This article appeared in Issue 28 of Wonderland: Nov/Dec 2011

“I was screaming a lot yesterday so I might not have the most amazing interview voice,” says a rather husky sounding Tyler Posey, lead star of MTV’s surprise hit show, Teen Wolf. Having taken the 80s film classic and reinvented it as a weekly platform for today’s Twi-hard viewing public, the show surpassed expectations when it debuted earlier this year. In fact it was so popular that a second season was commissioned before the first had even wrapped.

However, it is not howling at the moon that has over exerted the 20-year-old actors lungs but the thrill ride of rollercoasters at the Universal Studios amusement park. “I was bored and went with a couple of friends and had a lot of fun,” he explains, “the first thing we did when we got there was go into a pretty scary haunted house which takes 20 minutes to walk through. At the very end we got separated from one of our friends and got freaked out because we didn’t know where he was,” he continues, sounding panicked by the memory. But surely it must take a lot to startle a young man working on a supernatural show like Teen Wolf? “It’s all lies!” he laughs. “I am scared of everything. There were werewolves inside the maze and I thought I could have something in common with them but they still tried to eat me.”

Having survived the ordeal, Posey is finding ways of keeping busy during the show’s summer hiatus before the filming of season two begins in the latter half of November. Whilst a real life werewolf might struggle to cope with spontaneously emerging fur, Posey has recently opted to experiment with his own body hair by growing his first ever moustache. “I’ve been able to grow one ever since I was a young teenager but this time I tried to grow one for real,” he explains. However, the end result was not as dashing as he might have anticipated, with online commenters swiftly noting his resemblance to Mandy Patinkin’s Inigo Montoya in Rob Reiner’s 1987 classic, The Princess Bride. “It looked really bad,” he concedes with a laugh, “but I was very proud of it.”

Having begun acting at a young age, one of Posey’s earliest roles was Jennifer Lopez’s son in the 2001 romantic comedy, Maid in Manhattan. Like the famous Latina, Posey is also trying to find a balance between the world of acting and the world of music, with his as-yet-unsigned band, Lost In Kostko. “We played this show on Sunday night and it was like being Justin Bieber or something,” he recounts excitedly, “the curtain went up and there were screaming girls and flashes of cameras and posters saying my name – it was surreal. The part I loved the most was that they were singing our lyrics back to us and that was the first time that’s ever happened. I can’t even describe to you how that feels.” But all those Teen Wolf fans worried he might be about to cancel his acting plans, need fear not. Lost In Kostko is only a side project, for now. “It’s a punk rock band so I don’t really need to know how to sing. I can definitely act, but the singing: I’m still working on.”

Words: Seamus Duff
Photographer: Danielle Levitt
Fashion Editor: Brad Goreski

The post Flashback Friday: Tyler Posey appeared first on Wonderland.

This interview first appeared in Wonderland Issue 13, April/May 2008.

Any way you slice it, this will be a year to remember for Dominic Cooper. Turning 30; buying a flat away from the southeast London neighbourhood where he’s laid tracks his entire life; and starring in three couldn’t-be-more-dissimilar films, any one of which could propel him to the big league of Brit stars currently occupied by James McAvoy and Jude Law. “The things that are coming out are exciting and I keep being told they’ll make a difference,” he hedges. “But who knows?”

Thus far, Cooper has displayed a two-pronged appeal: a brash sexuality he exploited as the ferally manipulative Dakin in The History Boys, and a puppyish demeanour that makes audiences want to shield him. This second quality is on show in spades in UK prison drama The Escapist, in which Cooper suffers plenty as Lacey, the naïve, new-boy convict let in on an escape plot because his wizened cellmate (Brian Cox) feels sorry for him.

“He just gets beaten up, raped and generally shat on,” says Cooper of his character, who makes a striking entrance into prison stripped to his briefs, smeared in white delousing powder and taunted by a cellblock’s worth of randy inmates. “That was one of the first scenes I shot and Rupert Wyatt the director made sure it was the first time I saw the prison. It was scary.”

There’s no doubt this vulnerability caught the eye of Nicholas Hytner, the National Theatre svengali who Cooper can thank for his career. Plucking the actor straight from drama school, Hytner cast him in swift succession in Mother Clap’s Molly House, as Will in His Dark Materials and, of course, The History Boys. Before Hytner got his hands on him, Cooper had stumbled into acting haphazardly, following a brief detour in the employ of hip commercials outfit Academy. “It was exciting for a while but then I got a bit perturbed by people sat there talking about the colour and crispiness of a cornflake,” he grins.

Sitting in the photographer’s north London flat, Cooper is engaging, self-deprecating and sporting the aftermath of a head shaved for a BBC Two film with Stephen Dillane called God On Trial, about Auschwitz prisoners awaiting selection for the gas chamber. “Being in Glasgow, in January, that subject matter – it was kind of…” Depressing? “That might be the word… It was more intense than sitting on a jet ski, oiled up and singing ABBA.”

That would be Cooper’s next film, an adaptation of insanely popular stage musical, Mamma Mia!, which he didn’t want to audition for but “people forced me to do it”. He may have cringed while belting out Abba’s ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ at the meeting, but still convinced them he was the right heartthrob and spent what sounds suspiciously like a seven-week paid holiday hanging out on Greek islands with Colin Firth and Meryl Streep. “In the final number, we’re all wearing outrageous spandex suits – mine’s pink and opened down to there,” he says, motioning to his waistline. “It could be the end of my career but, you know, anything goes.”

His other major role comes opposite Keira Knightley in Saul Dibb’s The Duchess, playing aristocratic MP Earl Grey, who conducted a passionate affair with 18th-century scandal magnet the Duchess of Devonshire. According to Cooper, his sex scenes with Knightley were “damn good fun” but his behaviour during the shoot was “completely moronic… I just made a fool of myself the whole time. I was pretending to be more academic than I was, seeing as I was playing a politician, and came out with garbage that I knew nothing about. I just acted like a naughty schoolkid the whole time.”

Naughty boy or not, Cooper’s doe-eyed charisma has already seen him touted as the next Jude Law. Turning 30 this June, however, is one breakthrough he’s not looking forward to. “I’m dreading it,” he demurs. “I should be planning a big party but I might just pretend I’m not 30… Although isn’t 30 supposed to be good? Isn’t 30 me learning who I am and what I want to do with my life?”

Perhaps it’s about exerting more control over your own destiny… Cooper had been planning to head off after the shoot to the NME Awards with some of his History Boys cast-mates, but he has a big audition in the morning and “if I go, I won’t get to bed before 6am.” Instead he heads off, clutching his annotated script and i-Pod, to catch the Tube home and prepare for a role that might change his life all over again.

Words: Matt Mueller
Images: Toyin

The post Flashback Friday: Dominic Cooper appeared first on Wonderland.

This interview first appeared in Issue 20 of Wonderland, Nov/Dec 2009.

“I really thought people would know I was joking,” says Jamie Campbell Bower, a new addition to the Twilight film franchise who recently sparked a false nudity story about his character’s family of vampires’ appearance in New Moon. “I was at Comicon and the guy from MTV who was interviewing me was like, ‘So Rob [Pattinson] and Taylor [Lautner] get their shirt off in the movies – any chance of you getting your shirt off?’” he recounts of the moment the story started.  “And I though ‘alright, I am going to roll with this’ and was just like, ‘Yeah, actually.  Yes.  We are all naked’,” he laughs.  “I feel really bad because Chris Weitz, the director, had to write an apology note and I was like, ‘Oh God! What have I done? I’ve ruined everything… I’m never going to work again!’”

Fortunately his actions did not cost him his role and he seems confident he will be back to reprise his character, Caius, for the later installments in the series.  As a member of the Volturi – an order of Vampires that act as the law keepers to the Vampire community – Campbell Bower is joined on screen by Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning who play Volturi leader, Aro, and mind meddling bloodsucker, Jane respectively. He describes the Vampiric family as having a sense of malice about them though he jokes they are “not villains, but educated leaders who believe in tradition – so they’re more like the Royal Family… [laughs].  Michael Sheen would definitely be Liz and Christopher Heyerdahl [who plays Marcus] would be Philip.”

