For some time now I've always heard rumors that Kate Beckinsale wasn't the friendliest of people. Well let me tell you people right now those people are wrong. She's sweet, funny and extremely cool. Any girl that follows the Rocky Horror Picture Show around, then squeezes into a leather suit to shoot werewolves is cool with me.
Underworld reimagines modern vampires as a secretive clan of modern, aristocratic sophisticates whose mortal enemies are the Lycans [werewolves], a shrewd gang of street thugs who prowl the city's underbelly. The balance of power is upset when a beautiful young vampire warrior [Kate Beckinsale] and a nascent Lycan [Scott Speedman] fall in love. It opens September 19th.
After almost turning down the movie Underworld Beckinsale spotted director Len Wiseman's drawings that came with the script. That's what changed her mind. Wiseman is from the music video world where he directed videos for bands like Static-X, Megadeth, and Quarashi. In fact Beckinsale liked working with Wiseman so much that she got engaged to him in June 2003.
This film should solidify her place in Goth movie history alongside such films as Dark City, The Matrix and Labyrinth. But I'm also very excited for a few new movies she is working on right now. She just shot another monster movie called Van Helsing with Hugh Jackman. That film pits them against such classic movie monsters as Dracula, Wolfman and Frankenstein's Monster. Also she is in the middle of shooting the new Martin Scorsese film The Aviator with Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes and Beckinsale as Ava Gardner.
Check out the website for Underworld.
Daniel Robert Epstein: Are you ready for the onslaught of Goth fans?
Kate Beckinsale: I'm as ready as I'll ever be. I had a brief taste of it when I went to the [San Diego] Comicon this year. I went with Hugh Jackman and stood behind. At the Comicon he's like Elvis Presley. I saw the whole craziness because they're all dressed like Wolverine. It was insane.
DRE: Next year they may be dressed like Selene.
KB: Some other chicks need to suffer that costume like I did. But I was one of those girls who used to dress up and follow around The Rocky Horror Picture Show as at Columbia. I had the whole outfit and I learned how to tap dance.
DRE: Were you ever in The Rocky Horror Picture Show?
KB: No it's the bane of my life that I can't sing. If I could sing I wouldn't be doing movies, I would be in some theatre Off-Broadway happily playing Columbia for the rest of my life. So I have kinship with the geeks.
DRE: Is it cooler seeing Rocky Horror in England?
KB: I don't think so, whoops [pushes breast back into shirt]. I'm popping out here.
DRE: I don't mind.
KB: [laughs] I think it's because the Rocky Horror phenomenon started in America. I mentioned it to Len that I was one of those Rocky Horror girls. So for my birthday this year he bought me tickets to see it in LA and a whole basket of all the stuff you throw at the screen. But I don't know if can do that anymore. I would be really sad if I couldn't dress up.
DRE: That'd be funny if US Weekly ran a picture of you as Columbia.
KB: That's why I don't know if I should dress up.
DRE: So what was it like training for the action in Underworld?
KB: That was the thing that was interesting. I thought I could do it. I really wanted to do the training. It's not that often as an adult that you have to learn a new skill very quickly and become good at it. You don't get many 28 year olds deciding to learn the oboe unless you're an actor studying a role. That really appealed to me especially with the idea that I might not pull it off. I like to be scared to go to work.
DRE: Some of those guns looked pretty formidable. What was it like shooting them?
KB: The eeriest thing is that I was kind of a natural at that. I might have gone my whole life and never have known that. I've never shot a gun before. They told me it's because I have big hands. Women often find guns in the movies quite difficult because they may have small hands.
DRE: Let me see.
[Kate and I press palms together. Her fingers are thinner than mine but they are longer]
DRE: You do have big hands!
KB: Yeah no one ever believes me but I always win those hand comparisons. My gun training was not very extensive. The boxing and wire training was about 3 months long. Maybe I'll turn into one those weird people that go to shooting galleries.
What they did in the training is they showed me how to throw a few punches. They said I sucked at that so I worked on it. I also had to learn to not run like a girl, gymnastics and a lot more. In the subway scene I wasn't allowed to dive through the train window but that was me doing the roll afterwards. They really wanted me to learn the wirework so that it wouldn't look fake.
