Post by Chris on Aug 10, 2005 13:07:02 GMT
Jessica Biel Doesn't Want to be Typecast
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LOS ANGELES - Being young and beautiful in Hollywood is not an exclusive club.
You can't swing a yoga mat over your head in this town without hitting a gorgeous young actress. That makes for some pretty stiff competition for the limited number of plum movie roles being offered.
So, why did Jessica Biel turn down director Rob Cohen not once, but twice, for the role of a tough Navy pilot in the high-profile, big-budget action film "Stealth," which opens Friday? And, more important, why did Cohen insist on this particular actress over the rest of the Jessicas, Jennifers and Rachels who inhabit this city?
Sitting in a trendy lunch cafe near her new Brentwood home, the striking and accessible Biel said she wasn't trying to be troublesome or arrogant when she turned down the role. And she fully understands the competitive nature of the movie business.
"Listen, it's impossible to not understand that," she explained. "You go out on auditions and you keep running into the same people. You're all competing for the same roles.
"But I had just come off two action movies ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Blade: Trinity"), and I was determined not to be Hollywood's new action chick. I think I have more to offer than that. I want to go back and forth between genres. I want to do a love story one day and a comedy with Will Ferrell the next.
"That will never happen if you keep accepting the same kind of roles over and over again. And, as long as you're willing to accept them, they will keep offering the same roles over and over again."
The 23-year-old actress said she took a break from her career to wait for a different kind of role to be offered and, while waiting for good roles in a competitive market did get a little "scary" at times, the strategy paid off.
She not only got roles in two upcoming non-action films (director Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown" with Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst, and "The Illusionist" with Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti), but she got a lot of attention from Cohen.
"I put a line in the movie in which Jamie Foxx and Josh Lucas are talking about her character, and they say, 'She's gone to all the right schools and has the right background,' he said.
"Well, that disqualifies about 80 percent of the actresses in Hollywood. Most of them don't seem like they went to any school, let alone the right school.
"And this role called for a certain physicality," he added. "We went on a number of ships and spoke to a lot of women pilots. They're all buffed out, intelligent and self-reliant. I needed an actress who could pull that off. She needed to look like she could hike 20 miles with a 50-pound pack on her back. Most of the actresses in Hollywood are stick figures.
"What I wanted was a real American woman, with a certain kind of heartland beauty, intelligence and integrity. That's Jessica in a nutshell. She's the real deal. She's so unlike the rest of these actresses we have in this town. I'm so sick of these breast-implanted, collagen-injected clones that we're forced to look at for roles. I wasn't going to settle for anyone but Jessica in this film."
Biel, Foxx and Lucas play elite Navy test pilots who are asked to fly a top-secret mission with an experimental unmanned aircraft guided by artificial intelligence. On the mission, the unmanned craft breaks from formation after being damaged by a lightning strike, and sets out on a deadly mission of its own that could spark a nuclear confrontation.
Cohen, who directed "The Fast and the Furious" and the first "XXX" movie, said Biel was about five years younger than most of the female pilots he had met, but she was able to pull it off.
"What can I tell you? She's got a maturity that makes her believable in this role."
The 5-foot-7 Biel said she had worked out extensively for "Blade: Trinity," and continued her six-days-a-week regimen when she began "Stealth."
"I had minimal training on flight simulators compared to Josh because I was busy on another movie, but I did get a chance to work out. It would have been a joke if I didn't look like I could physically control an aircraft like that."
As for what convinced her to do another action film, the actress said she didn't see "Stealth" as just another action film.
"It's not just about blowing things up," she said. "It's a love story. It's a morality tale. It's got a lot to say about the future of war. And, sure, it's a summer blockbuster if you believe the advertising."
Raised in the scenic college town Boulder, Colo., Biel said she had her sights on a career in show business since she was 8.
"I was one of those children you see in home movies who are always hamming it up in front of the camera," she said with a little hint of embarrassment. "I was the one with the 'Look at me' expression on her face."
She appeared in local musical productions, and had already done some modeling and commercial work before her ninth birthday. At the age of 11, she and her mother began flying to Los Angeles for the annual TV pilot season.
On their third trip, 14-year-old Jessica got the role of Mary Camden in the series "7th Heaven," and, almost simultaneously, won a role in the 1997 film "Ulee's Gold" opposite Peter Fonda.
She stayed on the TV series for five seasons, managing to fit in a few movie roles and three semesters at Tufts University in Boston during breaks.
Her schooling has led some in the industry to see Biel as a thinking man's sex symbol, but in Hollywood, that usually translates to just plain sex symbol.
One of her early film roles was the 2001 movie "Summer Catch," in which Biel played a rich girl on Cape Cod being pursued by a young baseball player (Freddie Prinze Jr.) from the wrong side of the tracks. It is a generally forgettable film, with the exception of one scene by a swimming pool, when Prinze, sweating from mowing her father's lawn, admires Biel's form as she climbs out of the pool in slow motion.
The actress laughs when the gratuitous bathing suit scene is mentioned, and says she is not embarrassed to have such a movie moment on her resume.
"One day, I'm going to be able to show that scene to my grandchildren and say, 'See how good your grandma looked when she was 18.'"
A more serious Biel said she understands that sex sells movies, but looks forward to the day when her looks will not be the reason she is hired for a job.
"This movie ('Stealth') is a serious film, and I don't believe I was hired for my looks. But even this film has a scene with me in a bikini. When I read it in the script, I didn't like it at first, but I eventually realized that it fits into the context of the story.
"Of course, I didn't expect them to be selling the movie using my butt in a bikini.
"But that's how Hollywood works," she added with a smile and a slight shrug of resignation. "If I don't want to do it, I'm sure there are plenty of girls who will."
