Interview: Kate Beckinsale
Interview by Clint Morris
Interview with Kate Beckinsale
Starred in the movie Underworld: Evoloution.
Born and raised in England by
astute acting parents and educated at the prestigious private college
Godolphin and Latymer, actress Kate Beckinsale is the last person
you’d think would be attracted to starring in a film franchise
about a werewolf-hunting vampire, but after such a great time making
the first Underworld
(2003), she tells Clint Morris she just
couldn’t oppose a second serving.
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Kate Beckinsale doesn't
only just sizzle on screen.
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Kate
Beckinsale explodes in
Underwolrd : Evoloution
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Kate Beckinsale spent
her teens reading French, Russian and German novels because of her
studies, and completed A-levels in Russian, German and French, which
resulted in her admission to Oxford University. She also won many
literary awards – mainly for her poetry. Funny then that her
favourite film role would be playing that of Selena, the vampire
hunter, in a film that’s not so much about the words-on-the-page
than the action-on-the-screen.
“I wasn’t really an
action 'type' before I did this,” admits Beckinsale,
whose other credits include Van
Helsing, Pearl
Harbor and The
Aviator,
but Selena’s “a really great [character] to be,
[she’s] very cool and also has a [certain] vulnerability.”
Truth
is, the film’s director had to coax her into the role. She was
sent the script, but the theatre-trained actress immediately tossed it
when she found out it was a werewolf movie. Weeks later, it returned
– with a sketching of what her character would look like in the
movie. Now, she was intrigued.
She recalls director Len
Wiseman – now her husband – suggesting she “watch L.A
Confidential to study Russell Crowe,” in preparation for
her role,
funnily enough.
It was how Crowe’s character feels about
the wife beaters that have destroyed his life, that Wiseman thought
would be a good reference for the actress, and anyway,
“it’s hard to find really solid female action
heroines,” says Beckinsale, so Crowe’s performance had to
do.
Beckinsale says she may count it as her favourite film that
she’s done, but she also considers the first Underworld her most
challenging.
“It was one of the hardest. I do find
it hard having to be such a tough warrior and a badass,” she
says. “And the costume is quite tight.”
The actress,
who recently had to shed the ten pounds she gained to portray the
voluptuous Ava Gardner in The
Aviator for this film, admits that
“I don’t think ever want to approach a movie in a really
different huge way from another kind of a movie. It’s all
the same stuff.
“Okay, initially when I first read the
script, I thought: "wow this is a really big
stretch." But when you find that she’s lost people
in her family, she’s coming from a place of real loss and so on -
everybody has their own way of identifying with that. I found
that whole back-story very interesting. I don’t feel quite as
tough myself, at least not on that level, but everything that was
behind the story I found really intriguing.”
Beckinsale
loathed the costume first time around, with some media reports claiming
she was becoming dehydrated in the slinky outfit.
“It’s
not so much that the costume made me dehydrated, it’s just that
it takes twenty minutes to get the corset off and undo the zipper and
take…I don’t want to give everyone a visual,” she
laughs. “When you’re shooting obviously they don’t
want to give you a half-hour break so you try not to drink too much
water and need to bother anybody.”
Sadly, there weren't any improvements on the costume for the
sequel, she says. “We
had some problems in the beginning. Wherever they found the
stretchy rubber stuff the first time has gone bust or disappeared or
something, so we had problems with it ripping in strategic places,
every time I moved my leg or lifted my arm up there’d be a giant
gapping hole!”
The extra money that could have been spent
on a more comfortable, sturdy outfit, was instead spent on beefing up
the film’s fight sequences. “We had a lot more money
in the budget to do more fight sequences. So we all got to
beat
each other up a lot more than we did the first time,” she laughs.
In
order to look the part of Selena, Beckinsale had to do something she
had never done much of – exercise. For days on end she hit the
gym – running, doing martial arts, weights and boxing. She also had
to dis-learn what she had learnt as a dancer, so she’d look more
like an action hero, not a ballet dancer when she was doing flips or
kicks. In addition, she had to learn how to do wirework –
something she was rather nervous about.
The pretty actress was
aided all-the-way by stunt coordinators Brad Martin and Scott McElroy,
whom she credits with helping her overcome her fear, and now,
she’s so confident that she’s ready to go again. Underworld
3, anybody?
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