We do aspire to have a strong enough sense of cool in the Hot Issue: Witness our travelogue through the slush fun(d) that can currently be found in Iceland (“Reykjavik’s progress,” pp50-52), as well as the following web-exclusive interview set in the southern antipode of Antarctica. What’s hotter than Kate Beckinsale kicking high-concept action ass in leather (Van Helsing, the Underworld series)? Clearly, it’s Kate Beckinsale kicking high-concept action ass in leather with fur on top — for the late-summer action thriller, Whiteout.
You seem to have an affinity for genre-jumping.
“I’ve been very lucky in the fact that I can do a horror film one moment, and then the next moment, I’m working with somebody like Martin Scorsese in The Aviator.”
Does role-size play into the decision-making process?
“Not at all. I don’t care if it’s a big role or a small role: It’s about the quality of the writing. I’m from England and I learned my craft in a culture of theatre. So, it’s all the other actors that I’ll be working with — it’s about being part of a company of actors.”
Do you prefer doing the action-based films, like Whiteout?
“I love watching action movies, I really do. It’s largely because I had a child quite young and never really found the right babysitter and so I’d get my thrills at home watching those (types of) movies. A lot of people think that action is a sort of no-acting-required kind of job; after doing the Underworld films, I realized they are really not. There’s a lot more to them. So I did Whiteout to really stretch myself, give myself some different kinds of acting muscles.”
What philosophy do you live by? What are your career goals?
“I’m still figuring it out. I just kind of got over the chaos of the first half of my life. I think that I believe in being, sort of, as true to yourself as you can. I put my kid first and my family first and I feel privileged to do my job, but I know what would go if it had to. People are very important to me; they’re the most important part of my life. When it comes to business, I just want to keep testing myself as an actress. My father died young, so my life has an element of constant re-evaluation. As an actress, I just want to explore all the possibilities. I want to change up my acting as much as possible and go from different genre to different genre.”
Is that why you chose to do a film like Whiteout, after doing the three Underworld movies?
“Exactly. As an actress it’s all about playing as many types of parts as possible. Even though I’ve done some movies with deep supernatural themes and action plots, I’ve always believed that those films were very distinct and different in their stories and tone. I love the idea of doing an action/drama like this film.”
Have you ever felt pressure to alter your appearance in any way — such as getting really, really thin for a certain role?
“No, I’ve been lucky. The last few years people have only asked me to eat more and gain weight, if anything. If my husband wanted me to lose weight — he values his life way more than that to say it. He’ll have a fat actress before he says to his wife that she needs to lose a few pounds. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a little bit older or what, but I’m not so worried about that stuff or if it’s changed, but it feels different. It feels like there are more different body shapes around and people are celebrating those -– skinny and curvy and stuff. I don’t feel it’s quite as cookie-cutter. I’m glad that people have lost interest in supermodels. That’s all good. I like everyone’s different shapes and sizes and ethnicities.”
Are you a girlie girl, then?
“I’m a funny mixture because I had four brothers growing up, so there was a part of me that I was like, ‘Yeah, I can go rappelling and do dangerous things as well.’ But really I liked wearing pink and having a tiara and high-heeled shoes on and if someone threw a ball at me I’d do that rather than catch it, that kind of thing. Before doing action movies, I’d never thrown a punch in my life. I am much more likely to stop talking to a person, but that’s not very interesting in an action film. I like girlie stuff, though — I’m not someone who spends the weekend kayaking down a waterfall.”
Tell us about the huge fan base you’ve developed over the years with the Underworld trilogy — and the Comic-Con crowds.
“I think that maybe it’s too close for comfort! I’ve been to a few of those comic-book conventions, and before I’d done movies like Underworld, I’d never even heard of them. You realize there’s this whole section of people who like to sharpen their teeth and talk about blood and stuff all night. It’s quite surprising. And then they arrive dressed up as me or something. It’s like being a Beatle! I like it, but I wouldn’t like it every day.”
Since marrying an American (Underworld director Len Wiseman), you live in Los Angeles. A difficult transition?
“Once you’ve left your home country and lived somewhere else, you’re never quite at home in the place that you move to. You’re never quite at home in your home because it is somewhere in the middle of where you’re comfortable. I go back a lot, though. My daughter goes to school [in LA], and when we go to England she goes to school in England. So, I never really made a decision to move to America. It just kind of happened and I am here right now, but I bought a house in London, too, so I don’t know. When I go to do things like a play in London, I’ll probably stay there for five or six months.”
How has your husband taken to living part-time in the U.K.?
“It was funny, the first few times I brought him back to England for Christmas with my parents. I thought: He’s awfully quiet and very thoughtful. He just didn’t understand a word anyone was saying ever because I get back to England and I get a very strong English accent and talk really quickly and make in-jokes about television programs and he’s just clueless. One year we bought him a tee-shirt that said, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ He wore that all the time. And thenwe made him go to a pantomime, which totally confused him. So, he’s happy to be home, to be honest.”