Although many Twilight fans have been left disappointed that the naked scene was fabricated, Campbell Bower is only too keen to expand upon his own realisation of how the Volturi would make their entrance.

“It would be like that scene from The Dreamers,” he jokes.  “Me and Michael Sheen in a bath together and Dakota walking in saying ‘Oh! Sorry… sorry about that’, [adopting an assertive voice] ‘No, that’s fine. Hop in!’ – we’d all be there, smoking pot [laughs].”

Having discovered a thirst for performance at a young age, Campbell Bower began getting involved with school productions and the National Youth Music Theatre, and by the age of fourteen decided acting would be the career for him.  He later met with an agent Simon Beresford who sent him to audition for Tim Burton’s gothic musical Sweeney Todd.

“My first meeting, I met Susie Figgis, the Casting Director.  And my second meeting – when I was actually reading – was in front of [Burton],” he recalls.  “I was thinking, “Oh my God this is sooo bizarre – I should be in school right now.  This is freaking me out!”  Then on the same day I had to sing for Stephen Sondheim, the musical director and then about a week later I got a phone call saying I got the part.  So that was the beginning of the end!” he laughs.

“[On Sweeney Todd] I was eighteen years of age, fresh-faced, wide eyed and at work with all these amazing actors.  People were saying, ‘Hit your mark!’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ but inside I was going ‘What does that mean?  What am I meant to be doing?  What’s the mark?’ – I sort of blagged my way through a lot of it but it was a really good learning experience.”

Although the acting world is something Cambell Bower clearly enjoys, he does admit he is still adjusting to the Hollywood environment – in particular, the world of Twilight.  “It’s interesting to see how the whole Twilight world works.  It is very strange – I still find it very, very weird.  Just because I don’t think I would have been so obsessed about something like that in my entire life – that obsession with a particular work of literature.  [Filming New Moon] was really fun but also really scary,” he confesses.  “I don’t have an impact on the world and then you go in and you work with Rob and Kristin [Stewart] and Dakota and Michael – all these phenomenal actors who have made such an impact on the world and are so great at what they do.  It’s kind of like, ‘Fuck!  What am I doing here?’  But they’re really nice and very much eased me into it.”

And whilst Campbell Bower has enjoyed his time working on the vampire movie, he is pretty confident he will be able to remain relatively anonymous despite the films success, unlike Twilight lead, Robert Pattinson.

“I’m still able to walk the streets of London without people pushing me into taxis,” he laughs.  “The whole thing that’s going on with Rob is that he is a really great actor and he portrays his character fantastically.  People were obsessed with the books before the film even came out and obsessed with the character of Edward and I think that’s still what people are obsessing over.”

There is another fantasy-novel-turned-film-franchise that Campbell Bower has also recently managed to get involved with – Harry Potter.

“It’s a scary prospect going in to do Harry Potter.  Terrifying.  But it’s really cool to watch how much money they put into it and how amazing they can make it.  Leaveston Studios is now Potter Studios – I don’t think another film has been done there for years.  But all the people who are working on Potter also worked on Sweeney – which is really nice.”

Campbell Bower will be appearing in flashback scenes as one of the series key characters, Gellert Grindelwald – one of the few magicians to challenge the magical abilities of top wizard, Albus Dumbledor (played on screen by Michael Gambon) as well as being the only character to capture his heart.

“I’ve had scenes with a young Michael Gambon – not actually Michael Gambon, but a guy that’s playing young Michael Gambon,” Jamie explains of his experiences on set.  And despite playing on screen lovers, he cannot remember his co-stars name (it’s Toby Regbo).

“That’s awful,” he gasps.  “He is my lover – but we were only on set for one day.”

So was Campbell Bower a fan of the novel series?

“I was, yeah.  But I was much younger when the first book came out and then I kind of lost interest and became more interested in girls.  I was like, ‘Books are boring!  Girls are much more fun.  Fuck this Potter bollocks!  I’m off to go find myself a lady!”

And how did that go?

“Badly.  Really badly.”

So with Potter and Twilight both in the pipeline, can we expect to see Jamie Campbell Bower in more franchise films?

“I think what’s great about franchises is that you know you’re in a job for the next few years and I think that security would be absolutely phenomenal but in another way I do like having no idea of what’s going to happen next.  I could be off for a job for months and then I get another one that’ll take me to a completely different place and it’s a completely different story and it’s all very new and exciting and it gives me a lot more chance to sort of work in developing a character.  I’d like to do a franchise where I could be involved from beginning to end.”

Away from the world of franchising is the upcoming film, London Boulevard, where Campbell Bower is again joined by an array of high profile actors including Colin Farrell, Kiera Knightly and Anna Friel.

“I am a big fan of Anna Friel!” Jamie states somewhat protectively.  “She’s lovely.  I think she’s awesome,” he declares, having become a strong admirer of the actress since watching her in a recent production of Breakfast At Tiffany’s.  Of his role in the film, he says excitedly, “I get to play a character called Whiteboy who has fallen in with this drug world that he doesn’t quite understand and is kind of like a posh boy being a rudeboy.  He’s got dreadlocks and gold teeth, rings and gold chains and the like…”  This character description sounds so different to the actor’s current appearance that suspicion of another Jamie Campbell Bower joke could only be natural.

“No I am actually being deadly serious – this is true,” he insists, laughing.  “This is really true.”

Words: Seamus Duff
Images: Toyin
Fashion: Way Perry

The post Flashback Friday: Jamie Campbell Bower appeared first on Wonderland.

When Ciara Princess Harris was a little girl growing up in Austin, Texas, she didn’t just want to be a popstar. She didn’t want to just be a model or just an actress either. Sure, she’d become inspired to sing songs in front of her bedroom mirror after watching Destiny’s Child perform on television, and it was the profession she later wrote on a piece of paper when she graduated from Riverdale High School in 2003 – a goal she efficiently went out and achieved. But she always wanted something bigger.

Born a “military brat” – her father was in the army, her mother the air force, she zigzagged across the world before she finally settled in Atlanta – in childhood it was “her inspiration”, the entertainment, merchandising and licensing colossus that was Michael Jackson, who stoked the fires of her ultimate ambition. Like Jackson strived for and grasped, what the young Ciara wanted to be was Coca-Cola, or Chanel, or Disney – a global name.
Ciara didn’t just want to be an artist; she wanted to be a brand. The 24-year-old’s new album Basic Instinct is the next phase in that pursuit of that goal.

“I care about the music, that’s my passion, sure it is” says the singer, when questioned whether such a commercial pursuit is of detriment to her art. “But whenever I speak to my team I tell them to go out and get the money. I’m serious! I want to create a Ciara brand that will be here when I’m not, that will feed my family and create a legacy they can live on, bringing money in to the people I love…”

Ciara: a brand build upon 50% ego, 40% good heartedness, 10% forward thinking (she doesn’t yet have children). Established October 25, 1985.

“I felt like I moved away from that a bit on Fantasy Ride,” she says, “and while I really like that record, I wanted to get back to the real sound of me. Which is bass and strong hooks. That’s what I went for on the record. It’s the purest sound of me yet, I’m going back to basics.”

The records title takes itself from Ciara “beginning to trust her first instincts – not just in music, in love, life, everything!”, and sadly not the film of the same name (she laughs, “no, I’ve never once picked up an ice-pick”). It’s an assertiveness you can hear in the sultry You Can Get It, which sees her subverting the jaded male bravado which dominates urban music and all its variants, and says, ‘yeah, I’ll have a little bit of what the boys are having…’ Ciara: “I actually played that song in a meeting, and all the girls were laughing and the guys were saying ‘uh-huh’. I want the girls to be saying ‘uh-huh’ too”.

