Interview By: Lena Aburdene
Kim Basinger has been around forever. Known for being a beauty as well as a versatile, gutsy actress, Basinger has well deserved success. The projects Basinger chooses are very selective and close to her. We spoke with Basinger about her recent thriller, Cellular.
Although Basinger is constantly complimented on her great talent, she tells us, "It takes a long time to learn how to act. I had an initial love at a very young age but you're not prepared. No one's prepared for getting in front of a camera for the first time. It takes years to have a loving relationship with the cameras."
Basinger most recently taking roles in 8 Mile and People I Know has not been at the forefront of Hollywood like Julia Roberts or her other peers. She embraces the love she has for the specific projects she chooses: "I had a really wonderful year last year. I had saw three opportunities: Door in the Floor and then I was offered a little comedy, Elvis has Left the Building, so when I met David Ellis and I read this, I had never done this kind of movie before and I saw a lot of opportunity in it. I loved the fact that I would be isolated from everyone. It was like a play. I knew the audience was in there with me but nobody else. It was a romp: You got William Macy and Jason and Chris, it's a great cast."
Basinger's approach to the character was very serious and realistic: "I didn't know what Jason was going to do to me, I wanted that fear to be on my face, you know in a kidnapping situation, you don't know how crazy these people are. I've never been in the situation, I wanted to make it as real as possible. It was emotionally draining, no doubt about it. I think my crew suffered more than I did...they have to come in, 6 people around me, putting all that blood around me exactly where it was everyday."
Basinger also studied a bit for her role to make it as authentic as possible: "To make it somewhat real I did my own little research. I had a lot of questions about the phone and that particular phone for me. I just want it as real as it can be. I think we wanted to make this as real as possible, but I look at things and questions things and I changed her around. We were all in sync about changing her around. I loved that she was a strong woman in the end of this as opposed to the damsel."
As for her thoughts on her co-star Chris Evans, Basinger has a lot of praise, even though she doesn't know him all that well: "I think Chris is wonderful on the screen he just is but I have to tell you I didn't meet Chris. My first day of filming was down there at the pier and I got out of the van and then saw him and that was the first day I met him and then didn't see him the entire time so I didn't get to know Chris at all. They had already filmed everything with him but he's a great lovely thing to look at but I thought he was very magnetic on screen."
Basinger is taking life day by day and she seems quite calm and relaxed at the point she's reached: "I don't know what im going to do next. I don't know where life is going to lead me but we'll see. You never know."
LenaAburdene@TheCinemaSource.com