Did you find your work in Whiteout to be physically and mentally taxing?
“It was quite a full-on experience. It’s a weird thing, that you go to work and any working mother will tell you it’s tiring and difficult to juggle, and then you go and they drop you off of a cliff, leave you in the cold and smash you into a wall and punch you in the face. It’s kind of like, ‘Wow, this is intense.’ I was ready for a vacation at the end of the movie. I was quite bruised.”
Was it different working on Whiteout compared to the Underworld films?
“With Underworld, when you have the element of working with your partner, you slightly lose the other element of having your husband at home going, ‘Oh, was it a tough day today?’ When he’s the director, he’s like, ‘Well, I need you to do this.’ They’re less sympathetic.”
Would you work with him again?
“Definitely. The nice thing is that we met on a movie, so our working relationship was really good and that was probably what ended up allowing us to get married. I didn’t suddenly discover he was this person who shouted at everyone all day — I knew what he was like at work already.”
Is it intimidating doing a love scene with other actors (ex. Scott (Speedman, Underworld), when that scene is unfolding in front of your director/husband?
“Not all, because I knew that I was in good hands with the director. I knew he had an investment in not showing anything I didn’t want to show and being gentle and sweet. Then, Scott Speedman became kind of like our family pet. [Laughs] So, it wasn’t very intimidating. The thing was, it was almost like when you’re on an airplane and you’re a little bit nervous of flying and the person next to you is having a panic attack; you suddenly feel very calm. If I remember correctly, Scott was in hell, so, suddenly, I felt much better about it. I think for a man, a love scene is much more intimidating anyway because if it moves around then it’s embarrassing, but if it doesn’t move around it’s kind of insulting. There’s a whole dilemma of what really to do with that… so I think he tied it to his leg. [Laughs]. I think that it hurt quite a lot and I think that he tied it too tight. So he was preoccupied with being in pain — talk about being in physical pain! — and then my husband was videotaping the whole thing. I just felt creepy and weird.”
How do you prepare physically for roles in action films?
“Usually, I panic a lot. Any woman, if she’s going to be wearing latex every day for four months, gulps a little bit, but I had so much more training for this film since I had done it for the Underworld movies. When I did the first Underworld, the only thing I’d ever done was ballet lessons and I really had to be taught how to not to run like this and how to hold the gun, etc. For Whiteout, we really just concentrated on the specific fight choreography, of which there was quite a lot this time around, and the stunts as well. It was on and on with that, and I had to go to the gym a bit more, too. People constantly take photographs of you in your underwear so you have to go to the gym a bit more.”
Have you ever been injured during the making of a film?
“I didn’t get injured that much. Stupid things hurt, like, you jump off a cliff and it’s fine and then you have to run past something holding a gun and you bang your elbow really bad. It’s like they’re not very interesting things that tend to get hurt. One time, I punched one of my favorite stuntmen in the face by accident really hard and I cried. We had to stop because I burst into tears.”
Were you scared of monsters as a child?
“I was weird. I was more worried about being poisoned or spontaneously combusting. [Laughs] My mother still has a letter that I wrote to the fairy saying, ‘Do you think Ursula has put poison in the jam tart?’ (She hadn’t.) She was very nice. She had a wall eye so I didn’t really know where she was looking. She wasn’t nasty.”
You were never fascinated by werewolves or vampires?
“No. I was much more concerned about maybe, like, I would be someone who would walk into the room and see the news and assume that my house would be bombed or a terrorist would come or I’d get that illness where all your flesh falls off. I was weird. I didn’t worry about werewolves and such.”
Do you believe that outward appearances, such as costumes, help you transform into characters?
“They really do. I remember on the first Underworld until I actually got into the costume I didn’t feel different. I felt different walking around in jeans and a pair of sneakers — suddenly the costume makes you stand very differently. Obviously, it’s a very structured corset and you really have to negotiate that, but I try not to have too much of a third-person perspective on it if I can. Obviously there’s the director and the costume designer, too, who are fulfilling that function. I tend to go the other way and try not to objectify that too much.”
Will you go back to your Underworld character of Selene?
“I don’t know. Originally it was always conceived as a trilogy. And I don’t know how much more blood and vampires I can do. Ask me in a couple of years.”
What do you find sexy about vampires? Would you wish to live forever if you could?
“Yes, because I promised my daughter that I would. [Laughs] I think what’s sexy about vampires is that, especially in this culture, we’re into curbing appetites and dieting and not smoking and not drinking and not sleeping with your best friend’s husband and all of that stuff, which evidently I’ve supposedly done quite recently –- there was a story out -– but I think there’s something very visceral and passionate about someone who’s completely out of control with their appetites and just has to feed. There’s something liberating and sexy about that.”
What’s the best advice you ever received?
“Emma Thompson once told me never to shit on anyone important. So, I haven’t.”