DRE: Was it odd playing the traditional male action star role?
KB: Not at all. Funnily enough I feel much more feminine now than before and there are a bunch of reasons for that. As a woman you get used to taking up a small amount of space and speaking softly especially when walking by yourself in the street. You try to be invisible so you don't get unwanted attention. That doesn't serve you very well when you are called upon to chop someone in the neck and throw them around. Maybe it's a British thing as well because there was a reluctance to even make a grunting noise when doing those physical things. I found it very liberating to break that barrier down. It was me getting a sense of what it is like to walk around as a guy. It's such a different thing.
DRE: Are you a fan of the bands on the soundtrack like A Perfect Circle and Skinny Puppy?
KB: Not particularly. I love that Agent Provocateur song [Red Tape] from the trailer. I thought that was cool. I do really like the industrial nature of the soundtrack but I have funny music tastes. I can never pin down what I like. I have a four year daughter so when I get the chance I crave complete and utter silence. But my daughter Lily and I are rediscovering the 80's which makes me feel so festive. Just listening to The Jam.
DRE: Did you ever think after working with Michael Bay [director of Pearl Harbor] you would get engaged to a movie director?
KB: [laughs] He didn't put me off. But I don't want to marry Michael Bay and I don't think he wanted to marry me. My mother is married to a director so I'm turning into her. I certainly wasn't expecting to get engaged to a director. The funny thing is the English papers, which are always so kind and generous; they actually said it was a career move. I can't believe that people would actually do that. Where I'm from they wouldn't anyway.
Being with the director sucks because there are no perks at all. He was much more secretive with me. He let my makeup artist watch the fucking movie before me. I saw the movie for the first time in Toronto with 900 people because he wouldn't let me see it.
DRE: How was that?
KB: Great. I had never seen one of my movies for the first time with an audience. Normally they screen it for you in some padded room so you can scream and pound the walls.
DRE: Did Len give you comic books to read to prepare for this movie?
KB: Well Len is an artist. He designed a lot of things that were in the movie. That was what drew me to the movie in the first place. I heard they were sending me a werewolf and vampire movie and I wasn't really excited about it. I thought it would be all garlic and onions, whatever it is vampires did. I figured it would be some girl in a white nightgown running around screaming while getting bit in the neck. When I saw his drawings it changed my mind.
But now that I live with Len I getting drawn into the comic book world. We have a room in our house that is only filled with action figures. My kid thinks he is the coolest thing because he has toys.
DRE: What made you think a werewolf/vampire movie wasn't for you?
KB: I wasn't against it it's just that I'm not a horror fan. I did always have an overactive imagination though. But my all time favorite horror film is Nightmare on Elm Street. I did see that at an impressionable age.
DRE: I was scared to go into the basement after I saw Nightmare on Elm Street.
KB: Me too. I thought it was the scariest movie ever. We all watched Salem's Lot once and that was scary. I also told Lily to go up to Len one time and go Redrum Redrum. It was really scary and now she does it all the time.
DRE: What did you bring to the character of Selene?
KB: One thing I definitely didn't want to do was a 90 minute music video with no plot. It was wonderful that Len thought the same way. I think that since Selene is tough and enigmatic you have to keep her real and not just some superhero. I didn't really add anything to the character but I just made her more specific by rewriting it a little bit and making it more personal. They were very receptive to that and they really involved me. That was an extras bonus.
DRE: You had some concern about doing a genre picture like Underworld but you're also in Van Helsing.
KB: So you must think I'm full of shit [laughs]. When we were doing all the press for Underworld I was saying I'm not into vampire movies and now I've done Van Helsing. No one will take me seriously anymore. The thing about Underworld is that I did it because I like action movies. Van Helsing is more like Romancing the Stone, a family action adventure romp. It's not La Femme Nikita. I play a gypsy princess. Two vampire movies you're kind of weird but three it's a fetish so I have to be careful.
DRE: Obviously you didn't like getting into the costume but did you like the way you look in it?
KB: It's the costume I dreaded the most but it turned out to be my favorite costume I ever wore. I angsted about it but Len and I have similar tastes so all those things I was worried about went away.
