SOME people, Gemma Arterton says, mistake her
confidence for arrogance. "I'm never saying, 'I'm amazing!'" she says.
"I just have strong opinions." Today, at a private members' club in
London, the 24-year-old who has gone from a council estate in Gravesend
to a James Bond movie and two Hollywood blockbusters, is bracingly
self-assured and outspoken – but not arrogant. To me, she just seems
honest. Lively company, she is as quick to laugh as she is to speak her
• Picture: Complimentary
Even so, a hint of
self-congratulation would be forgivable. When we met in Cannes in 2007,
Arterton was just one of several newcomers touting the first film in the
re-booted St Trinian's franchise, and still at drama school. Fast
forward to 2010 and she has already scored one box-office hit with Clash
of the Titans since the turn of the new decade, while the
soon-to-be-released Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, in which she
plays Princess Tamina, is expected to be even bigger. Arterton has no
plans to become Queen of the Hollywood Blockbuster, however, and in
between has delivered a curveball in the shape of The Disappearance of
Alice Creed.
The antithesis of a megabucks SFX juggernaut, writer/director J
Blakeson's feature debut is a down-and-dirty psychological thriller,
with Arterton cast as the eponymous kidnap victim, locked in a battle of
wits with her captors (Eddie Marsan and Martin Compston). She spends
much of the film hooded, gagged, and handcuffed to a bed, her face
streaked with tears and black mascara; she is stripped naked at one
point, and suffers a series of indignities. It is the kind of role that
many actresses would run a mile to avoid, and even Arterton admits to
being scared by Blakeson's "tight" script when she read it. Rather than
putting her off, though, her fear inspired her.
"Why do something monotonous that doesn't challenge you, unless
you're just Jennifer Aniston and you don't mind that sort of lifestyle?"
she says. "I couldn't do this any more if it was just about getting
another paycheck. This one was scary, and I didn't know if I could
achieve what was needed." Even the audition, where she realised she'd be
expected to be in tears within minutes, was "petrifying".
"But I did it
and then I was like, 'Well, I can do it.' That's how you grow and
that's how you learn. In real life there is nudity. In real life there
is violence, there is sex. If we didn't have these in movies, we would
just have Clash of the Titans and Prince of Persia, and there would be
one type of genre only and it would be kids' movies."
The
resulting film is closer to the kind of movies she likes to watch than
anything else on her CV. "I don't have anything against blockbusters,
but I generally just don't go to see that sort of thing." Apparently,
European extremists such as Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier – auteurs
who make demands on their actors as well as their audiences – are more
her taste. And the fact that they're not everyone's cup of tea just
seems to add to their appeal, because "you can't live your life being
the darling and pleasing everybody".
The Disappearance of Alice
Creed is in the Haneke/von Trier ballpark, and Arterton's participation
in it, at a point when the 24-year-old RADA alumna is on the verge of
major stardom, feels like a statement of intent: a way of defining
herself as a serious, risk-taking actress, rather than just being known
as the "totty", as she's often described her roles to date, in
big-budget behemoths.
"Yeah," she says, "because when I get fat
and have children, and get wrinkly, I don't want to not have work
because I have lost my appeal. You see it happen in Hollywood with your
starlets: their momentum goes and then they're gone. I want to be in it
for the rest of my life." She claims that Hollywood stardom does not
interest her. "And especially now that I've had a taste of it, it's not
why I got into this in the first place. I'm happy to work in Europe and
make films like this and do theatre (she recently made her West End
debut in The Little Dog Laughed]. I'm happy to do that now. But I think
it was important for me to 'get one in'," she says, referring to Alice
Creed, "and I'm so lucky that it's come out between (Clash of the Titans
and Prince of Persia], because, hopefully, it will show people that I
can do other things – and I'm not afraid."
Importantly, Alice Creed was not about glamour or looking beautiful.
For once, Arterton says, she didn't have to worry about her skin or her
hair, or having to go to the gym – all "tiring and boring". "I let
myself relax and it was all about the acting. For me, it can really be
frustrating when you're just seen as the totty" – there's that word
again – "and I know that I've always taken acting so seriously." Inside
she feels like a character actress, but she is self-aware enough to
realise that it is her choices that have "put myself in that (other]
category. So I have to prove my salt. And now is the time."
Arterton
is something of a paradox. A self-described oddball, she recently
played up to her sexy image by doing a photo/video shoot for GQ, but at
the same time is prepared to talk about being born with a "crumpled ear"
and an extra finger on each hand ("I find imperfections brilliant," she
laughs).
Her unease at being labelled a bombshell is summed up
by the way she handles the red carpet. It is not Gemma we see posing at
premieres, but "Gemma Arterton the Actress". "In real life I'm not
actressy," she says. "I am not considered in my manner. I am not
graceful. I am geeky and I joke and I am boisterous and I am silly. It's
not starlet-y, and it doesn't fit into Hollywood, it really doesn't."
Therefore she has learned to adopt a persona for her public appearances,
she says, approaching them as another kind of acting challenge. "I have
to do that, because otherwise I will fall over or say something
offensive or I will be silly."
Her unease is compounded by her
distaste for what she sees as the misplaced idolisation of actresses,
"when really we should idolise people because they're talented or
they're intelligent, or they're doing something notable, rather than the
fact that they've got a great arse or they look really good in
Dolce&Gabbana. That, to me, is really boring, and is something that
has been put on to me, and I really don't feel comfortable with it."
Listening to Arterton talk, it comes as no surprise to learn that
she grew up surrounded by powerful female role models, or that she
considers herself a feminist. Her parents divorced when she was five,
and she and her younger sister, Hannah, were raised by their mother. "I
really admire anyone that can do that," she says, admitting that she and
her sibling could be difficult, "because we were very opinionated as
well. She worked her arse off and very selflessly brought us up. My aunt
as well, she's a real feminist, so I've had strong women around me all
my life. Of course you then grow into one yourself."
Her father is
still a presence in her life, and has apparently always had a liberal
attitude to her work. He watches everything she does, but at the time of
our interview had yet to see The Disappearance of Alice Creed. Arterton
suspects it won't be easy for him. "When you see your daughter getting
beaten and stripped naked it's going to have an affect. But I do warn
people." Will her mother see it? "I don't think she will be able to
watch it. But I do think about that, sometimes, when I watch films. Like
in Monster's Ball, that very explicit sex scene, I think, 'God, did
Halle Berry's mum and dad watch this? What do they think?' But, you
know, if we didn't do it I think films would be incomplete. It's not
like every single film needs to have some sort of nudity in it. But, you
know, people get naked."
Whatever anyone thinks of The
Disappearance of Alice Creed, there is no denying that it is a bold move
by Gemma Arterton, who next month will return to Cannes as the star of
Stephen Frears' eagerly anticipated new film, Tamara Drewe. Whether
there will be more blockbusters down the line remains to be seen. For
now, though, her sights are set elsewhere. "I want to do things that
scare me and challenge me. I want to feel I am working as an actress and
not just turning up and prancing around.
• Clash of the
Titans is in cinemas now. The Disappearance of Alice Creed is released
on 30 April, followed by Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time on 21 May
