“No, I think it’s the opposite to that. The way they focused on my appearance, I felt like it hurt that film and I was embarrassed because Paul had worked really hard and just because I had a ponytail that’s what they were talking about.”
The funny thing is that she resents the emphasis on her physical transformation, rejects the notion that she’s attracted to stories that involve it, and yet her whole life is a testament to the very concept. Her life, as she points out to me twice, is not the one she was born to, it’s the one she has chosen.
And then she’s off again, this time on the madonna-whore complex. “People just aren’t willing to see conflict, or ugliness or the more flawed side of life through a female character’s eyes. I mean, can you imagine a woman playing Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver? When Robert De Niro does it, it’s fine, [but] people are very uncomfortable about seeing that through a woman’s eyes. We aren’t allowed complexity.”
Maybe she’s the living rebuttal of that, though. She takes on the sort of roles Jodie Foster played a decade or so ago, and is quite happy to speak out on women’s rights and injustice but she’s equally happy to take off her clothes and pose for the camera, having done photo spreads for the likes of Playboy and Barely Legal. She’s in this month’s GQ in a set of black-and-white, soft-core pictures — the caption detailing where her clothes come from necessarily brief. “White sheet by Ginger Lily,” it says, “£145.”
It’s interesting, I say to her, that in her work she often takes parts where she’s working against her looks, but in life, she’s quite happy to showcase them.
“Well guess what? I’m a sexual creature. There’s nothing wrong with that. Why do we have to be ashamed of being so many different things? Why do we have to be only one thing, a good mother or a hooker? I don’t think that what’s under my clothes is evil. I’m a woman, I’m feminine. And I like the way I look. And I celebrate that. And I don’t make excuses for that.”
I believe her, but the other thing that occurs to me is that it’s a distancing mechanism. A sort of “look but don’t touch” approach. When I ask her if there would ever be a film made of her life, she looks truly appalled — the idea of being revealed in any way, anathema.
“God I hope not. I’ve been working harder than anything in my life to try and keep my life sacred. I really don’t mind when I’m in front of a camera and playing a character I’m comfortable with ... but I don’t necessarily like the spotlight to be about me — not at all. The idea of sitting in Cannes and watching that ... ugh. No.”
It’s a shame, because it’s got all the key ingredients you need for a Hollywood film: triumph over adversity, hope over experience, and a beautiful woman in the leading role. No prosthetic teeth or ponytail required.
Hancock is released on Friday. See that day’s Taipei Times for a review of the film.
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