DRE: Did you keep the costume?
KB: Yeah but I haven't had to wear any of it [laughs].
DRE: Maybe when you go to a fetish club.
KB: I could do that. But Halloween is coming soon. My child is so over me wearing that costume because she was on set all the time. The costume very much helps me get into character whether I'm playing Selene or Ava Gardner. That's something that affects how you hold yourself. I was glad I had three weeks of training before I got into the costume because since it is a sexy costume if I wasn't physically confident I would have felt like a Barbie doll.
DRE: What was it like doing a movie that produced by companies from Britain/Germany/Hungarian?
KB: Not so much producers but the entire crew was a mix of people from those countries. It was very intentional.
DRE: After playing a vampire, would you rather be a vampire or a werewolf?
KB: Vampires get the better clothes. It looks painful to be a werewolf. They go through a PMS agony thing every month.
DRE: Could you see this going into other mediums like anime and comic books?
KB: I think they're talking about all kinds of things. Sequels, comic books and all that stuff.
DRE: Have you seen your Underworld action figure yet?
KB: Yes, I think it looks like a female impersonator of me. But I think most action figures do. The male action figures look good but the women's look too intense. You don't tend to get pretty women figures.
DRE: Has your daughter seen it?
KB: No but she has seen the prototype of the Van Helsing figure. My mother thought it looked exactly like me and Lilly didn't. I'm a bit worried I'm going to come home and find her torturing the doll when she is angry at me, "Die mommy die."
DRE: Being that you played Selene and had insight on the character would you want to write a comic book about her?
KB: I don't think they would ask me. I'm an actress and we are famously stupid. We shouldn't be consulted on anything. I don't think they even consulted Len on the action figures which as a geek he took quite hard.
DRE: What did you think of Len's music videos?
KB: I thought they were great but didn't reflect all his ability. He did amazing things with a small budget. I panicked slightly that he was a perverted freak because everyone was wearing rubber.
DRE: Then you found out he was a perverted freak and you got engaged.
KB: [laughs] Right he drew me over to the dark side.
by Daniel Robert Epstein.
Underworld reimagines modern vampires as a secretive clan of modern, aristocratic sophisticates whose mortal enemies are the Lycans [werewolves], a shrewd gang of street thugs who prowl the city's underbelly. The balance of power is upset when a beautiful young vampire warrior [Kate Beckinsale] and a nascent Lycan [Scott Speedman] fall in love. It opens September 19th.
After almost turning down the movie Underworld Beckinsale spotted director Len Wiseman's drawings that came with the script. That's what changed her mind. Wiseman is from the music video world where he directed videos for bands like Static-X, Megadeth, and Quarashi. In fact Beckinsale liked working with Wiseman so much that she got engaged to him in June 2003.
This film should solidify her place in Goth movie history alongside such films as Dark City, The Matrix and Labyrinth. But I'm also very excited for a few new movies she is working on right now. She just shot another monster movie called Van Helsing with Hugh Jackman. That film pits them against such classic movie monsters as Dracula, Wolfman and Frankenstein's Monster. Also she is in the middle of shooting the new Martin Scorsese film The Aviator with Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes and Beckinsale as Ava Gardner.
Check out the website for Underworld.
Daniel Robert Epstein: Are you ready for the onslaught of Goth fans?
Kate Beckinsale: I'm as ready as I'll ever be. I had a brief taste of it when I went to the [San Diego] Comicon this year. I went with Hugh Jackman and stood behind. At the Comicon he's like Elvis Presley. I saw the whole craziness because they're all dressed like Wolverine. It was insane.
DRE: Next year they may be dressed like Selene.
KB: Some other chicks need to suffer that costume like I did. But I was one of those girls who used to dress up and follow around The Rocky Horror Picture Show as at Columbia. I had the whole outfit and I learned how to tap dance.
DRE: Were you ever in The Rocky Horror Picture Show?
KB: No it's the bane of my life that I can't sing. If I could sing I wouldn't be doing movies, I would be in some theatre Off-Broadway happily playing Columbia for the rest of my life. So I have kinship with the geeks.