She certainly needs to keep the cash coming – in July she admitted to spending $11,000 a month on shoes – yet the Ciara brand is growing thanks to her multi-million dollar deal with the modeling agency Wilhelmina Models; last November she modeled for the German edition of Vogue, in May she did the French edition. There’s the endorsement deals too: Verizon’s smartphone the LG Chocolate Touch (which featured her dancing to an old single called Touch in the commercial), her role as spokesperson for the new Adidas Originals campaigns…

Then there’s the acting, the singer debuting in the MTV films picture All You’ve Got in 2006 and next appearing in Mama, I Want To Sing!, the cinematic adaptation of the off-Broadway gospel stage musical. “Am I more passionate about music, films or fashion?” she says, “I’d say I was most passionate about Ciara. I’ve been lucky enough to achieve everything I’ve wanted to do so far.”

Executive produced by Tricky Stewart and The Dream, Basic Instinct is released towards the end of the year and beyond that Ciara says she’d “like to get to the UK more – stick around for a little bit, that would be fun”. Last album Fantasy Ride was her highest UK charting album to date, but there’s some way to go in achieving the same sort of success she’s achieved in the U.S. on British soil. Beyond that it’s growing the brand, making the money, seeing how big this thing can really get. After all, this is the story of the little girl got big who didn’t just want stardom and didn’t just want respect.

Then as now, Ciara Princess Harris wants the world.

The post Flashback Friday: Ciara appeared first on Wonderland.

This interview first appeared in Issue 28 of Wonderland, November/December 2011

Artist-writer-filmmaker, Miranda July looks way too delicate for this world, and, moments before we meet, nearly pays the price for her fragility. Stepping down the street to meet Wonderland in her hip east LA, Silver Lake neighbourhood, a man hacking trees nearly snuffs out the leading light of the indie world with a single slice. Sitting down to join me for a light lunch, she’s altogether flustered by her brush with the tumbling trunk of doom, and takes a moment to compose herself and shake off the discomfort.

Not that Ms July, or Miranda Jennifer Grossinger to her writer mum and dad, ever seems spectacularly comfortable in her skin. She seems distracted and a little irritable, her sing-songy LA-twang forcing each answer to rise at the end like a question. “You work across multiple mediums, what would you call yourself?” I ask. To which she replies, “I don’t have to.”

The 37-year-old hasn’t had to answer to anyone for quite some time, forging a distinctly unique, virtually compromise-free path through the arts. It was 15 years ago, in a pre-internet era, that Miranda launched Joanie 4 Jackie, a VHS compilation of short films by women, which were distributed around the States like a chain letter. Fast forward a decade and a half and she’s here to talk about her second feature, The Future, a film narrated by a talking stray cat called Paw Paw who follows a couple as they face their increasingly grown-up responsibilities.

In between, she’s released CDs (her first EP, Margie Ruskie Stops Time, was released in 1996); acted in her own and others’ movies (she wrote, directed and starred in Me and You and Everyone We Know, which won the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film festival in 2005); written books (No One Belongs Here More Than You, a collection of short stories, which was released in 2007, and her next project will be a novel); and continues to work on her art (despite promotional duties on The Future, the day after our interview she launched a sculpture show, Eleven Heavy Things, at MOCA Pacific Design Centre in Los Angeles).

Today, tumbling logs be damned, we’re talking to Miranda July the filmmaker on the cusp of the release of her second feature. Salad is ordered, nerves are calmed, and the somewhat stilted conversation begins.

You’ve explained how you don’t have to define your position across the artistic spectrum but do you have a preference for any medium?

No.

Okay. Is filmmaking the spark for what you do?

It’s the thing I wanted to do the longest, since high school, but I’ve been performing the whole time, and writing too. So the spark is the thing that makes me want to make the thing – film itself doesn’t make me want to make something: it’s just the medium. Right now I’m working on a novel so the ideas that I have are for the novel. If they’re not I’ll make a little note.

Where does inspiration strike?

There are so many different things. It can be someone else’s work, it can be something that happened to me, it can be someone I see. I think it’s the same for every artist – there’s not one light.

Is simply being aware of everything around you what’s important?

Yes, and also being aware of what I’m feeling. You end up putting a lot of meaning and emotional content on things in the world, which are not necessarily resonant on their own. It’s just through living: I’m not sitting in a corner with a notebook, observing.

What was the inspiration for The Future?

There are so many feelings before you even sit down, but I remember when I was making the first movie I knew I definitely wanted it to be just about two people. I consciously wanted this one to be sadder and darker, but I think in some way I was surprised by how much of a comedy it is. Sure, I wrote jokes and stuff, but when I was editing the movie I was kind of in a dark place, though I wrote this over six years. You stick with something and stay true to it as it evolves.

How do you stay focused on a project over six years?

Well it wasn’t just the movie the whole time: over those six years I did a lot of other stuff. I wrote a book of short stories, I toured with that around the world, and I made a performance, which eventually evolved into the movie. Then while I was turning it into a movie I did a couple of big art projects too, so it’s not quite as disciplined as it sounds.

So not a solid six years locked in a room with a word processor?

Not at all. For better or worse, I’m not that kind of filmmaker.

Your protagonists in the movie disconnect from the internet. Is this something you’ve tried yourself?

Not for 30 days but I do it every day when I write. It was a very handy way to externalise an internal crisis. We all know that panicky feeling when you lose your phone or your internet isn’t working. I think that feeling predates the internet, it’s the feeling of having too much time, of not enough distraction, of being faced with the void of whatever’s uncomfortable, of what you’re trying to dodge.

That being said, do you think our always-on culture is a good or a bad thing?

It’s both, right? It’s certainly not helpful at all with regards to making ideas out of nothing, which is what a lot of book writing is. New ideas often come from that unknown, empty place, where you’re not sure that something will come and you have to sit with it. The fact is that we don’t really sit with it anymore. I don’t think younger people even know that it’s a virtue. Or maybe it’s not – maybe that’s just an old fashioned way of thinking. But for me it’s not a good thing, because I already have the way I work and it depends on that space.

Having said that, you’re pretty active online, your website/blog is a virtual public journal.

I don’t usually blog but right now I have to blog twice a week for the movie. This is part of the job but it’s a problem as I have a lot to do. For a movie that doesn’t have a huge marketing budget, I’m all there is; it’s a big part of what generates publicity. I get it, and I’m not unhappy about it, but it’s a lot of work.

Things have changed a lot since you had to mail out compilation VHS tapes to a select few.

I know. That’s why I think I’m open to working with it. The internet does feel very DIY; it’s great that I don’t have to go through anyone. I may have imagined back then that to have such a big audience I would have to have sold out somehow. Back then, you would have probably been looking for a major studio to reach an audience.

Does that make it harder or easier to get yourself noticed now?

I think it’s the same thing: if there’s a gap, or you’re fulfilling a need, then it works, only now it works a lot quicker. But there aren’t as many gaps. The chance that you are going to be the only girl filmmaker trying to start a community is small. Maybe it forces people to up their game.

Are you surprised at the kind of success you’ve had?

I’m not totally surprised. The lack of surprise comes from not leaving yourself any other options mentally.

You mean never having a Plan B?

Right. I didn’t know that then but nothing else I could imagine seemed real. I could never even entertain the thought that there might be some other option.

After your success, is there a danger of going mainstream?

No… that all happened after the first movie and I didn’t do it. There is an aspect to it I would love – I would have loved some money because it’s never quite enough to make the movies – but I was nervous about messing up my way of working. They offer you things like “first look”, basically where you’re being paid to write, which is great, but they’d probably want some amount of control. That felt like a move backwards, I’d been free making things since I was 16. Why would I give that up now?

What would you advise people that may find you an inspiration?

I think it’s the same thing. The way my friends and I thought was “yes, you’re making your own work, but you’re also trying to create a community.” So when you have an event, you need all those other people playing, because just your friends is never going to be enough. The people who you think of as your competitors are the people you need the most, and they create a world that’s more fun. Start your revolution together.