==============================================================================
Credit: bradenton.com 8/4/05
==============================================================================
LOS ANGELES - Being young and beautiful in Hollywood is not an exclusive club.
You can't swing a yoga mat over your head in this town without hitting a gorgeous young actress. That makes for some pretty stiff competition for the limited number of plum movie roles being offered.
So, why did Jessica Biel turn down director Rob Cohen not once, but twice, for the role of a tough Navy pilot in the high-profile, big-budget action film "Stealth," which opens Friday? And, more important, why did Cohen insist on this particular actress over the rest of the Jessicas, Jennifers and Rachels who inhabit this city?
Sitting in a trendy lunch cafe near her new Brentwood home, the striking and accessible Biel said she wasn't trying to be troublesome or arrogant when she turned down the role. And she fully understands the competitive nature of the movie business.
"Listen, it's impossible to not understand that," she explained. "You go out on auditions and you keep running into the same people. You're all competing for the same roles.
"But I had just come off two action movies ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Blade: Trinity"), and I was determined not to be Hollywood's new action chick. I think I have more to offer than that. I want to go back and forth between genres. I want to do a love story one day and a comedy with Will Ferrell the next.
"That will never happen if you keep accepting the same kind of roles over and over again. And, as long as you're willing to accept them, they will keep offering the same roles over and over again."
The 23-year-old actress said she took a break from her career to wait for a different kind of role to be offered and, while waiting for good roles in a competitive market did get a little "scary" at times, the strategy paid off.
She not only got roles in two upcoming non-action films (director Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown" with Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst, and "The Illusionist" with Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti), but she got a lot of attention from Cohen.
"I put a line in the movie in which Jamie Foxx and Josh Lucas are talking about her character, and they say, 'She's gone to all the right schools and has the right background,' he said.
"Well, that disqualifies about 80 percent of the actresses in Hollywood. Most of them don't seem like they went to any school, let alone the right school.
"And this role called for a certain physicality," he added. "We went on a number of ships and spoke to a lot of women pilots. They're all buffed out, intelligent and self-reliant. I needed an actress who could pull that off. She needed to look like she could hike 20 miles with a 50-pound pack on her back. Most of the actresses in Hollywood are stick figures.
"What I wanted was a real American woman, with a certain kind of heartland beauty, intelligence and integrity. That's Jessica in a nutshell. She's the real deal. She's so unlike the rest of these actresses we have in this town. I'm so sick of these breast-implanted, collagen-injected clones that we're forced to look at for roles. I wasn't going to settle for anyone but Jessica in this film."
Biel, Foxx and Lucas play elite Navy test pilots who are asked to fly a top-secret mission with an experimental unmanned aircraft guided by artificial intelligence. On the mission, the unmanned craft breaks from formation after being damaged by a lightning strike, and sets out on a deadly mission of its own that could spark a nuclear confrontation.
Cohen, who directed "The Fast and the Furious" and the first "XXX" movie, said Biel was about five years younger than most of the female pilots he had met, but she was able to pull it off.
"What can I tell you? She's got a maturity that makes her believable in this role."
The 5-foot-7 Biel said she had worked out extensively for "Blade: Trinity," and continued her six-days-a-week regimen when she began "Stealth."
"I had minimal training on flight simulators compared to Josh because I was busy on another movie, but I did get a chance to work out. It would have been a joke if I didn't look like I could physically control an aircraft like that."
As for what convinced her to do another action film, the actress said she didn't see "Stealth" as just another action film.
"It's not just about blowing things up," she said. "It's a love story. It's a morality tale. It's got a lot to say about the future of war. And, sure, it's a summer blockbuster if you believe the advertising."
Raised in the scenic college town Boulder, Colo., Biel said she had her sights on a career in show business since she was 8.
"I was one of those children you see in home movies who are always hamming it up in front of the camera," she said with a little hint of embarrassment. "I was the one with the 'Look at me' expression on her face."
She appeared in local musical productions, and had already done some modeling and commercial work before her ninth birthday. At the age of 11, she and her mother began flying to Los Angeles for the annual TV pilot season.
On their third trip, 14-year-old Jessica got the role of Mary Camden in the series "7th Heaven," and, almost simultaneously, won a role in the 1997 film "Ulee's Gold" opposite Peter Fonda.
She stayed on the TV series for five seasons, managing to fit in a few movie roles and three semesters at Tufts University in Boston during breaks.
Her schooling has led some in the industry to see Biel as a thinking man's sex symbol, but in Hollywood, that usually translates to just plain sex symbol.
One of her early film roles was the 2001 movie "Summer Catch," in which Biel played a rich girl on Cape Cod being pursued by a young baseball player (Freddie Prinze Jr.) from the wrong side of the tracks. It is a generally forgettable film, with the exception of one scene by a swimming pool, when Prinze, sweating from mowing her father's lawn, admires Biel's form as she climbs out of the pool in slow motion.
The actress laughs when the gratuitous bathing suit scene is mentioned, and says she is not embarrassed to have such a movie moment on her resume.
"One day, I'm going to be able to show that scene to my grandchildren and say, 'See how good your grandma looked when she was 18.'"
A more serious Biel said she understands that sex sells movies, but looks forward to the day when her looks will not be the reason she is hired for a job.
"This movie ('Stealth') is a serious film, and I don't believe I was hired for my looks. But even this film has a scene with me in a bikini. When I read it in the script, I didn't like it at first, but I eventually realized that it fits into the context of the story.
"Of course, I didn't expect them to be selling the movie using my butt in a bikini.
"But that's how Hollywood works," she added with a smile and a slight shrug of resignation. "If I don't want to do it, I'm sure there are plenty of girls who will."
==============================================================================
Credit: bradenton.com 8/4/05