DRE: Is it cooler seeing Rocky Horror in England?
KB: I don't think so, whoops [pushes breast back into shirt]. I'm popping out here.
DRE: I don't mind.
KB: [laughs] I think it's because the Rocky Horror phenomenon started in America. I mentioned it to Len that I was one of those Rocky Horror girls. So for my birthday this year he bought me tickets to see it in LA and a whole basket of all the stuff you throw at the screen. But I don't know if can do that anymore. I would be really sad if I couldn't dress up.
DRE: That'd be funny if US Weekly ran a picture of you as Columbia.
KB: That's why I don't know if I should dress up.
DRE: So what was it like training for the action in Underworld?
KB: That was the thing that was interesting. I thought I could do it. I really wanted to do the training. It's not that often as an adult that you have to learn a new skill very quickly and become good at it. You don't get many 28 year olds deciding to learn the oboe unless you're an actor studying a role. That really appealed to me especially with the idea that I might not pull it off. I like to be scared to go to work.
DRE: Some of those guns looked pretty formidable. What was it like shooting them?
KB: The eeriest thing is that I was kind of a natural at that. I might have gone my whole life and never have known that. I've never shot a gun before. They told me it's because I have big hands. Women often find guns in the movies quite difficult because they may have small hands.
DRE: Let me see.
[Kate and I press palms together. Her fingers are thinner than mine but they are longer]
DRE: You do have big hands!
KB: Yeah no one ever believes me but I always win those hand comparisons. My gun training was not very extensive. The boxing and wire training was about 3 months long. Maybe I'll turn into one those weird people that go to shooting galleries.
What they did in the training is they showed me how to throw a few punches. They said I sucked at that so I worked on it. I also had to learn to not run like a girl, gymnastics and a lot more. In the subway scene I wasn't allowed to dive through the train window but that was me doing the roll afterwards. They really wanted me to learn the wirework so that it wouldn't look fake.
DRE: Was it odd playing the traditional male action star role?
KB: Not at all. Funnily enough I feel much more feminine now than before and there are a bunch of reasons for that. As a woman you get used to taking up a small amount of space and speaking softly especially when walking by yourself in the street. You try to be invisible so you don't get unwanted attention. That doesn't serve you very well when you are called upon to chop someone in the neck and throw them around. Maybe it's a British thing as well because there was a reluctance to even make a grunting noise when doing those physical things. I found it very liberating to break that barrier down. It was me getting a sense of what it is like to walk around as a guy. It's such a different thing.
DRE: Are you a fan of the bands on the soundtrack like A Perfect Circle and Skinny Puppy?
KB: Not particularly. I love that Agent Provocateur song [Red Tape] from the trailer. I thought that was cool. I do really like the industrial nature of the soundtrack but I have funny music tastes. I can never pin down what I like. I have a four year daughter so when I get the chance I crave complete and utter silence. But my daughter Lily and I are rediscovering the 80's which makes me feel so festive. Just listening to The Jam.
DRE: Did you ever think after working with Michael Bay [director of Pearl Harbor] you would get engaged to a movie director?
KB: [laughs] He didn't put me off. But I don't want to marry Michael Bay and I don't think he wanted to marry me. My mother is married to a director so I'm turning into her. I certainly wasn't expecting to get engaged to a director. The funny thing is the English papers, which are always so kind and generous; they actually said it was a career move. I can't believe that people would actually do that. Where I'm from they wouldn't anyway.
Being with the director sucks because there are no perks at all. He was much more secretive with me. He let my makeup artist watch the fucking movie before me. I saw the movie for the first time in Toronto with 900 people because he wouldn't let me see it.
DRE: How was that?
KB: Great. I had never seen one of my movies for the first time with an audience. Normally they screen it for you in some padded room so you can scream and pound the walls.
DRE: Did Len give you comic books to read to prepare for this movie?
KB: Well Len is an artist. He designed a lot of things that were in the movie. That was what drew me to the movie in the first place. I heard they were sending me a werewolf and vampire movie and I wasn't really excited about it. I thought it would be all garlic and onions, whatever it is vampires did. I figured it would be some girl in a white nightgown running around screaming while getting bit in the neck. When I saw his drawings it changed my mind.