Words: Tony Horkins
Photographer: Brigitte Sire

The post Flashback Friday: Miranda July appeared first on Wonderland.

This interview first appeared in Issue 31 of Wonderland, Sept/Oct 2012

While most of her contemporaries were filling out their UCAS forms – yawn – Kaya Scodelario was studying at her own division of the university of life – aka the set of Skins. Not content with stealing the hearts of half of teendom playing that show’s most memorable bad girl, she’s fast becoming one of the UK’s most promising young actors, taking her talent for trouble to the big screen, where she undoubtedly belongs.

Playing tween femme fatale Effy in Skins, Kaya Scodelario seemed wise and wicked beyond her fourteen years. Later, in Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights (2011), she smoldered her way through one of the most heartbreaking dramas in literary history with impressive gravitas, given that at that point she was only just old enough to get into a nightclub. In the flesh, at 20, however, Scodelario feels somehow more youthful than she does onscreen. She’s tomboyish, open, chatty – and unlike many actors has no apparent wish to control her image: what you see is what you get.

Scodelario’s difference to her screen personas is a testament [to the talent of the London-born star, who joins fellow precocious talent Dakota Fanning this September in Now Is Good, playing feisty best friend to Fanning’s spirited young cancer sufferer Tessa. Scodelario’s rebellious, impetuous Zoey encourages Tessa to live her short life to the full, having sex and taking drugs. It’s another “troubled” role for the star. “I seem to be drawn to that sort of stuff,” she tells us. “I think directors think I’m a bit fucked up!”

Scodelario’s exotic looks come from her Brazilian mother and English father, who left when she was one year old and died in 2010. After growing up in a council house with her mother in London, the actress now lives in Manchester, home to boyfriend Elliott Tittensor (Shameless) and regularly visits family in both Brighton and Brazil.

As anyone who’s seen Kaya’s frank Twitter feed will guess, she’s something of an interviewer’s dream, sharing her honest thoughts on everything from her relationship with Tittensor to snogging Billie Piper in True Love. Wonderland has never before been the bearer of a celebrity marriage proposal, but there’s always a first time for everything, right?

Is it fair to say you grew up on screen?

Skins was like our University experience. It was fun and crazy and dramatic and terrible but I wouldn’t swap it for anything. They wanted us to be real kids going through those things. Everyone was falling in love for the first time or having their heart broken or having family problems or leaving home. It was a way of understanding all the shit going on in our lives. We were like, ‘It’ll be OK in the end, ‘cos in the end of this episode, it’s fine!” And Effy holds a special place in my heart. She’s coming back, we are doing a final episode next year.

It must have been a contrast working with Dakota Fanning on Now Is Good…

Dakota is probably the most professional person I’ve ever worked with. She knows all her lines, she’s there on time every day and she’s fully prepared. I really respect that but I really need the social side as well. I think I’d go crazy if I was working constantly. But filming Now Is Good was a great experience. I got to wear some really cool outfits and run around Brighton, one of my favourite places in the world. All my family live on the South Coast so they got to come down and watch me film. My Nan is in the back of shot. We’re on the pier and she’s behind, hobbling along!

And you’ve just filmed Paul Abbott’s thriller Twenty8k…

Yes, I like Paul a lot and I got to work with someone I really admire which is Kierston Wareing. The way she can be so dramatic and put herself in such a depressing state and really break herself down, I think that’s really brave and seems to be something she can do really easily.

Is that something you feel you can do?

Yeah, I try to get into the head of the character. If I’m on screen or in a character I find it a lot easier to cry than I would in real life. I was the shyest person ever in school but the one thing that I would always put my hands up for was acting things. It was never about showing off but it just felt comfortable whereas social situations didn’t.

Did you feel comfortable filming in LA for Emanuel and the Truth about Fishes with Jessica Biel?

LA is crazy. You get there and think, wow, England’s tiny, our industry is so small compared to theirs. It was great, I got to learn to do an American accent. Jessie was gorgeous and she’s engaged to Justin Timberlake – when I was 10 years’ old he was my life! I was freaking out the moment I saw her.

Did you get to meet Justin?

I went to his house for his birthday! It was incredible but just one of those moments where I needed to ring someone and say, “AAAARGH! Guess where I am right now?” Yeah I rang everyone. I rang my Mum.

When you’re not working, what’s a typical day for you?

God, I’m so lazy! We live in Heywood in Manchester where there isn’t a thing to do. Farmland. I live with my boyfriend, his twin brother and two of his friends so it’s a very male house, I get on better with boys than girls. We’re very chilled. We play Mario Kart, we go sit on a field to have a drink and talk. I love to cook, it’s how I connect with my Brazilian roots. Elliott bought me a pressure cooker recently which I’m really excited about but also really freaked out by. If he gets me a Hoover for Christmas I’ll kill him!

You’re a fan of music festivals, aren’t you?

I love festivals. I love the idea of being in a crowd, feeling like everyone’s watching the same thing, feeling the same thing. I went to Glastonbury when I was 16 and it was like a religious experience. I can’t remember most of it but I know it was really, really good. I love live music, I’d much rather go to a pub to see a live band than a club.

Are you feeling a bit clubbed out?

Yeah definitely. We did a lot in Bristol before we were even legally allowed to! The clubs in Bristol were amazing. There was a drum’n’bass club and they never ID’d anyone which is why we all went. It was a complete shithole but we all loved it, it became a tradition for the Skins cast and crew at the end of the week we’d all go down there, fill up the place and dance ‘til 6am.

When you’re out and about, do you get approached by fans?

When Skins was on TV, a lot more. I think the boys had it worse, boys don’t like boys that are successful. They can be really violent. But [with] the lesbian storyline with Lily [Loveless] and Kat [Prescott], they had so many young girls come up to them and say because of them they had the courage to come out. You look at things like that and that’s gotta outweigh all the negative stuff by a mile.

Which neatly brings us to your lesbian role in TV’s True Love with Billie Piper…

Ah, yes, well done! I planned that. It was all improvised, there’s no script. You hear about me and Billie’s storyline and think, “Oh, lesbians,” but it’s not about that, it’s about the connection of two people. Yes there’s an age difference, yes they’re the same sex but you don’t focus on that. It was me wanting to push myself, having to tell my Nan that I was playing a lesbian. She was actually really cool about it. I was like, “Go on Nan!”

How was it with Billie?

it was weird the first day because the first album I bought was hers, when I was about 10 years old! But she’s a beautiful woman obviously so it isn’t difficult to have to understand why someone would fancy her. She’s very intelligent, knows the industry really well and was good for advice.

OK quick quiz time. Where do you think you will be in ten years?

I’d like to be able to get my Mum a nice house, she lives in council flat right now. And I’d like to be married. [Dramatically] Elliott Tittensor: Marry me!

As an actress, do you ever feel your looks can work against you as well as for you?

I’ve never thought of myself as the pretty girl. There are lot of actresses who will only go up for parts where they have to look pretty. I would happily shave my head for a role, I’d happily burn my face if I had to. I’ve never been a girly girl. I’m not delicate in any way.

How would you describe your style?

Camden Market is my shrine of fashion, I like mixing and matching. I love being from London. You walk around Soho and you’ll see ten different looks, someone wearing a binbag but they still look cool. I dyed my hair purple last week and got a bollocking, my agent nearly killed me!

Denim or leather?

Leather.

Acting or Modelling?

Acting, definitely 100%.

Britain or Brazil?

Oh you can’t do that! Oh no! Brazil. There’s a beautiful energy, music, life good food, good conversation, being on a beach… and the weather!

An Arnold Schwarzenegger movie or EastEnders?

ARRGH!! This is horrible! [squeals]. Arnie. I love him so much. I turn into a six year old every time I think of him. He made me want to get into films.

Do you fancy him?

No – in True Lies he looked hot. I would have then. But not now! No no no no no.

Ever met him?

