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This article appears in today's Toronto Sun/Canoe 'Pieces Of April' a change for Katie Holmes By LIZ BRAUN -- Toronto Sun Katie Holmes is tall, sweet and polite. These are qualities not usually associated with actors. Here is a typical Katie Holmes story. When she was trying out for the role of Joey on Dawson's Creek, she was still at an all-girl high school in Toledo, Ohio, where she had a part in a school production of Damn Yankees. Holmes got a callback from the Dawson's Creek people for the part of Joey, but the date conflicted with a performance of Damn Yankees. Rather than disappoint her classmates and the school, she turned down the Dawson's Creek callback. They rescheduled and she got the part anyway, but the point is, she's different. In the best way. Holmes, 25, came to Toronto during the film festival to promote Pieces Of April, a film about a young woman attempting to mend family bridges by cooking Thanksgiving dinner. The situation is complicated by the fact that this woman is the black sheep of the family, she has caused her family no end of grief over the years, her apartment is a dump and nobody really wants to come to her house anyway. And the oven, she discovers at the last minute, is broken. Pieces Of April has Holmes running from neighbour to neighbour, trying to find a stove that works. Pieces Of April is a small indie film that also stars Patricia Clarkson, Oliver Platt and Derek Luke. It was written and directed by Peter Hedges, the screenwriter behind What's Eating Gilbert Grape and About A Boy. Critical response has been overwhelmingly positive. "Actually, it's been kind of surreal," says Holmes, quietly. She says she begged for a reading with Hedges, not really expecting to get the role. "I don't think he had me in mind," she says, with a hint of a smile. And who would? The character of April is, initially, hard as nails. "She's so cool it's intimidating," says Holmes, and in a way that suggests she herself isn't in real life. "I've always thought there's more to a person than meets the eye. On the outside she seems so guarded and angry and defiant, but I was interested in seeing somebody like her be vulnerable. I just loved how when you meet April, she seems like such a tough chick, and by the end she's been touched and she has touched people." In real life, Holmes found independence early when she left Ohio to live in North Carolina and be a part of Dawson's Creek. "It's hard to break away from your family and live on your own the first time. Everyone has experienced that -- but I had it pretty easy the first time. I went from one protected environment to another." Holmes, who has dated actor Chris Klein for three years, is the baby in a close-knit family of five children; her mom is a homemaker and her father is a lawyer. Living in North Carolina for six years was a good, gradual introduction to living in the spotlight, Holmes says. "We never had to deal with people treating us too differently down there. So when we had to deal with the fame, we could prepare for it. It was gradual, not like all of a sudden my life completely changed. Now that I'm living in L.A., I'm a little more aware I can't just run to Starbucks in what I slept in." Holmes has been in about a dozen films, including Abandon, Phone Booth, Wonder Boys, Go and The Gift. Her first audition led to her first film -- The Ice Storm. "I became recognizable at such a young age," she says. "I went from graduating high school one June to having everyone know who I was by January. That was exciting, but an adjustment for sure. I try to maintain a pretty normal life. I have the same friends I had in high school. I'm very close to my family." Although she says she's ambitious, Holmes admits she's not sure if she could live in Los Angeles forever. "It is hard to always be around people with whom you're competing. It puts you on edge. It can't be healthy. At the same time, it helps you make sure you're working really hard. Your game is up. But I guess it can be a little lonely. Everybody wants to do the same thing." Pieces Of April is quite a change from the big-budget films Holmes has done in the past. "It was an intense experience. Doing It's nice to have a challenge, and not have a trailer or any perqs or money, and get back to why you wanted to do this in the first place. It was a nice validation to know, 'Wait! I'm still happy! I haven't lost why I'm here!' "I feel so lucky to be able to do what I do, at least for the time being. It probably won't last forever, so I'm just going to go with it. From "The Lowdown" in today's NY Daily News GREEN-EYED ACTOR? If "Pieces of April" star Katie Holmes was trying to make boyfriend Chris Klein jealous, it looks like she succeeded. A spy tells me that at the movie's premiere party Wednesday at the Lansky Lounge, Holmes was flirting and Thanks to Fedge for this scan from Famous magazine, a Canadian freebie magazine given away in Famous
LIl blurb from The NY Post WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8: ...."Pieces of April" star Katie Holmes looked terribly wholesome in a colorful gown by Carolina Herrera at Lansky Lounge in the old Ratner's space after the premiere. Was it hard for her to go to the East Village for the screening? "It was probably more difficult to clean up tonight," she said. A lil Katie quote in this RDJ article from SFGate.com: Katie Holmes, who plays a nurse charged with giving Downey's patient a daily rubdown, says her co-star "would just embarrass me to death. It's awkward anyway to rub somebody down, but Robert didn't make it very easy for me." She calls Downey "so quick witted that most of what he said went right over my head." |
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