an overarching statement about humanity. What I can say is I find it really interesting being married now because before, I was able to sort of get away with things. When you're married you have to start being honest with yourself and your partner. You have to grow up. You can't have everything the way you want it. Maybe I'm personalizing it because Paul and I were just having a conversation in which he was calling me out, saying I wasn't really being honest with myself, and I was really convinced that I was.

SA: I've seen you and Paul together. You seem to be very happy. What is it in this fine actor and lovely husband of yours that you adore the most?

JC: He debunks everything, which I find really charming. He makes fun of himself, he makes fun of me, he makes fun of the world. He doesn't treat as precious things that don't deserve to be. He's like a mucky angel, just a little bit dirty. He's a dirty blond. [ both laugh ]

SA: Let's finish it off with a favorite question of mine. What is your favorite song? Mine is "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor. It gives me so much power. Do you have one?

JC: I'm a huge John Lennon fan. I love "God." And "Mother"--what a beautiful song. Boy, what does that say about me? [ both laugh ]