No. I would actually die. I don’t like thinking about it now, I get excited. I found out he was following me on Twitter and I screamed the house down. Elliott was like, “Who died? What’s happened? “I was like, “Arnie’s folllowing me!”. I was crying and everything, I’m so obsessed.

Did you message him?

Yes. I said, “I love you.” I think I just kept it at that, nice and simple.

Did he reply?

No.

Words: Anna Smith

Images: Mark Kean

Fashion: Julia Sarr-Jamois

The post Flashback Friday: Kaya Scodelario appeared first on Wonderland.

This interview first appeared in Issue 29 of Wonderland, Feb/March 2012.

Nicki Minaj’s people really, really don’t want me to ask her about her bottom. Or about her feud with Lil’ Kim. They are so worried about these topics that they text, email and call to remind me not to talk about them. But, intriguing as her booty and her beef are, happily there are even more mind-boggling things to ask Minaj about. Specifically, how over the last year she’s become one of the most famous women in the world. The kind of famous, in fact, that – aha – demands outrageously lengthy, luxurious and diva-ishly precise riders on photoshoots for magazines, it turns out.

With visions of the specifically demanded silverware being insufficiently polished, or the waffles being not quite well-cooked enough, I’m almost scared to ask her how the shoot went. But she pronounces it “one of my favourite shoots I’ve ever done – I swear, for real” and enthuses about the bathing suit shots in particular.

Nonetheless, it’s clear she likes to be in charge in this sort of situation. “Yeah, I’m definitely a control freak.” But that’s a good thing? “Absolutely! You gotta take control of your career and your image – who else should take control of it, right?”

As Minaj has shot to superstardom, the former seems increasingly inseparable from the latter. This isn’t to disparage her talent – none of us are ever going to forget her chorus on Kanye’s ‘Monster’ in a hurry, nor her platinum-certified debut album Pink Friday – but her pinkified, eye-popping, cartoonish outrageousness, as well as the whole Minaj world of Barbz and Ken-Barbz and alter-egos seem to be spiralling into infinity, making her unique position as a Woman in Hip-Hop ever more curious. I interviewed Minaj back in 2010, just before Pink Friday was released. Back then she gave the impression of being just a little bit freaked out by how huge she was about to become. Right now, before the release of album number two, she only wants to get bigger and bigger.

Did your last year pan out how you wanted?

Absolutely. I could not have asked for anything more than what’s happened. It was a slow build but it just kind of exploded at the end of the cycle and I’m really thankful for it. I feel now I have a grasp of who I am, more so than two years ago.

Wow! When we first met I was amazed at how much of a sense of self you had already.

There’s definitely a lot more!

In what ways?

Well, when I get in the studio now I don’t second guess myself like I used to. There were so many things on this album that I just did in one take and I left it. There were so many things that I just freestyled. I felt like my fans totally get it now – they totally get me and they’re the only ones that matter. I have a certain connection with them, a certain sense of humour with them that only they understand. A lot of the things I recorded have that same sense of humour. I think that when you hear it you’ll definitely hear a shift in confidence and you’ll hear a lot more humour.

Does that mean more alter-egos? 

Yes! There’s one that’s going to be very famous and that’s Saint John Paul The Third. And he’s on a song called “Roman Holiday” and he meets Roman [Zolanski, one of Minaj’s alter egos] and he’s the member of a choir and he basically tries to rehabilitate Roman along with Martha.

Where do these people come from? Does it start with the voice?

They usually come into being with a voice and then I name them and then I sort of try to create who this person is in relation to my other characters. It just kind of becomes one weird maze!

Has the fact that lots of your fans are really young surprised you?

Yeah, it did surprise me. But when the album came out I didn’t really have an idea of who my core was going to be, I just went along and I was just having a good time. But now that I see the fans are very young at times… it’s a lot of the reason why I censored myself on the first album – I felt that I had to. There’s going to be a clean version of every explicit song that I put out and if a parent wants to get it they can get the clean version and the kids can still have it on.

Do you think about having kids of your own?

Of couuuuuurse! Oh my God. I’m like, already a mother in my head. I loooove, love children. I don’t know why. But children make me very happy. Speaking to children you can learn some of the most fascinating things in a very simple and honest way. It’s one of my favourite things to do, is speak to children; I just really love how they can express them- selves without having gone to college and having life experience.They’re just able to look at things in a way that just kind of puts everything into perspective. And it’s just an honest reaction.You won’t get a thought-out reaction and that’s what I love.

You surprised Sophia Grace, the toddler who became a viral hit after her cover of “Super Bass”, on the Ellen show. That must have been a 2011 highlight?

I definitely think the Ellen DeGeneres moment was amazing. I love children and I have a weird connection to children, so to see a little kid that was from another country put out my rap and sing my song with this amazing confidence and tenacity… wow. I never had any idea that it would be such a big deal, to be completely honest. I just thought, you know, we’ll make a little girl’s day and that will be it. I had no idea it was going to become such a huge phenomenon the way it did.

How do you deal with this level of fame? What keeps you sane?

It’s crazy because the way I see myself, I feel like I experience a personal calm, you know, a personal peace that I’ve just been able to gravitate to recently. But I don’t really look at myself as a big star, to be completely honest and maybe this has a lot to do with me coming up on the underground circuit. But I always feel like, oh my God, I still have so much to do, I still have so much work to do and so I guess that makes me continue to be hungry. I don’t vacation, I don’t really party, because I’m always feeling like I have to get to that finish line. I just feel this weird thing inside of me that keeps on saying: “You haven’t done enough, you have to give more, you have to do more.” So I guess maybe I won’t see the success until ten years from now, you know? I’ve always been like that though. I’m kind of always in the future thinking, ‘well what needs to be done now?’

So do you ever allow yourself to take a little moment to feel proud or excited?

No. It’s kind of sad. I really don’t. I really, really don’t. I just don’t know, it’s not in my genetic right now… because to me, when I stop, when I’ve stopped in the past and kind of just lived in the moment then that’s when I got the rug pulled from under me. So now it’s like you can’t, you can’t let up.

Is the Nicki who goes home and takes her make-up off at the end of the day a very different person from the on-stage Nicki?

Oh they’re definitely two completely different people. Obviously what I would wear at home is not what I would wear up on stage and I think, when I’m at home it’s a way more introspective character and I think the person people see on stage is anything but.

I find it hard to imagine you doing normal, boring things…

Well, I watch a lot of Judge Judy. And I watch a lot of Forensic Files. And I cook – I cook spaghetti really, really good; I cook macaroni and cheese really, really good; I cook chicken really, really good.

What’s the best thing you’ve bought yourself?

I want to hear that you’re enjoying your wealth! Well probably my most Barbalicious thing is my pink Bentley. But it’s kind of crazy because I’ve also been wearing this vintage Barbie jacket and my Bar- bie chain so I’m completely whoring myself out right now on Barbie.

And of course you had your own Barbie made of you, right?

Yesss! Oh my goodness, yes. That is every girl’s dream. That’s like: wow, big deal. It’s a one-of-a-kind doll. I was just so honoured to do something with Mattel. I mean, they change everyone’s life. They are a staple of our culture. Barbie gets a lot of love but she also gets a lot of shit.

How would you come to her defense?

I feel like Barbie is great because it doesn’t only focus on beauty – you have Barbies that work, they have tons of different jobs now. And they come in different shades, which I love, and different hairstyles. So I think that they’ve gotten to the point where they’re making girls feel like it’s OK not to look like or be like the traditional Barbie. Now in terms of a body image, even male action figure dolls are cut up more than the average man – it’s just how people make dolls!

Now, I know you love London…

I was born in London in my past life, no one can tell me different. I probably was like a queen in London, I was probably the people’s queen that fought for lives… and I probably started off as a maid and then was just, like, really revolutionary and moved all my Barbz into the big queen mansion. That sounds about right to me.

Have you had much time off while you’re there?

