nicole_powers

If you're Sam Raimi, you have an interesting little dilemma to solve. One constant of the three Spider-Man films has been the Betty Brant character, a Peter Parker-smitten secretary who pops in for a couple of quick minutes to bat an eyelash at Peter or take a dig at her Daily Bugle boss, J. Jonah Jameson, before disappearing again. No one suspected, when the last film completed lensing in early 2006, that by the time pre-production on a fourth one rolled around, Elizabeth Banks, the actress who plays Betty, would have mushroomed into a bonafide A-list actress with starring roles in Oliver Stone's W. and Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno under her belt. The rumor mill has been heating up lately with talk that Raimi may pursue the obvious solution of expanding the Betty Brant role into a lead part in Spider-Man 4, but for now it's just talk.

Last week, on the morning the Oscar nominations were announced, Elizabeth Banks dialed up SuicideGirls to chat about one of her other recent projects, The Uninvited, a remake of the Korean horror film A Tale of Two Sisters, which has the distinction of being the favorite film of horror directing maestro James Gunn, among others. The raw, disturbing story of an intrusive stepmother who makes life miserable for the teen daughters of her new husband, The Uninvited is a sharp break from the actress's usual comedic repertoire. Here's our interview with Banks, in which we discuss the film and her current vantage point as one of Hollywood's true up and comers.

Ryan Stewart: I was just watching a re-broadcast of the Oscar nominations -- sorry to see that W. got shut out.

Elizabeth Banks: Yeah, I know, but I don't think anyone can take anything away from Josh's performance and it was a very tough, very competitive category this year for Best Actor. But he did get nominated for Milk, which was great, and I'm very excited for him. I loved Milk -- it's one of my favorite movies. I'm excited for Slumdog Millionaire, a lot of them, actually. But yeah, no one can take anything away from Josh's performance in W. -- he was universally praised for it and, you know, them's the breaks!

RS: Speaking of W., Laura Bush will have lots of free time now -- maybe she'll call you to hang out.

EB: [laughs] Hey, that would be cool with me -- she seems like very, very cool lady!

RS: I saw that you recently launched your own MySpace page -- how's that going?

EB: I am not very good with the MySpace, I gotta be honest with you, but I have been fairly good at going on and accepting my friend requests. I'm trying! I haven't checked my number of friends recently, but when I checked last week I had a little over three thousand. I've only been on it for a week, so I feel pretty good about three thousand in a week.

RS: Also, I have to say your blog is pretty sparse -- there was an entry where you announced your plans to drink more water.

EB: You know, I'm constantly making a joke out of how lame I can be on my blog, but yeah, that is actually my New Year's resolution, to drink more water, which is really a good New Year's resolution. I'm drinking a glass of water right now!

RS: I'm guessing it was your Slither director James Gunn who turned you on to The Uninvited? I've heard him talk about his love of the original before.

EB: Yeah, he told me that it was one of his favorite movies, actually, but I'm pretty sure he's not going to like this American version. He just doesn't like bastardization of originals. They're very different movies, but hopefully we can win him over. But no, he didn't turn me onto it -- I actually didn't know he liked the original until after the fact, after I'd already been cast in this American version.

RS: Slither is one of my favorites, by the way -- I hope you're not averse to doing more in the horror genre.

EB: I would say never say never -- I really love making those movies -- but I think I'm done with it for a little while, at least. Slither was one that I definitely loved because it was a true comedy as well as a gory kind of fun-filled horror, but The Uninvited is a psychological thriller. There is some humor mixed into it, but for the most part this is not about laughing. This one is about getting seriously creeped out and those are two totally different things. I played sort of hapless as Starla in Slither and in this I just play a total badass.

RS: So you're like a humorless Sharon Stone kind of vixen? There are no wisecracks?

EB: There's a little bit, a couple of wisecracks, but I based her mostly on Rebecca De Mornay in The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. That was the vibe that I was going for. In that movie she had this very cool quality where you were just never sure what her motivation was at any given time. It was very important to me that every line reading I gave could be interpreted two ways, so that when you go back through the movie you can see that...I didn't want to mislead the audience. I hate it when movies do that.

RS: So you play headgames with the kids, stuff like that? That's gonna be weird to watch -- you usually seem like you don't even have a dark side.

EB: Ha! We all have a dark side. Yeah, I mostly drew on a notion of just fucking with them, basically. My main thing was just to sort of fuck with the girls. Have you seen the movie?

RS: No, I don't think they invited me to a screening.

EB: Okay, cause there's a really big twist and I would totally give it away if I told you how I prepared for my character, basically.

RS: The title reflects a shift towards your character, right? The original, A Tale of Two Sisters, was more focused on the sisters and their menstrual cycles, as I recall.