But now that I live with Len I getting drawn into the comic book world. We have a room in our house that is only filled with action figures. My kid thinks he is the coolest thing because he has toys.
DRE: What made you think a werewolf/vampire movie wasn't for you?
KB: I wasn't against it it's just that I'm not a horror fan. I did always have an overactive imagination though. But my all time favorite horror film is Nightmare on Elm Street. I did see that at an impressionable age.
DRE: I was scared to go into the basement after I saw Nightmare on Elm Street.
KB: Me too. I thought it was the scariest movie ever. We all watched Salem's Lot once and that was scary. I also told Lily to go up to Len one time and go Redrum Redrum. It was really scary and now she does it all the time.
DRE: What did you bring to the character of Selene?
KB: One thing I definitely didn't want to do was a 90 minute music video with no plot. It was wonderful that Len thought the same way. I think that since Selene is tough and enigmatic you have to keep her real and not just some superhero. I didn't really add anything to the character but I just made her more specific by rewriting it a little bit and making it more personal. They were very receptive to that and they really involved me. That was an extras bonus.
DRE: You had some concern about doing a genre picture like Underworld but you're also in Van Helsing.
KB: So you must think I'm full of shit [laughs]. When we were doing all the press for Underworld I was saying I'm not into vampire movies and now I've done Van Helsing. No one will take me seriously anymore. The thing about Underworld is that I did it because I like action movies. Van Helsing is more like Romancing the Stone, a family action adventure romp. It's not La Femme Nikita. I play a gypsy princess. Two vampire movies you're kind of weird but three it's a fetish so I have to be careful.
DRE: Obviously you didn't like getting into the costume but did you like the way you look in it?
KB: It's the costume I dreaded the most but it turned out to be my favorite costume I ever wore. I angsted about it but Len and I have similar tastes so all those things I was worried about went away.
DRE: Did you keep the costume?
KB: Yeah but I haven't had to wear any of it [laughs].
DRE: Maybe when you go to a fetish club.
KB: I could do that. But Halloween is coming soon. My child is so over me wearing that costume because she was on set all the time. The costume very much helps me get into character whether I'm playing Selene or Ava Gardner. That's something that affects how you hold yourself. I was glad I had three weeks of training before I got into the costume because since it is a sexy costume if I wasn't physically confident I would have felt like a Barbie doll.
DRE: What was it like doing a movie that produced by companies from Britain/Germany/Hungarian?
KB: Not so much producers but the entire crew was a mix of people from those countries. It was very intentional.
DRE: After playing a vampire, would you rather be a vampire or a werewolf?
KB: Vampires get the better clothes. It looks painful to be a werewolf. They go through a PMS agony thing every month.
DRE: Could you see this going into other mediums like anime and comic books?
KB: I think they're talking about all kinds of things. Sequels, comic books and all that stuff.
DRE: Have you seen your Underworld action figure yet?
KB: Yes, I think it looks like a female impersonator of me. But I think most action figures do. The male action figures look good but the women's look too intense. You don't tend to get pretty women figures.
DRE: Has your daughter seen it?
KB: No but she has seen the prototype of the Van Helsing figure. My mother thought it looked exactly like me and Lilly didn't. I'm a bit worried I'm going to come home and find her torturing the doll when she is angry at me, "Die mommy die."
DRE: Being that you played Selene and had insight on the character would you want to write a comic book about her?
KB: I don't think they would ask me. I'm an actress and we are famously stupid. We shouldn't be consulted on anything. I don't think they even consulted Len on the action figures which as a geek he took quite hard.
DRE: What did you think of Len's music videos?
KB: I thought they were great but didn't reflect all his ability. He did amazing things with a small budget. I panicked slightly that he was a perverted freak because everyone was wearing rubber.
DRE: Then you found out he was a perverted freak and you got engaged.
KB: [laughs] Right he drew me over to the dark side.
by Daniel Robert Epstein.
VIEW 13 of 13 COMMENTS
Koleeta said:
She's so pretty. I just saw laurel canyon the other night and I realized how much she reminds me of Paker Posey...just the face.
Parker Posey is a goddess!