ROLE CALL: Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson talks to Carole Cadwalladr about Under the Skin, a sci-fi film set in Glasgow
There is something very levelling about seeing a major Hollywood star. And not just any Hollywood star but Scarlett Johansson, three times Woody Allen muse, Bafta winner, noted beauty. Yet, there she is, in her latest film, in a pair of stonewashed jeans and a fake fur coat, walking down a busy shopping street in Glasgow and, well, blending in. She looks normal. Ordinary, even.
Strip a star of their Hollywood get-up, remove them from their Bel Air mansions, and it turns out that they look just like the rest of us. Only Johansson is different. Theoretically, this is because, in Under the Skin, a low-budget sci-fi indie adapted from a Michel Faber novel, we know she’s an alien.
In reality, it’s because we know she’s Scarlett Johansson. We watch her prowling the outskirts of Glasgow, the in-between lands of industrial parks and council estates, looking for fresh man meat, and there is an eerie sense of alien universes colliding.
Scenes include Scarlett Johansson on a bus. Scarlett Johansson being given directions to Asda. And Scarlett Johansson sitting in front of an electric fire in a council house watching Tommy Cooper on TV.
It turns out that transplanting a major Hollywood celebrity to a down-at-heel, working-class Scotland is about as close as you can get to seeing an alien walk among ordinary mortals. Celebrities may not be an actual master race yet but there is something weirdly jarring about seeing someone familiar from a thousand red-carpet photographs, walking down an ordinary high street full of the ordinary faces of ordinary lives.
When I meet her, however, Johansson, 29, is back in full Hollywood mode. She’s been installed in a fancy suite in New York’s Waldorf Astoria and has shed the ugly jeans and cheap boots.
She’s in spiky heels and a silky top and is groomed and coiffed with eyelashes like a camel’s and a river of shining blond hair that flows around her shoulders. She is surrounded by a small army of publicists and minders. She looks neither ordinary nor normal. (Nor, noticeably, pregnant, as various newspapers claimed last week.)
I’ve just seen her in action at a press conference where she’d gone off on a long riff about Jonathan Glazer, the British director of the film who she calls a “visionary” and a “genius”. And when I meet her, she says what an easy and enjoyable film it is to talk about.
It’s one reason, presumably, that she took the part, though I’m curious to know the details. There’s only about three lines of dialogue in the entire film, so it can hardly have been the standout script.
The main point of her character is that she doesn’t actually have a character. She’s an alien. She doesn’t do emotion. And it was filmed in Scotland. In winter. And most of the film consists of her standing around in wet boots and a too-thin coat.
So why, of all the scripts she must get sent, did she decide to do this one? “I heard Jonathan was making a film and originally it was a very different story. But I met him, and it was very clear that he was struggling to figure out what he was doing with it, and what had attracted him to it. It wasn’t his passion project but there was something in the idea of having a character that was an alien that could give him the freedom to be completely observant without any judgment.
“I think we were both interested in that. I thought it would be incredibly challenging to play a character that’s free of judgment, that has no relationship to any emotion I could relate to.
“And for me, at this point, I think it’s much more interesting for me to look at something and know that I can play it, but not know how, rather than to look at something and go, ‘Ah, I can do that.’ And then just do it.”
She spent several years talking to Glazer, a director who made his name with the Guinness surfer ad. She became “part of the creative process” and found herself committed to the project even though the story and script changed, and it turned out that the dialogue she speaks (in an English accent) she more or less had to make up as she went along.
There’s no doubt that it was a bold decision. It’s neither a blockbuster like Captain America, the second installment of which is to be released shortly, and for which she wore a catsuit and was paid millions, and nor is Glazer a huge name.
Critics have been divided. It is, depending on who you believe, either “an intoxicating marvel; strange and sublime” (Time Out), or a “laughably bad alien hitchhiker movie” (The Independent). The Guardian’s Xan Brooks reported that at the premiere at the Venice film festival, there was uproar with “an even split of cheering and boos.” — Guardian News & Media
Colin Farrell’s kids don’t understand his career
Colin Farrell says his two sons have ‘’no idea’’ that he is an actor and don’t understand why he sometimes appears on TV. The 37-year-old star has two children — James, 10, who suffers from neuro-genetic disorder Angelman Syndrome, and Henry, four, from previous relationships. He recalled his younger son’s confusion when he spotted him on TV, claiming both boys don’t know he’s an actor, reports contactmusic.com.
Quizzed on what his children think about his career, he said: “They have no idea what I do for a living. Henry saw me on the TV screen once and he went, ‘What are you doing there?’
“And James’ way of processing the world is very particular, which is one of the beautiful things about him.
“I don’t even know if I put a film on in front of James that he would even understand the idea of acting or performance — his cognitive capability is such that he understands a lot of magical and interesting things that I just don’t, but there are a lot of boring things about the physical world that he may never be able to comprehend — and why should he?” — IANS
Angelina Jolie to have another surgery
Actress Angelina Jolie, who had a double mastectomy in May last year, says “there’s still another surgery to have, which I haven’t yet”. The 38-year-old had a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery after being told she had an 87% risk of breast cancer because she carries the BRCA1 gene. “There’s still another surgery to have, which I haven’t yet. I’ll get advice from all these wonderful people who I’ve been talking to, to get through that next stage,” she told Entertainment Weekly.
She said that she was “very fortunate” to have great doctors and “good recovery” and “a project like Unbroken to have something to be really focused on, to be getting healthy for, and to be able to just get right back to work”. “I was very, very moved by all the support and kindness from so many people,” she added. The mother of six, who lost her mother to ovarian cancer and her aunt to breast cancer, had shared her experience in a New York Times op-ed article titled ‘My Medical Choice’. — IANS
I wish Honor would dress her age, jokes Jessica Alba
Actress Jessica Alba, whose daughter Honor loves heels and dresses, wants the five-and-half-year-old to dress her age. It’s not like Alba, 32, wants her daughter to have poor taste, she just wishes her little one dressed for her age, reports people.com.
“Honor likes wearing heels and dresses,” Alba told People at an intimate fete at Mondrian Hotel’s Herringbone restaurant to celebrate her very first Nylon magazine cover. “I’m like, ‘No! (Don’t you want to) climb a tree?’”
In the past, Alba, the founder of The Honest Company, had echoed similar statements, saying: “For sure I see a mini me. I was a tomboy when I was a kid. Honor is like me grown up. It’s so bizarre.”
Meanwhile, Alba is practical when it comes to daughters’ wardrobe and ensures apparel does not go to waste in the her household, as she is a big fan of letting her two-and-half-year-old daughter, Haven Garner, get plenty of wear out of Honor’s old wardrobe. “Honor’s clothes get handed down to Haven,” she said, adding that her older daughter “loves” being a big sister. “That’s the way I was raised, so that’s how it is for my family, too.” When it comes to her own style, the upcoming Sin City 2 star likes tone-on-tone, mixing patterns and bright orange.
BELOW:
‘HOME’ TRUTHS: Colin Farrell