FEBRUARY 11, 2004

Snapping

Photo By Jeremy Stewart
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Emily Perkins talks

Vancouver native speaks about
her recurring role as a werewolf

By Lydia Malmedie, Excalibur

TORONTO (CUP) ~~ “Hair everywhere
xcept my eyeballs, elongation of the spine
and excruciating death” is what Brigitte
(Emily Perkins) describes as her best-case sce-
nario in a counselling session at the Happier
Times rehabilitation clinic.

While everyone else is convinced that she is
simply another drug addict, Brigitte is very
conscious of what is happening to her - she is
turning into a lycanthrope (werewolf). And
‘the faster her self-inflicted wounds heal, the
closer she gets to being one. Monkshood, an
herb, can slow the process of her lupine
transformation, but in order to obtain her
“drug,” Brigitte needs to compromise some-
thing which turns out to be fatal and she
needs others to help her.

Opening February 30, Ginger Snaps:
Unleashed is sure to haunt cinemas across
Ganada. This sequel to the 2001 Canadian
werewolf cult film Ginger Snaps might be
predictable in its shocking effects, but the
overall story takes unexpected turns and is
further spiced with a great sense of irony and
humorous dialogues.

The intrinsic human fear of the unknown
and inexplicable is what this film plays with.
The original Ginger Snaps depicts the trans-
formation into a werewolf as an analogy for
the metamorphosis of becoming an adoles-
eent. The sequel, Ginger Snaps: Unleashed,
further explores this theme through the rela-
tionship between Brigitte and Ghost, a
gemic-obsessed 14-year-old girl who agrees
to help Brigitte escape from the hospital. ‘The
most refreshing aspect of this film is that it
does not rely on romance or a love story to
make it interesting. The focus here is on the
Special relationship between women, as sis-
a and as friends.

. “T always analyze a movie in terms of what
thé monsters represent and it is always some-
thing that has a representation in the main-

stream culture,” says actress Perkins. “Ginger
Snaps definitely has a feminist consciousness,
and you are encouraged to identify with the
monster, the werewolf. Any time people iden-
tify with a monster, a marginal figure, they
are being critical of their intrinsic values.”

Perkins seems young and fragile for her 25
years, a far cry from the beast she so convinc-
ingly portrays in Unleashed. One of the rea-
sons why Perkins accepted the role of Brigitte
in the sequel and prequel {release scheduled
for March 2005) was that it proved to be a
good job opportunity, a rarity for Canadian
actors these days. But Perkins was also inter-
ested in developing Brigitte’s character fur-
ther and some changes were actually made to
the script because of her suggestions.

In the film, Ghost asks Brigitte which
power she would like to have as a coritic fig-
ure. Brigitte’s answer is “time.” Perkins
replies that if she could choose for real she
would choose invisibility.

“T am a really shy person but I am also a
very curious person ... I am kind of like
Brigitte in that way, I don’t like being an
object ... [1 don’t like to] be judged by the
clothes I am wearing.”

Her greatest fear, however, is “that people
see me in the same way I see myself”. On one
hand Brigitte enjoyed turning into this ugly
and grotesque creature, while at the same
time she was very conscious of the fact that
this is the way people would see her.

“You are being judged that way,” she says.
Perkins also admits that at some point she was
looking forward to starting work on the pre-
quel because, for a change, she got to look
pretty.

Perkins does not have any future projects
yet, but she does not necessarily see acting as
her final career, “I have a degree in psycholo-
gy and women’s studies so I might go back to
school next year,” she announces. Surely
some fans will have objections!

Cuuture 18

The Monster
in Charlize

Charlize Theron wows audiences and
critics with portrayal of serial killer

By Eric Guillemette,

Excalibur

TORONTO (CUP) — Just
how did Charlize Theron com-
pletely transform herself from an
actress known for her dazzling
good looks into an infamous
killer?

