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HYPE: Asia Argento Not lost amid the explosions and the death defying jumps from moving objects during this summer's action blockbuster xXx, at some point all moviegoers will lean over to their companions and whisper "Who's the girl?" Most Americans will see Asia Argento onscreen for the first time this summer (unless they caught her in art-house pics B. Monkey or New Rose Hotel, or French bodice-ripper Queen Margot), yet the 26 year old Italian stunner is a veteran of nearly 30 movies. Her father, Dario Argento, is a leading Italian horror director whose films have influenced everyone from Wes Craven to George Romero, and who cast her in her first film Demons 2 at the tender age of nine. Asia (pronounced Ah-zi-a) Argento parlayed her upbringing into vast film experience, writing and directing several shorts and directing her first feature, Scarlet Diva, in 2000. Which makes her a filmmaker at least on a par with her multi-hyphenate costar, Vin Diesel. And Argento goes one step further than her fellow actors when it comes to living the movie's punk anarchist aesthetic. Discussing the various temporary tattoos applied to the cast members during filming (including the three X's on the back of Diesel's neck), the movie's unit publicist summed up curtly, "Asia's tattoos... are her own." So how would this multi-talented young star like to be remembered? She responds, "As somebody who has done everything, but didn't know how to do anything." You mean, besides knowing how to make our pulses race? That's not a bad place to start. -- Michael Dubois |
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But unlike many headline-grabbing actresses, Jolie is even more interesting on-screen than off. The dangerously screwed-up beauties she has played in George Wallace, Gia, Playing by Heart, Pushing Tin and Girl, Interrupted have all been tangible, believable creations. In her first big-budget thriller, The Bone Collector, she easily matched the skill and intensity of Denzel Washington. She's likely to stun audiences as the take-no-prisoners action heroine Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, a fantasy adventure adap from the video game by director Simon West (see story on p. 54). And who isn't looking forward to watching her later this summer when she plays the sex-obsessed femme fatale who enraptures Antonio Banderas in Original Sin? When Angelina Jolie greets me for this interview, she strikes me as someone fully capable of doing all that she has done offscreen and all that she's expected to do on-screen as Lara Croft. She's dressed in a black T-shirt and black leather jacket, and she looks like she might throw a mean right if provoked. "Call me Angie," she says, reaching out to shake my hand. I can tell she is indeed something like her father--intense, focused. And I have little doubt that, like her father, she'll be original in her thinking. For Lawrence Grobel's interview pick up the June issus of Movieline. PAGE 1 | 2 |