EB: There's a lot less menstrual blood in this version, for sure. Emily [Browning] has already come of age in this one, she's a little older. But yeah, my character serves the same purpose -- "uninvited" does partially refer to me but it also refers to this evil that is coming into the home. It's sort of like "fear moves in" and what's uninvited is the evil, but it is embodied by me, certainly.

RS: I heard there's a scene where you beat the shit out of Emily.

EB: I wouldn't say that I beat the shit out of her, I mean she attacks me a little bit too, but we do have a great brawl. We have a good girl on girl brawl and it's legit -- we're punching, we're throwing, she slams a bottle against my head. It's a good one. We're running after each other and I'm basically trying to inject her with something, a sedative.

RS: Yikes. This was conceived as PG-13 from the start, right, so you knew how far you could go?

EB: Oh yeah, I knew what the rating would be on this movie. You almost always know what they're going for and I think it's important for actors to know that. Especially for me because I love to improv and you need to know what you can get away with. You need to know what the tone is going to be and also you get a lot more audience for a PG-13 film than you do for an R and I think it's very smart for you to know going in who the audience is that you're making the movie for.

RS: Actually, you're opening against another "hard PG-13" film -- the Liam Neeson kidnapping thriller, Taken. Easy decision?

EB: That's just a clear no-brainer. [laughs]

RS: Give me your best sales pitch for the undecided moviegoer.

EB: [in enthusiastic voice] Look, going to The Uninvited is like going on a great roller coaster ride. If you want all the thrills and excitement of going to an amusement park, you can get it for only ten dollars by seeing The Uninvited!

RS: But what if I'm a really big fan of Liam Neeson?

EB: If you really like Liam Neeson, then I can't help you. If you really like Liam Neeson, then I'm worried that you're living in 1987. Just kidding! I love Liam Neeson, but I don't know anything about that movie.

RS: You mentioned improv earlier -- how much of it do you typically get to work into your performances these days?

EB: It totally depends. I respect great writing, obviously, and it depends on the job -- different jobs require different things. For the most part, everybody loves to shoot a scene the way it's written, but as an actor part of the way that you stay fresh throughout a really long day, especially in comedy...it's very hard to find the right rhythm for a joke eight times in a row, you know? So often you'll need to play around with it simply to keep it fresh. It's not because of the writing or anything like that, it's just another tool that I can use as an actor to sort of stay fresh with the material.

RS: Are you reading a lot of the scripts floating around, looking for another good romantic comedy?

EB: I'm trying, but they're very hard to find. I think it's really hard to find a good one and I see no reason to rush, I just have to be patient. And a lot of it involves figuring out who the co-star is going to be. Unfortunately, a lot of my life depends on what male actors are gonna be doing. It's sort of depressing, actually.

RS: Some actresses call the shots these days, right?

EB: I don't know, I don't. I mean, I call some shots, but I still get super-depressed about what the studios are willing to make and what they're not willing to make. I lean on my producing to stay excited about certain things.

RS: Did you have a near-miss that got you depressed?

EB: Yeah, there was a David O. Russell movie that I really wanted to make with Vince Vaughn that ended up falling apart. I mean, I don't get depressed, it's just the nature of the game. I do wish that there were more female-driven movies out there, ones that I felt were really about something, that I felt like were interesting and funny and not just "watered-down funny" or something that's funny to eight year-old girls -- something that's funny to women. And those are really hard to find, unfortunately. It's the nature of the business in that they want to make the movies that will get the most audience and if you're a woman then they want you to bring in the young girls and young girls need a PG rating. It's hard to make a really funny comedy with a PG rating.

RS: No doubt -- does that mean you might return to Kevin Smith's universe?

EB: I would do anything that Kevin wanted me to do.

RS: Sure you don't wanna qualify that statement?

EB: [laughs] Well, we're both aware of our limits. But I really did love working with him and I think he wrote me what I consider to be the funniest female role of the year.

RS: So, what's on your plate right now? H-Man Cometh is the movie that fell apart, right?

EB: Yeah, that's the one I wanted to do that's now not happening. I have blissfully nothing, but I'm the new face of L'Oreal cosmetics, so I've been shooting some commercials for L'Oreal and just waiting for a great romantic comedy.

RS: I can't let you go without asking about Spider-Man 4. If you come back now, your quote will be bigger than their special effects budget!

EB: [laughs] First of all, I'm sure their special effects budget is one of the biggest in the industry, so there's nothing I could do that will bankrupt that movie. I actually saw Sam Raimi recently and we talked a little bit about the script and what he's working on, but I really have no details whatsoever and I don't even know if I'm gonna be asked to participate.

RS: I'm sure you don't need to tell him that it's step-up-to-the-plate time.

EB: Well, you know, I don't really want to go for a couple of days, but at the same time it's a great franchise and we'll see how it goes. I'm the last person to get a phone call and it's a ways off.



The Uninvited opens in theaters nationwide this Friday.