"Still Sleeping with the Director... AND Kicking Ass!"

Kate Beckinsale is best known to audiences as an action star, playing the vampire Selene in the Underworld movies. However, before she returned to Underworld earlier this year, she had mostly been focused on dramatic roles in films like Snow Angels, Nothing But The Truth, and Everybody’s Fine.

Now the 39 year-old hopes to earn some science fiction credibility to go along with her action chops as Lori Quaid in Total Recall. Beckinsale talks about how much in awe she still is of being considered an action girl.

“When I first started working, I was aware that I had been to university and studying Russian and French and not acting,” she explains, “And so when I started working, I started working quite young and I felt it was quite important to treat myself as kind of an apprentice and do as many things as I could, so doing a Checkov play in the theatre, doing a French movie, I did a comedy, and this was another thing that I was trying that I had never done before, possibly one of the most ludicrous ideas because I wasn’t very athletic. I was a very academic, literary, sitting down, reading type of person growing up, so it was amazing to me that I was offered Underworld. And then, the terror of how am I going to do that?”

“And it took rather more than I realized,” Kate adds, “And what I hadn’t really thought through was those movies are the ones are on big billboards and the side of a bus and they are much more aware of you doing that than they are say about your independent movie that you feel a little bit more at home in, because that where you started and that’s your comfort zone. So it is a slightly schizophrenic feeling to be sitting in interviews and people saying, ‘Well, you’re mainly known for action movies,’ and blimey, that’s the stretch. That’s the thing I

"Still Sleeping with the Director... AND Kicking Ass!"

find really hard and I’ve really enjoyed playing this character, but even now, even having done quite a few of them, I can’t tell you how much I worry about the fighting and how am I possibly going to do that. It’s not something that I feel is a slam dunk every time.”

Total Recall, which is a remake of the 1990 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is directed by none other than the actress’s husband, Len Wiseman. Kate was asked if she was his first choice to play Lori.

“No, not originally,” Beckinsale replies, “I think when he was at the writing stage of the movie, he goes, ‘Oh, there’s this part that I really love for you to play, then we just sort of stopped talking about that because I wasn’t available. I was doing another movie.”

“And so we were both a bit sad about that,” she continues, “And he went off and auditioned other people and he said, ‘I don’t suppose you want to play this one day? It’d be fun and I’m sure it was largely so we could keep the costume and not really anything else.’ But I didn’t do that. I see how much attention that poor woman’s breasts has got and Ive got an 8th grader and I thought, I’d be in the doghouse so badly for that.”

Beckinsale goes on to talk about what did make Wiseman feel that she was the right person for the role.

“He kind of wanted a sass to her and a wit to her,” Kate says, “She’s not kind of comedy character as such, but there is something that is quite funny that she’s this relentless and I guess that’s nice. It is nice that there’s something that’s lovely, because one of the things that’s a bit tough about…”

“I’m very grateful that I got to play Selene,” she continues, “But she’s quite po face and she’s got three facial expressions and it’s very easy for people

"Still Sleeping with the Director... AND Kicking Ass!"

to think that’s sort of it for me and it’s actually quite hard to do that, if you’re a reasonably expressive person. So it is quite nice to have something on the side of a bus that isn’t quite that. That’s quite nice.”

Kate talks about being directed by her own husband, especially for the film’s love scenes.

“Taking direction from my husband, it is quite strange,” she believes, “Because normally, he’s taking direction from me because he never knows where anything is in the house. And he can’t remember if he likes parsnips and things like that. I’m usually in charge of things like, ‘No, babe, you don’t like parsnips, you say they taste like perfume.’ ‘Yes, I do.’ He gets fooled because they look like potatoes, that is the thing. Anyway, that’s our life.”

“And so, yeah, it is a slight gear change,” Beckinsale continues, “I met him that way, so it’s not terribly shocking, and certainly, for the kissing and sex scenes and all that stuff, I think it’s by far more awkward for the third party coming in, the second man has a harder time. I’m OK with it. I think it’s possible as a woman to be fairly enigmatic. We don’t have any movable parts, you can just sort of blank out and nobody can tell what you’re really thinking. I think it’s much harder for boys in movies or not, so you don’t know.”

In the film, like the original, Lori’s husband, played by Colin Farrell, learns that she is not really his wife, but a double agent sent to monitor him. The change is hinted by Lori speaking in a British accent. Beckinsale, who is from London, England, explained the reason behind this twist.