Well this time when I come back I’m going to have more of a moment. I didn’t really get to do any sightseeing. The best part when I came this last time was the fact that the Barbz waited outside the hotel and were rapping songs and I could hear them and I really fed off that energy, I really appreciated that love. It will forever be the place where I got the warmest welcome in my career.

What’s the craziest thing a fan has ever done?

Well I think the most extreme thing is when I see people with tattoos of my name or my face. I have this weird connection to them because that’s some real over-the-top, passionate love for someone. No matter how many times I see it, it never gets old to me, I always do a double take and I’m always in shock.

Anyone you’d consider getting a tattoo of?

Jada Pinkett. I was so obsessed with her. It’s so ironic how the world works because I had been obsessed with Jada Pinkett and then ten or 15 years later, whatever it is, I’m doing a song with her daughter. Who would have known!?

You must have had a lot of who-would-have-known moments by now – have you got used to them?

I really haven’t gotten used to anything at this point. It’s happening so quickly. Why do you think you have had such huge success – what is it about you and your music do you think?You know what, I have to say that my Barbz are so passionate that it’s beyond the music – it’s more about a culture and a movement. My movement is sort of larger than life, because of my fans. They’re so passionate and they don’t let up. They’re amazing people and they really believe in me.

When you have a gang of people that really, really believe in you and they’re really, really out there spreading the word it’s almost impossible to lose because all you have to do is follow up with music that people can understand and feel and there you have it. You know, two years ago when I was doing interviews before I was famous, I was saying I don’t want to be boxed in. When this album comes out they definitely won’t know what kind of category to put me in.

Words: Hermione Hoby (Follow Hermione on Twitter @hermionehoby)
Images: Matt Irwin

The post Flashback Friday: Nicki Minaj appeared first on Wonderland.

This interview was published in Issue 27 of Wonderland, Sept/Oct 2011.

You know what it’s like with movie stars: no new films for months, then eight come along together. At least that’s how it is for Jessica Chastain, who’s following the London bus theory with her releases; first keep them waiting, then flood the streets.

The 30-year-old redhead, whose captivating looks have been described as “ethereal” just about as often as “pre-Raphaelite”, has a film career you wouldn’t believe if it were a movie itself. This Julliard grad has been busy transitioning from the theatre to movies, landing unbelievable roles in a host of diverse, interesting and award-winning projects… with barely anyone having seen them.

At the time of our interview, only Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life – in which Brad Pitt played her husband and Sean Penn her son – has seen the light of day, but among those waiting in the wings are Wilde Salome, in which her director and co-star is Al Pacino; The Wettest County in the World, opposite Shia LaBouf and Tom Hardy; Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut Coriolanus, also starring Vanessa Redgrave; The Texas Killing Fields, where she’ll be seen alongside Avatar’s Sam Worthington; The Debt with Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson; plus the closest thing to a potential blockbuster in The Help, based on Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling novel, all of which will hit cinemas over the next year. Which raises one question: what’s with the hold-up?

“I think what led to it is I tend to respond to material that is perhaps more difficult to put together,” she says from her home in Venice, California. ”Either it’s because it’s from classical literature like Wilde Salome and Coriolanus, or from an auteur like Terence Malick, so the subject matter tends to be off. It’s not like mainstream movies.”

Most unusual in a sea of fame-hungry performers, Jessica shuns the spotlight, believing the more famous you are, the more difficult it is to be an actor, anonymity the key to creating a believable character.

“Fame isn’t why I became an actor,” she says, believably. “I became an actor because I thrive on the connections I make with people on set. There’s something that happens when I’m acting in a scene with someone else that’s so intimate. It’s indescribable – it’s like this invisible current, and I really feed off it. Everything for me about acting is about connecting to humanity.”

Again this is unusual, in that most actors seemingly prefer to disconnect from humanity, elevating themselves above it all so they no longer have to mingle with the little people.

“Not for me,” Jessica insists. “I have seen when someone has become a successful film actor how society lifts them up and separates them from the group. I’m scared of that happening: if someone takes me out of the group how can I play a regular woman? And how can I meet someone when I’m walking my dog or how do I have a regular conversation at the coffee shop? I don’t want that to go away.”

So by the end of the next year, there’ll be enough Jessica Chastain movies on the market for a box set.

Ha! We could do a retrospective of my career! That’s amazing.

If there’s only one we have to see, what is it? That’s not an unfair question, is it?

Oh that’s totally unfair. Do you realise how many people would call me up upset if I answered that question?

So what’s it been like for you working in this vacuum?

Slightly strange. When I showed up for parts I really felt I had to prove myself. There’s a kind of idea of me out there, of this girl that’s been working on so much, but we don’t know if she really exists. So hopefully that will go away when people start to see my work.

The first one you actually shot was Wilde Salome with Al Pacino: what was your first meeting with him like?

I went to a door, they asked me to wait for a second, and at that moment I immediately felt like I was going to be sick. But he’s a cheerleader: he loves actors and he just wants to see you do your best work.

Of course he’s not your only huge co-star: you got to play Brad’s wife.

That is something in a million years I would never have imagined. The name “Brad Pitt” carries so much weight, but the great thing is, when he came to set and I met him he really is like a regular guy. He doesn’t have a huge entourage, he didn’t show up with this huge team – he just turned up on his motorcycle. He made me feel like I had every right to be there, like we were on the same team.

And in the same movie you’ve got Sean Penn… playing your son!

I know! It’s bizarre – my hubby Brad and my son Sean. But I guess if you’re going from Al Pacino, why not?

When your husband has been Brad Pitt, your son Sean Penn and your muse Al Pacino, how’s regular life been working out for you?

The funny thing is I think I’ve been really lucky because all these people I’ve worked with have been regular guys who just happen to have a lot of fame.

So being in the arms of Brad Pitt just wears off after a while?

It does actually. Also, he was so good in his role, as this closed off, stifled man, that I was just so impressed with what he was doing and I forgot he was the guy from Legends of the Fall.

How was your Malick experience? He famously runs an unconventional and experimental set.

It was exhilarating – I would do any film for Terry. I felt like we never made the movie – we were just discovering every day, and that for me is the goal as an actor. I don’t ever want to feel like we nailed it: I always want to feel like we’re discovering.

You’ve deliberately chosen a lot of non-commercial work – why?

I’ve always been the student, learning about being an actor, and becoming a better actor, so for me it’s about working with the masters of it. It’s not been about ‘this is the film where I’ll get famous’. I’ve never thought like that.

Though you are about to be seen in The Help, based on a huge, commercially successful book that could end up being a breakthrough role for you in the wider sense.

The funny thing about The Help is I look so different in that movie: I gained some weight and I have peroxide hair and a very different voice. I’ve even done press for it where the interviewers don’t realise I played Celia.

How about the spy thriller The Debt?

Well in that I have an Israeli accent and brown hair and I speak German! The fact that I have so many movies coming out this year it’s inevitable my life will change and that I can’t control it. I have to be open to that, but I do have control over trying to live as normally as I can.

Are you already getting noticed?

The wonderful thing right now is so far, so good. I’m getting really interesting scripts and my normal life hasn’t changed at all. I tell you, maybe one person has recognised me when I was walking my dog.

What do you like to do when you’re not working?

Usually I play the ukulele, I cook a lot, I see tons of movies and go to the theatre, play Scrabble and…

Hold it right there. Ukulele?

Yeah! I used to play guitar and I realised when I started working and travelling so much that I wasn’t able to play guitar any more because I felt stupid carrying around a guitar case. With the Ukulele I could just stick it in my suitcase and play it in my hotel room.

And what’s your go-to cooking dish?

I love making risotto, and I love long-term cooking, the type that takes all day where you really smell it in the house, like roasting pears. It’s more than just eating the food.

Has your social circle changed since you’ve been hanging with Al and Brad? Does Sean pop around for roasted pears?

Not yet – it’s mainly old friends. I have very good friends I was at Julliard with, and some live locally – so it’s mainly people I’ve known for 10 years. It’s very rare for me to become really close with people I just meet. I like to hang out with normal people.

