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Good quirk ethic March 4, 2004 In the swirl of film festivals, even the most disciplined person might find herself unhinged and off-balance, being whisked here and there for screenings, interviews, cocktails and meetings. But if Katie Holmes, while promoting Pieces of April, which opens in cinemas today, was even mildly adrift, you would never know it. "I'm just along for the ride," says Holmes, perfectly made up and unflaggingly pleasant. "Compared to what we had to do to get this movie made, this is vacation." Holmes looks very different from her title character in Pieces of April, her first bona fide lead in a feature. She plays a suburban refugee relocated to New York's lower East Side, with the requisite uniform of multicoloured hair, thrift-shop wardrobe and, of course, tattoos. Today, she is fresh-scrubbed, un-ironic Katie Holmes, the one her fans know and love as Joey from Dawson's Creek. "I have a lot of April in me, just like I have a lot of Joey in me," she says. "But I know people have a good-girl image of me from the show that's hard to get away from. It's why I didn't think I had a chance of getting to play April." Holmes was one of many young actors who received Peter Hedges' script for Pieces of April, about a girl attempting to mend fences with her estranged family by preparing her first Thanksgiving dinner. The story takes place entirely on Thanksgiving Day, and cuts between her hapless attempts to cook a turkey, her live-in boyfriend's (Derek Luke) attempt to buy a suit and her family's drive to Manhattan from their Pennsylvania home. In the course of the trip, it is revealed that her mother, played by Patricia Clarkson, has terminal cancer. "I loved What's Eating Gilbert Grape," says Holmes of the 1993 film adapted by Hedges, who also turned the novels A Map of the World (1999) and About A Boy (2002) into movies. "And when I read this, I thought it was like a jewel. I didn't really think I'd get the part, I just wanted to meet the person who was able to write so truthfully about families. "I've done a lot of family drama, not just on the series but in movies, but there was something about this that was so different. It was poetic and real at the same time." Writer-director Hedges, for his part, never really thought Holmes would seriously consider playing the role. For one thing, he had no money to pay her. She and everyone else in the film would be working for a percentage of the profits, if there were any. For another, Hedges, who had tried twice before and failed to get the film made on a $US6 million ($8.55 million) budget and a 40-day shooting schedule, was eventually forced to make it for $US300,000 ($A427,260) in 14, or 16 days, depending on whose calendar you're using. Holmes, committed to the last season of Dawson's Creek, filmed all her scenes in less than 10. "It was like a sprint," she says, taller in person than she seems on screen but with a surprisingly high voice that often approaches helium level. "I'm used to shooting quickly from TV, but nothing, nothing like this. It was a completely different way of working than anything I've ever done before. It was a huge adjustment but it was good for me, because I tend to over-analyse every role I take. "There was no time. You got on set, and it was go, go, go. You work until you drop, you go home and crash, and get up and do it again." Hedges, who is a playwright and novelist, says the lack of time and money worked to his advantage as well. "No time for ego," he says. "It reminded me of when I was first writing plays in the 1980s. "At one point, I wrote 12 plays over a three-year-period. When you write screenplays, you have a lot of time to second-guess yourself and to take what other people think too seriously, instead of relying on your instincts." Hedges's and Holmes's instincts seemed to be on target after the film was first screened in January at the Sundance Film Festival and quickly became the object of a bidding war won by United Artists. The studio ponied up $US3.5 million ($4.8 million) for distribution rights, meaning the movie had made more than 10 times its production cost before it played a single theatre. Holmes who says she considers herself "a sartorial conservative," says dressing like April was "10 days of Halloween". But working with Clarkson, Luke, Oliver Platt (as her father) and Sean Hayes (who plays a neighbour she's never talked to) was more like Christmas. Though she's already begun to feel separation anxiety from the cast and crew she worked with for six years on Dawson's Creek, she's looking forward to working with more actors like Clarkson and Robert Downey Jr, with whom Holmes appears in the upcoming The Singing Detective. "I think she has the stuff to be a truly superb actor," says Downey Jr. "From working a little in TV myself" – he had a recurring role in Ally McBeal before his last drug relapse – "I can really appreciate what Katie had to do to keep herself fresh and interested. I think she's going to go the distance." "He said that?" asks Holmes. "Well, that's my day-maker, right there. My biggest fear about doing these independent movies was that people would think I was just another TV actress trying to be all cool and artsy. But I really just want to be in some movies that Patty Clarkson and Robert Downey would want to be in, learn what I can and not embarrass anybody. Especially myself." is in cinemas today. |
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