“Everything

about Aileen
Wuornos came
from her emotional
journey,” says

Theron. “The way
she puffed herself
up and threw her
head back - that’s
‘not Aileen being
weird. That's the
homeless Aileen.
That’s survival,”

The beautiful South African
actress has received much praise
of late from critics for her perfor-
mance in Monster as Aileen
Wuornos, a female serial killer
convicted of murdering six men,

Theron was recently in
Toronto with the  film’s
writer/director, Patty Jenkins, to
promote Monster’s local pre-
miere. Jenkins, who had been in
communication with Wuornos
before she was executed two
years ago in Florida after 12
years on death row, received the
inmate’s personal journals.
Wuornos’ descriptive notes
about her life were essentially
Jenkins’ inspiration for the film.

“A lot of times in society, with
people like Aileen, we just imme-
diately label them,” says Theron.
“They're crazy, they’re psy-
chopaths, they’re evil. It’s easier.
I just don’t believe the human
condition is that black and white.
Her story had a tremendous
amount of grey.”

A desolate prostitute,
Wuornos struggled through life
making amends the only way she
knew how: street peddling. She
was abused and abandoned as a

child and she also had a baby at

‘the age of 13. It wasn't until she

met Tyria Moore (portrayed as

Christina Ricci’s character
Selby) that things began to look
up for her.

“This was a woman who did-
n’t start off evil or bad, but defi-
nitely got to a place in her life
where she crossed the line and
did really terrible things,” says
Theron.

It was around the same time
that Wuornos met Moore, she
started to kill her clients and steal
their vehicles. Wuornos claimed
it was self-defence, but it wasn’t
enough to convince the jury.

Theron’s portrayal of the low-
brow serial killer was indeed an
amazing change for the actress.
The former model gained 30
pounds for the role and wore sev-
eral prosthetics and false teeth to
create the eerie resemblance to
Aileen Wuornos seen in the film.

“When I saw myself in the
mirror for the first time, I was
extremely happy,” says Theron.
“Tt was really a relief because I
felt that with an [incredibly] tal-
ented makeup artist, we didn’t go
and do a makeup job.”

Apart from the remarkable
physical changes Theron under-
took to preserve Wuornos’
image, the actress also dove deep
into her character's persona.

“Everything about Aileen
Wuornos came from her emo-
tional journey,” says Theron.
“The way she puffed herself up
and threw her head back - that’s
not Aileen being weird. That's
the homeless Aileen. That’s sur-
vival.”

“The way she felt about her
body ... you know, she had a
child when she was 13. She
wrote in her letters that even
though she was a prostitute, she
never took her shirt off. When
she was arrested and you saw her
body, you could see this was a
woman who had just been trying
to survive. It wasn’t about getting
fat. Her body was the map to her
journey.”

Nevertheless, the actress
feared that her performance
wouldn’t be enough to allow the
audience to grasp who Wuornos
really was.

“We were concerned about
not turning {Wuornos] into a
caricature,” explains Theron.
“When I saw myself in the mir-
ror the first time, I was really
pleased. It wasn’t about prosthet-

“We were con-
cerned about not
turning [Wuornos]
into a caricature,”
explains Theron.
“When | saw myself
in the mirror the
first time, 1 was
really pleased. It
wasnt about pros-
thetics or the
weight thing. It’s
not like Patty said,
1 want you to gain
30 pounds.”

ics or the weight thing. It’s not
like Patty said, ‘I want you to
gain 30 pounds.”

Although Monster is some-
what empathetic towards serial
killer Wuornos, it also sheds light
on the woman’s darker, troubled
side.

“TJ like that, I like that there’s
not some mission behind this
story to make sure people felt
one specific way about her,” says
Theron. “You cither saw the sen- _
sational stuff, the lesbian, first
American female serial killer ...
or poor child, she was abused,
had a baby at 13.”

Whether or not the film por-
trays Aileen Wuornos a certain
way to each audience member,
Theron hopes that their inter-
pretation of her character is not
forced upon them as in most
films.

“One thing I loathe in the.
movies is manipulation, and
what I love about this story is
that it doesn’t manipulate you. It
doesn’t hit you over the head or
try to make sure this one thing is
coming through. It’s not the kind
of movie everyone feels the same
way about, and I like that.”

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