Maria Bello Interview

October 1, 2005 12:35 PM
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A few things you should know about Maria Bello: she went to Catholic school for fifteen years, she spends off-hours at Knots Berry farm with her five-year-old son, and she volunteers at a friend’s Venice bookstore recommending Thomas Murton and Paulo Cuehlo to potential customers. And, in the actress’ own words, she’d never separate her character’s sexuality from what she ate for breakfast.

With a freeness harkening her career benchmark performance in 2003’s provocative “The Cooler,” Bello treads daring territory with David Cronenberg, a director as known for odd explicitness as Bello may become for baring all.

She stars in Cronenberg’s already-acclaimed “A History of Violence” as Edie Stahl, the take-charge lawyer wife of Viggo Mortensen’s diner owner.

Classily dressed in sleek earth tones, the actress chatted with press about fish, testosterone, and why skinny-dipping in Toronto isn’t as fun as it looks.

Q: David Cronenberg supposedly chose you for your ‘fearless’ quality. Since “The Cooler,” have you been offered a lot of explicit roles?

MARIA: Some people call that fearless, I just call it natural. I don’t like to make a big thing of it. (The sex scene) is an important scene in the movie, but it’s not the most important scene. In terms of you saying I’m fearless in terms of my sexuality, I just think I’m normal in my sexuality. I’m not afraid of it.

Q: The staircase scene looked painful- was it very difficult to shoot?

MARIA: Emotionally, it was very tough. I’ve been such a control freak- less since I’ve had a child. I’ve always been very controlling, I’ll talk about scenes for hours- “where’s your hand where’s my ass?” Because I find with scenes it’s really important to block them out. The day before David said, “You know what, Maria? You can’t control this one.” The scene is about her finally losing control. Something bigger comes up in her, an animal instinct, a desire, a passion she never experienced before.

And the very base need- I don’t know if it’s a feminine need, I’ve talked to a lot of my friends about this- to surrender. She’s never had the opportunity to surrender, but I think most women I know have a deep desire to surrender. Isn’t that interesting?

Q: You’ve said that becoming a mother made it easier for you to immerse yourself in darkness-

MARIA: After I had my son, the moment he came out of my body, I felt more love than I ever could have imagined, and more fear than I ever could have imagined. Because I can’t even go to the space to think of if something happened to Jack, what I would do.

It’s like that scene when Ed has our child outside, we were just supposed to stand on the porch. And when I saw him drag Ashton out of the car, my instinct was to kill this man. Like that mother lioness- you’ll do anything to protect your child.

Q: Was it your idea to dress up in the cheerleading costume?

MARIA: No, actually it was David’s idea. And knowing the many layers of David Cronenberg now, and how he works, and how he thinks- I really understand it. Yes, it’s like they’re still having fun, and isn’t it neat, they’ve been together twenty years and they’re still playing dress up.

That’s one aspect. But the deeper layer is, she’s in a costume, she’s covered up, she’s playing at her sexuality. What’s underneath it? And you find out in that second sex scene, she’s never experienced that loss of control, that passion. She’s in charge.

Q: We heard there was a sex scene that was cut-

MARIA: No, there was a pre-part. A skinny dipping scene, in a waterfall, in Toronto. It was freezing! I’m so mad it’s not in the movie because it was the hardest thing to shoot ever in my life. We were naked, and at the side of the river they had this plastic Jacuzzi with hot water, but I remember at the end of the night crying, and him and I standing at the dock going, “you go first.” By the end of the night I was crying, telling Viggo, “I can’t go in there again!”

Q: What do you think your characters saw in one another?

MARIA: I think that I appeal to his darker side that he can’t express outwardly in the world because he’s hiding so much. Someone with a harder edge. And as much as he’s been trying to hide, I’m sure he couldn’t hide all of who he was. Even the way he handles a gun with my son, there’s something testosterone-y about him.

Q: What is it about that kind of man that women are attracted to?

MARIA: You mean that I’m attracted to? (Laughs.) The testosterone thing. I don’t think the bad boy element so much, I think it’s a different thing. When we talk about the bad boy element, often we’re talking about rejection, to be honest. Most women that I hear talk about bad boys, it’s just someone who doesn’t want them.

That’s why they call them bad. So it’s this whole identity of being attracted to rejection, that’s a whole other thing. I think being attracted to a testosterone guy whose in his own skin and very OK with his masculinity. I just got hot when I said that. (Laughs). There’s something so primal and animalistic about that, feeling safe enough to surrender and having to surrender because someone takes you out of yourself. Pretty sexy.

Q: You seem really grounded- has it helped that your career has progressed gradually, that you weren’t an overnight success?

MARIA: I don’t know if I would have handled it if I was twenty years old and in my combat boots, which I was in New York. I was in acting school for five years and struggling and working in bars- I would have missed that part of my life, I loved that part of my life. And I knew even then, when I was penniless and homeless for three months, that it was so romantic. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

Q: You were homeless?

MARIA: I slept on people’s couches. In a basement for a while.

Q: Can you talk about fish Fridays?

MARIA: There’s really not much to say except that Viggo Mortensen has a thing for fish. It became a cooking scenario, a wearing scenario…it was just all about fish. I would like to say that the last day of shooting was a Friday, and I’m happy to say that Mr. Mortensen walked into his trailer and the first thing he saw and the first thing he smelled was a three foot long dead fish hanging from a chandelier.

Q: Who put it there?

MARIA: I’ll never tell.

“A History of Violence” opened on September 30th.