How’s your Scrabble game?

I’m so obsessed that during The Wettest Country… Tom Hardy and I would play two games at once on our iPads. Of course I always beat him, though he would deny that. I have used all seven tiles – it’s easy to do if you have an “ing”. You can extend any words like that.

So when you’re not doing wild things like playing Scrabble, do you ever go out and party it up like young actresses in LA are supposed to?

I’m not that girl – I’m the girl that goes to the theatre by herself or with friends.

Shame, because in Venice you’ve got Lindsay as a neighbour.

Ha! No… that’s not happening. I think it’s also because I was always the freckly, redheaded theatre nerd… I’ve never been the cool kid. I got teased mercilessly in elementary school and once I found my group of theatre friends I realised I do fit in somewhere.

That sounds like an episode of Glee!

Doesn’t it?!

Words: Tony Horkins
Images: Danielle Levitt
Fashion: Kris Zero

The post Flashback Friday: Jessica Chastain appeared first on Wonderland.

Like a lot of very beautiful people, Alexander Skarsgard has a not-quite-there quality. It’s not exactly aloofness – he’s a lively and very likeable lunch companion – but more the sort of absent air that is the result of never, ever having had to charm anyone.

He enters the restaurant at a langorous prowl, all six feet four of him looming large in the diminutive and expensively shabby surroundings of Prune in the East Village. In jeans and a snug white t-shirt he slowly draws off his sunglasses and confirms himself a kind of joke of handsomeness.

There’s no sign of the hangover he claims to be suffering from, but as if to prove it, he orders a burger, “fatty and salty, just what I need”. Our waitress, or rather waitresses – we somehow appear to have acquired three – virtually melt as they pour water into his glass and ask how he’d like his burger. (“Medium rare”. I resist a vamp joke.)

Since he was cast in the camp sex-n-gore fest that is HBO’s wildly popular vampire series True Blood, Skarsgard has unwittingly spawned website after hormonally-charged website that pore over his every move and pronouncement. I tell him that in my research I found a website selling mugs that read “That’s Mrs Skarsgard to you”.

“Oh really?” he smiles, and allows himself a small chuckle. He then adds, jokingly, “I own that website.”

He plays Eric Northman – vampire, Viking and owner of “Fangtasia”, Louisiana’s first vampire-friendly bar, in which he does a lot of predatory lowering. But this year he’s about to prove he can do much more than just look buff and bloodthirsty: True Blood has not only made him an object of lust, but also looks set to propel him into the Hollywood stratosphere of “Serious Actor”. He has two major films out this year (Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia and Straw Dogs, a remake of Sam Peckinpah’s controversial 1971 thriller) and two already slated for next year. I ask him if he had any inkling that the series would get so big.

“No one knew, you know? I was excited about it but no one said, ‘just so you know, there’s going to be a massive hit.'”

The first word of it he heard from his agent, “was basically ‘viking vampire’. So at first I was like ‘whaaat? Fuckin’ vampire – what is this?’ Then the second sentence was “HBO and Alan Ball’ so I was kind of intrigued.”

It was at the launch of Season Two at Comic Con in San Diego, witnessing crowds of hysterical fans, that he realised what a big deal the show had become. So why are we all obsessed with vampires then?

That pretty much encapsulates his character’s appeal: Eric was introduced as something of a villain but as the plot continues to thicken he’s shown glimmers of tenderness. It’s all deliciously unsettling, and, somewhat bizarrely, we have David Attenborough to thank for some of that.

Skarsgard happened to be watching a nature film about lions and, “I d’know, I was just fascinated. It was just something about the male lion, the way he kinda carried himself. And there was this one moment when he clocks the camera man and it’s just this deadpan stare. He just looked so fuckin’ confident. He didn’t do anything. He almost looked bored. And it was fascinating because you didn’t know if he was going to pounce and fuckin’ kill the cameraman, or if he was about to yawn and fall asleep. I just thought that was really intriguing – the downplay. That, in a way confidence, isn’t it? – You don’t have to be big or loud if you know that you’re the shit. Right?”

(Right.)

“The only reason you get like that is because you’re insecure,” he continues. “And I thought it would be a good thing to have Eric lethal and know it, so he doesn’t have to show off or prove it.”

Does he get a lot of fake blood over his stuff when he’s on set?

“Oh god yeah,” he says, with a housewife-y eye roll. “Sometimes you have to shower with your clothes on after a long day. It’s very sticky that blood and when it dries your clothes stick to your skin and you can’t get it off. A couple of years ago we did a night shoot and when we wrapped I was so tired – we have showers in our trailers but I was just like, ‘I want to go home, take a nice hot shower at home and go to bed.’ So I just put my boxer briefs on and got in my car, covered in blood and dirt, and drove home. It was like five in the morning and I didn’t think about it when I got in the car but as I was driving I was like shit, I hope I don’t pass a cop or anything…”

Skarsgard insists that he avoids reading about himself online or elsewhere and as for weird letters and gifts from fans, “my manager and publicist kind of screen that. So I don’t get the crazy-crazy stuff.” He laughs “– they kind of try to protect my innocence.”

But when it comes to deranged fans, Skarsgard has been here before. His first professional acting job came at age seven, in his native Sweden.

“My dad’s friend was a director [his father is the actor Stellan Skarsgard] and he asked him if he could ask me if I wanted to be in the movie and I said ‘yeah’. I was excited because we got free cinnamon buns on set, that’s what I remember.”

Then, at thirteen, he starred in a Swedish TV movie called The Dog That Smiled and it made him a national celebrity. Girls used to hang around outside his parents house.

In fact, he makes his upbringing sound like something out of a catalogue for a Scandinavian clothing company. He’s the eldest of seven and he says, “there were always big dinner parties, every night, and we all lived in the same apartment building. So it was always like, people smoking, drinking, talking – a lot of artists and music. It was fun, it was wild. A very artistic, urban environment, surrounded by hippies y’know…cigarettes and red wine.”

At nineteen, he decided it was time for something a little more challenging. “At that point I still didn’t want to be an actor. I’d spent twelve years in school and I didn’t want to study, I needed a break from that. I didn’t really feel like backpacking in Asia like most people do, or moving to London to sell shoes like a lot of Swedes do.”

Instead, he signed up for Swedish military service.

“I mean, I’m a pacifist, I don’t wanna go to war, so I did it for myself. I didn’t do it because I loved guns, you know? It was tough and I hated it sometimes. It taught me a lot. You learn how much more you can do than you think. And I was a sergeant so it taught me a lot about leadership and how to motivate your men.”

That all came in pretty handy when he was cast as Sergeant Brad “Iceman” Colbert on HBO’s Generation Kill, a series based on the true story of a Marine battalion in the first days of the Iraq war.

“We had a huge responsibility because we set out to show people back in the States what their sons and daughters were going through out there. We wanted to show the boredom, how chaotic it can be, how little they know about what they’re doing, what the mission is. It was definitely the most important job I’ve ever been part of, for sure. And it was very special because we premiered it at a Marine base in front of four hundred marines.”

And what was their reaction?

“Well…” he says with a smile and a shrug, “I’m still alive, so…”

After his year of military service, Skarsgard spent a year at Leeds University where he decided to give acting one last shot. He and his “buddy” went to the university library, “found some monologues and he filmed me on an old VHS camera and sent it to New York.”
It worked, and, aged 21, he was accepted at Marymount College. His time there seems a particularly intense period of his life.

“New York can be the greatest city on the planet but it can also be a horrible place when you’re heartbroken and you walk down the street and see all these parties and people laughing.”

He’d fallen for a girl back in Sweden, three weeks before he left for New York and, “the long distance relationship didn’t work, she went back to her ex-boyfriend, I was fffuuucking devastated. Plus I was a student, I had no money, nothing, I couldn’t even afford to eat. So to walk down the street and see all these parties, people laughing and in love, it was just like…” he inhales, making a winded, death-rattle sound – “it killed me. School was fantastic and I immediately felt how much I’d missed being on stage, so creatively I was supercharged, but I just couldn’t breathe because I missed her so much.”

