Hall opens up to big flicks

Hall opens up to big flicks

For much of her Hollywood career, it has been difficult to picture actress Rebecca Hall doing anything quite so vulgar as a big action blockbuster.

Maybe it is the 31-year-old's sterling pedigree as an award-winning stage actress as well as the daughter of the influential British theatre impresario Peter Hall.

Or it could be that her foray into Tinseltown has involved mostly small studio films or indies, including the offbeat 2008 Woody Allen comedy-drama Vicky Cristina Barcelona, where her performance as the uptight Vicky earned a Golden Globe nomination.

Thus, fans of the willowy English actress might have been startled to see her pop up in Iron Man 3, the box-office juggernaut that cost US$200 million to make and earned six times as much at the global box office earlier this year.

After completing work on the superhero flick, Hall - who played a shadowy scientist from Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) Tony Stark's past - tells Life! it was a relief to return to the more intimate dramas she has been known for.

That includes the new low-budget British crime thriller Closed Circuit, which opened in Singapore this week.

She and co-star Eric Bana play lawyers who must represent the prime suspect in the high-profile trial of an alleged terrorist bomber.

They soon realise there is more to the case than meets the eye, and to get to the bottom of it, they must navigate Britain's arcane closed-court procedures, a possible government conspiracy, and their own troubled romantic past.

Speaking to reporters in New York earlier this year, Hall says the film's commentary on contemporary surveillance culture should resonate in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations about unauthorised snooping by the United States government.

And while the plot seems to be inspired by a sceptical, even paranoid take on these issues, the actress feels that a bit of scepticism is healthy in a democracy.

"I think it's healthy to have a discourse. And when a society feels unsafe, it generates this sort of thinking."

She was also drawn to the story by the intellect and eloquence of her character, a brilliant young barrister.

"I think you have to be so incredibly analytical and precise to do that job. And whereas I like to exist in my head quite a lot, when I'm thinking an eloquent thought, it often doesn't come out nearly as eloquent as I'd like," she says with a smile.

In addition, Hall reckons that smaller projects such as Closed Circuit bring balance to her burgeoning career.

"After the last day of shooting on Iron Man, I flew to Belgium to shoot an even smaller film than this: I Promise, by the respected French director Patrice Leconte."

The World War I romantic drama, which was released this year, had just two other main characters, played by Die Hard and Harry Potter villain Alan Rickman and Richard Madden from the television hit Game Of Thrones.

"It was a three-hander and set inside a house, and we didn't leave the house. And that was the perfect antidote, in a way."

But while Hall's trademark has been her restrained performances, often portraying complex, vulnerable woman, she found it refreshing to have to get physical in Iron Man 3.

"The physical-exertion element of the job does come up and surprise you," says the actress, who had supporting roles in acclaimed films such as The Town (2010), the Ben Affleck-directed bank-robber drama, and The Prestige (2006), Christopher Nolan's tale of magician rivalry.

She adds, however, that physicality is important to every character, and that she does not think she is "so cerebral that I'm an actor who doesn't connect with my body".

Nevertheless, the accomplished thespian, who received 2003's prestigious Ian Charleson award, given to the best classical stage performance by a British actor under 30, and also the 2010 Best Supporting Actress Bafta for the television crime series Red Riding, took a while to adjust to Iron Man's full-on action scenes.

"Taking that to the level of actually doing choreographed action sequences is very challenging," says Hall, whose rather more sedate acting credits include the 2009 Singapore production of The Bridge Project (The Winter's Tale and The Cherry Orchard) by boyfriend Sam Mendes, the British theatre and Bond director.

Yet her detour into the adrenaline-soaked blockbuster universe may have given her a taste for more: Hall recently completed another massive movie, next year's widely anticipated science-fiction thriller Transcendence, in which she stars opposite Johnny Depp.

But asked if this signals a new trajectory for her career, Hall furrows her brow. "I hope that I've never had 'a type' and that it's suddenly changing now."

She adds: "I hope that my roles are always changing. I try to be as diverse as possible because that's what interests me.

"I feel like in the last couple of years, I've played a lot of different people and I feel very happy about that. I'd like to keep it going."

stlife@sph.com.sg

Closed Circuit is in cinemas.


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