“Well, yeah, that was kind of a fun thing we could do,” Kate says, “I also think it’s mandatory for English actors at some point to play a villain in an American movie, so I’ve checked that one off

"Still Sleeping with the Director... AND Kicking Ass!"

the list.”

“And we just thought it would be a nice signal of the deception and make it even more shocking,” she adds, “It’s funny, somebody said, ‘Shouldn’t Colin say why are you talking in this English accent?’ It’s more why are you shooting at me. It actually kind of goes by, to be honest.”

One of the standout scenes of this Total Recall is a fight scene between the actress and her co-star, Jessica Biel, who plays Melina, the leader of the Resistance movement. Kate was asked if she’s grown comfortable with doing fight scenes as they’ve become more realistic with women and less stylized and sexualized.

“I’m quite used to it now,” Beckinsale says, “But I think that it was a fight that could just have been easily conceived between two men and it wasn’t one of those that you get in movies where somebody’s clothing gets ripped and it happens in a sexy way. It was quite a vicious fight and it was quite a tall order because I was fighting Jessica and Colin and there was a rowboat in there.”

“And it was a very small space,” she continues, “So there was quite a few challenges involved, not least the fact that I had four days between movies, so i didn’t have my two months of farting about, pretending to learn martial arts, so I could calm myself down, and that stuff that actors tend to do end up not being very useful, except psychology, I didn’t have that. It was very much a kind of ‘Oh, my God! Here I am,’ work out the fights, and try to learn them in time.”

Beckinsale talks about how action scenes with women on film has evolved in the last forty years

“I really do think it’s come a very long way,” she believes, “And a lot of that type of thing has come precisely from this genre of movie. And I know that when I put my little

"Still Sleeping with the Director... AND Kicking Ass!"

timid little action nose into the water on Underworld as my little experiment to see if I can even do it, I was looking for references and there was really only a couple, there was Sigourney Weaver and there was the Sarah Connor character [in Terminator], and kind of not much.”

“And you think, that’s not that long ago in real terms,” Kate continues, “And there’s quite a lot more now that legitimately do work, that’s not just a girl in tight pants. I think we really have achieved something when we not get to wear tight pants and fights. I think Jessica might have achieved that in this very movie. She’s got cargo pants on.”

Kate was asked who she believed was the better fighter, her or Biel.

“I couldn’t possibly say,” Beckinsale replies, nervously, “I think we were well-matched. It’s one of the things that was good about it. So, yeah, for people like us, I think that’s an impossible thing to answer.”

Beckinsale was then asked if this character or Selene from the Underworld films would win in a fight.

“Ooh, that’s tough,” Kate answers, “That’s quite a fair fight. I don’t know. Am I older than her in vampire years? Maybe I would.”

Kate was also asked what she would do if she was pitched a role in a Terminator film.

“That’s funny,” Beckinsale says, “Uh, yeah, why not? I don’t know. We’ll see. I think I might need to leave Arnold movies alone for a second. I think that’s going to be a stampede.”

It was asked whether all of Beckinsale’s training in fight scenes has her believing now she could beat anybody up.

“That’s the dangerous thing about actors,” she believes, “They teach you a fight, and everybody, when you throw them a fist, falls on the floor and you think, I’m a bad ass and check me out.”

“It’s always depressing when your husband gets you into a headlock in an arm thing and you go, ‘Oh, my

"Still Sleeping with the Director... AND Kicking Ass!"

God, you are stronger than me,’” Kate adds, “So I feel so omnipotent most of the time. But I do think if the other person was good enough to follow the moves that I know, I’d kill it.”

Kate was asked if she felt she was ultimately up to the challenge of the fight sequences in Total Recall.

“I had quite a short, I had four days,” she notes, “So luckily, this stunt coordinator Brad Martin, who was on Underworld, was able to come on Total Recall and teach me the fight. We started a little bit, but it’s difficult when you’re shooting a really long day in one movie, to be properly choreographing a fight. I am glad I had done that movie, because I was already in physical shape.”

“And I was a bit tired and bruised, but that was helpful,” Beckinsale continues, “And then, it was really just a question of landing a lot of the choreography. And a lot of it was, it felt much more on the fly than I’ve ever had that happen and that’s ironic, because these fights are a lot of more complicated. But it was good, that was a kind of unhinged hysteria that sort of mirrored how the hell I am going to learn these fights, so they’re all lined up.”