Back in 2009, before he’d graced magazine covers and been fawned over on national television, he starred in the video to ‘Paparazzi’ as Lady Gaga’s aristocratic bit of man-candy who gets papped, then finally poisoned. Now, of course, he gets followed by real paparazzi, who were particularly ravenous when it came to pictures of him and Kate Bosworth. Last month the pair broke up, having been together for two years since working on Straw Dogs together. When I broach his new-found singledom he looks awkward.

“I d’know,” he squirms. “I don’t wanna talk about dating and all that. I’ve always watched my dad and how he’s dealt with attention from the media. I get it, I understand that people are curious and intrigued but my job is to try to push that focus as much as possible, to tell people I’m actually an actor, that’s why I’m here. You’re so watched and in the spotlight constantly, it’s important to have things in your life that you don’t share with other people, other than your loved ones. So I don’t think you’ll ever see one of those, “Alex and his girlfriend invite someone to their house…” and it’s us, like, by the pool.”

Does he have a career plan? “Plan?” he says, sounding incredulous. “No.” Instead, he just goes with “gut feeling”.

“Because of all the attention True Blood’s getting, a lot of the offers I get are basically Eric but with a different name and without the vampire make up. But that’s not what I’m looking for: I want to do something different. Again, that’s why Melancholia was so amazing, because it was so far from an alpha male as you can possibly get.”

In that he played Kirsten Dunst’s slightly ineffectual husband but his next character calls for more backbone. He’s just about to start filming What Maisie Knew, an adaptation of a Henry James novel in which he plays a father battling for custody of his six year old daughter.

“I met Renate, the little kid, for the first time yesterday, she’s just adorable,” he says, going gooey. “We just played for an hour and a half and she immediately just opened up and connected and it was lovely, really lovely.”

His hamburger and fries demolished, our waitress (one of the phalanx) arrives to take his empty plate.

“Thanks,” he says a little absently, “that was great.”

And she twinkles so hard at him that she looks in danger of combusting.

Words: Hermione Hoby
Images: Bjarne Jonasson
Styling: Way Perry

The post Flashback Friday: Alexander Skarsgard appeared first on Wonderland.

This interview was published in Issue 16 of Wonderland, December/January 2009. 

It’s a year-and-a-half since Carice van Houten burned up screens in Paul Verhoeven’s brilliant Dutch-language WW2 epic, Black Book. And, better late than never, Hollywood has finally wised up and come a-knocking

“Honestly, I wished I’d been covered in real shit. I think it would’ve been preferable.” Carice van Houten isn’t joking. In fact, the most famous actress in Holland is decidedly grim-faced as she sits in the salt-white foyer of an Amsterdam hotel recalling her least favourite day on Black Book. Basic Instinct-director Paul Verhoeven’s mesmerising 2007 return-to-form made van Houten a megastar in Holland and put her squarely on the international radar. The scene in question saw van Houten’s character – a Jewish resistance fighter who dyes her pubic hair blonde and falls in love with a Nazi officer – stripped and sprayed with 200 litres of human excrement. “It got all tangled in my hair. It was revolting, humiliating,” she explains. “They used this weird mixture of potato powder and peanut butter and some sort of greasy cookie as a substitute, but it smelt so sweet, at the end of the day I was screaming for the real thing!”

If this were the 1940s, the fiendishly talented van Houten would have been on the payroll of MGM for a decade. The powers that be would have changed her name to Carrie and she’d be giving Marlene, Greta & co a run for their money. Verhoeven, for one, has described her as the most talented actress he’s ever worked with. Admittedly, many of Verhoeven’s leading ladies have not been renowned for their acting chops (Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls, anyone?). But still, it’s high praise indeed from the notoriously hard-to-please Dutchman. Since working with Verhoeven – who, when asked recently to compare her work with that of Sharon Stone, announced that “Carice can really act” – van Houten has made a string of high-profile movies. Her role in Leonardo DiCaprio-starrer Body Of Lies may have ended up on the cutting-room floor, but van Houten can still be seen in Dorothy Mills, an Irish child-killer thriller to be released in the new year; From Time to Time with Maggie Smith, directed by Julian Fellowes; and scifi suspense Repossession Mambo, in which she plays Jude Law’s wife. First out of the blocks, though, is her eye-catching turn as Tom Cruise’s wife Nina von Stauffenberg in Valkyrie, Bryan Singer’s Superman-follow-up, about the failed 1943 assassination attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler.

The 32-year-old was already well known on the Dutch stage before BlackBook changed everything. At the time, she claims, she didn’t dare to dream what working with Verhoeven might do for her career. “Maybe when we played the Venice film festival I thought, ‘Hey, wait, so it means that I can also touch or at least talk to other audiences,” she says. “But apart from that, I had no idea…So much has changed for me since we made that film. I didn’t believe anybody would be waiting for a little Dutch girl who’s already in her thirties.”

Whether they were waiting or not, Hollywood certainly has her in its sights now. “I think Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg and Bryan Singer saw Black Book at the same time in the same room and when they came to make their WW2 film they decided to ask me,” explains van Houten, with a smile that says she still doesn’t quite believe it herself. “I didn’t audition so that’s great; I could have really fucked it up!” So, what does she hope for from her highest profile role to date? “That people like it and that they also think, ‘This girl did a nice scene, I will go and see Black Book’.”

On screen, van Houten projects the smouldering screen confidence of a Katherine Hepburn or Joan Crawford. In person, with her slight frame wrapped in a stripey DVF cardigan, she seems far less robust. She grew up in the small town of Leiderdorp. Her father, a writer and broadcaster, instilled in his two daughters a deep love of the arts. “I remember him taking us to seeAbel Gance’s Napoleon, which was about five hours long,” she laughs. “Oh, and a lot of Laurel and Hardy. And Charlie Chaplin. He also took us to big classical concerts and would give us cassette tapes of Shostakovich. We probably wanted New Kids On The Block at the time, but I am grateful now. The silent film industry’s really dying away and I like to keep it alive. Go onto YouTube and watch W. C. Fields doing a scene called Honest John! It was such genius.”

Van Houten likes to share her passions. She also suggests checking out Dutch artist Jumbah (“For me he’s the best cartoonist around, really funny and rude”). Unlike the majority of her peers, she is also surprisingly candid when it comes to her personal life. She’s been dating The Lives Of Others star Sebastian Koch since he played her on-screen lover in Black Book. “I spend a lot of time on planes flying to Berlin,” she grins. “It’s really embarrassing but I googled him when he got the part. And I think I completely fell in love with him immediately. It’s a cliché, but it’s true. But he said that when we first met, I played very hard to get. It was if I didn’t care at all, so that it made it really obvious. He’s really intuitive – he has almost female radar in that sense! And of course it could be a little awkward on set. We had to shoot a number of sex scenes, and that can be a little weird when you’ve just started dating.”

The couple have plans to make another film together. Smoke and Ochre, a biopic of Afrikaans poet Ingrid Jonker, will also star Rutger Hauer. But what’s next on the agenda? “You know, I don’t really think particularly about the future,” admits van Houten. “I don’t see strategy. I never planned my career. Anyway in my experience you can never foresee what is going to happen. And I do think things happen for reason. I don’t feel that I have to surrender to everything. There is always choice. But usually I just think, ‘Oh fuck it! Go with the flow, for God’s sake!’” She has no plans to up sticks permanently and go west to seek her fortune, then? “I love living here. The Dutch are a little different, I don’t get hassled or anything. I can’t see any drawbacks…” She smiles; a sweet smile. “Well, maybe one: it’s probably not the very best place in the world for fashion.”

Words: Will Lawrence
Images: John Lindquist
Styling: Lauren Blane

The post Flashback Friday: Carice van Houten appeared first on Wonderland.