..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

 

 

Laura Harring created a sensation at Cannes 2001 as a seductive amnesiac opposite Naomi Watts in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. Now, in The Punisher, the latest action film to be based on a Marvel Comics hero, she costars with Tom Jane, playing wife to Travolta's Howard Saint. The couple's son dies during the feds' undercover operation and punishment ensues. Harring has lived around the world. Born in Mexico, brought up in San Antonio, college in Switzerland, travels in Europe and Asia before settling for a while in India and then back to America. She became the first Latina to win the Miss U.S.A. beauty pageant before launching her movie career, which has included Little Nicky, Willard and John Q.

Intelligent, soft-spoken, poised and gracious, she is among a handful of actresses who bring to mind the glamorous legends of the Golden Age of Hollywood. In Chicago recently to promote The Punisher, she presided over tea in her suite at Le Meridien, sharing her views on human behavior, in front of and behind the camera.

Andrea Gronvall: At George Christy's luncheon at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival, Helena Bonham-Carter was there and Denzel Washington stopped by, but you were the only one who actually made an ENTRANCE. It was fabulous.

Laura Harring: Really?!

AG: Everybody around me stopped talking; everyone turned to look at you. And there were these guys in back of me, some old pros. They'd been around, they'd seen everything, they're pretty jaded, and they said, "Now, there's a movie star!"

LH: Oh, my goodness, that is nice. Thank you, because you know, nowadays anything goes. I've seen people doing huge movies with big names that have broken through, that everyone in America knows, and they're dressed in flip-flops, khakis and a white T-shirt while they're doing junkets and stuff. It's not me -- you know, it's just not my personality -- but it's funny because it never used to happen in the old Hollywood. But I think glamour's coming back. I think Catherine Zeta-Jones has had a big impact on that--she's always very well dressed. Nicole Kidman, now, is always very well dressed.

AG: Jonathan Hensleigh and Michael France had the good sense to give you an entrance in The Punisher :You're a veiled presence at the cemetery, and then the tight close-up inside the limo where you pull the veil back - --the film frame is used like a comic book frame; you can almost visualize the caption as you say your line..

LH: "Kill them!"

AG: Your character is literally a femme fatale. Are you particularly attracted to these kinds of roles?

LH: They're attracted to me! It's amazing, but somehow or other they make their way to me, and I have to say they're a lot of fun to play. And the friends and family that know me very well say that's it's so surprising that I play these heartless characters, because they all tell me I'm so different. And I'm happy to hear that, because I'm more a hippie, I'm bohemian, I like to travel, I meditate and do yoga, and I'm mostly vegetarian--you know I was a social worker in India. And I think that I have to have both sides within me, otherwise I couldn't play that kind of role. I've been doing a lot of soul-searching about that, because it has a negative connotation, the femme fatale.

AG: You're right about the negative connotations of femme fatale, so pervasive in art and literature around the turn of the last century.

LH: In studying Jungian psychology, we learn we all have a dark side. We all have it, and people who say they don't are just suppressing it, and disowning a part of themselves they could manage if they just brought it to light. So I think it's quite interesting to dive into that area of the human psyche. We're all capable of things that we normally wouldn't do when we're extremely hurt, like when we lose a family member. You know, when you have a son, it's part of your soul. And when
someone kills her son she's not just taking vengeance on one person, the man who killed her son, but on his entire family. Livia reacts very spontaneously. It's not like "Macbeth," where things are calculated; it's just instinctual.

AG: Yet we rarely see those great roles for women anymore. Decades ago there were dozens of great women's pictures, and women were a huge part of the theatre-going audience. Now, the big pictures with big roles for actresses--like Something's Gotta Give or Cold Mountain -- are shored up for the end of the year for Oscar consideration.

LH: I just don't think that Hollywood really understands how much we want them, because even men love to see women, strong women. I have plenty of friends who tell me there's nothing sexier than a strong woman, a confident woman. But I do think it's changing, I really do. Maybe it's the way I'm seeing it, but I think that the goddess archetype is appearing everywhere.

AG: You've been compared, with justification, to some of the strong women of classic movies, like Ava Gardner and Rita Hayworth. Do you have anybody who looks out for developing projects with these kinds of roles just for you?

LH: It's interesting you should say that because I hadn't, but I'd always thought about it. And a week ago, a friend of a friend of mine at a birthday party said, "Has my friend (who was nominated for an Oscar for a short some years ago) shown you the script that he's directing?" And I said no, and the next day his friend calls me and shows me the script, and it's an amazing small-budget film, but with a great female character. And I definitely need to do more of that because that's the only way. Like Charlize Theron and her role in Monster, that's the only way, we have to do it ourselves. I'm going to focus on producing this one film. I've been wanting to do this for so long, to produce a project for me, and I'm finally accomplishing that dream.

AG: The Punisher's Gale Anne Hurd is one great example of a woman who's made it in Hollywood, a truly dynamo producer. The way she runs her set is, I'm sure, quite different --because her personality is so different and the kinds of movies she makes are very different -- from David Lynch. What were the differences in style, going from one to the other?

LH: With David there were certain things he wanted to the T. For example, in the scene where we're looking at the map, and I'm remembering about the key, I have my marks here and I go like this [puts hands in front of her face]--he demonstrated that he wanted it to be like this. I'd never had anybody be that specific with me. I think I work really well when people are specific.

But at the same time, I love to be creative and to go with the flow. A lot of the time it's an instinct that you get right then and there because that's what you feel, and you're in it, and whatever comes out, comes out. Moments, looks, feelings, tears, laughter--whatever--and those things sometimes cannot be planned. Before I do big scenes like that, I meditate, because I do want it to flow through me, I don't want to be thinking, I want to be feeling. Gale was so very supportive; I can't tell you how difficult it is if you feel alienated, if you feel criticized.

I feel the producers and directors really set a tone, and Gale Anne Hurd -- I remember when we had those late, late nights, because most of the movie's shot at night. We shot until eight in the morning. I'd never done that in my entire career.

AG: What time did you start on set?

LH: Oh, probably as soon as the sun went down, six or seven. And Gale came with espresso, and it was very sweet, it was just an energy of nourishing. She just had a great quality of camaraderie and taking care, which to me meant so much because it's a huge movie. I was nervous. John Travolta and I were talking: the night before a movie, no matter what budget the movie has, no matter what it is, you don't sleep, because you're anxious. And the first day that I worked, I had to do that veil scene right, so you can imagine how nervous I was.

Everybody loves Travolta. He's kind. He's generous. He's artistic. He's respectful. I'll never forget one of the things he said to me that just blew me away. I was a little unsure doing my last scene; I had to be really THERE, and I said, "Oh, my God! I'm not there, I'm not getting there!" There was too much distraction. But he told me that even when I thought I was bad, I was still such an actress I was going to be good. And I almost started crying, because he made me relax, and when you relax, you can do anything.

AG: Well, you're not risk-averse. You've had a very adventurous life. To talk your parents into letting you go to school, when you were a teenager, halfway around the world--you must have had very supportive folks.

LH: My stepfather. I'd have to say my stepfather, even though he didn't want me traveling, the thing that he gave me was confidence beyond belief. I mean, every time I walked into the room he said, "Look at her, she's such a diplomat! Look at her, how eloquent she is!" And I used to be so insecure I wouldn't speak. I was so shy when I was little, I never spoke, until my stepfather built me up. My theory in life is that you only need one person to believe in you, in order for you to just bloom.


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