Rebecca Hall ascends confidently to stardom
NEW YORK - Rebecca Hall is confidently stepping toward center stage.This year, there was her snappy, unapologetic Sylvia in the Tom Stoppard HBO miniseries “Parade’s End,” a revelation of Hall’s dynamism and capacity for boldness. There was her supporting role as a scientist in “Iron Man 3,” an indoctrination to the Hollywood blockbuster. And, now, there’s the British thriller “Closed Circuit,” a confirmation of her ascendance to being a leading lady - one bristling with intelligence in any role.
“I want to play women who are rich and make mistakes and can be messy and ugly as well as pretty,” says Hall. “I think that’s really an important service. That sounds very grand. I don’t mean it to sound grand.”
In a recent interview at an East Village cafe, Hall is sharp, buoyant, funny and seemingly energized by the work she’s getting.
She’s still glowing from the singing lines of Sylvia - a “once in a blue moon” part, she calls it - a shift for her to playing a more extroverted, forceful character: “It was massively liberating,” she says.
“She’s the real McCoy,” says “Closed Circuit” director John Crowley. “She’s hugely impressive and has massive range. It felt like she would have the intellectual prowess but also the emotionality to handle the part.”
In “Closed Circuit,” Hall plays the special advocate appointed to jointly defend a man accused of bombing a crowded London marketplace. She and another lawyer (Eric Bana), with whom she has a romantic past, must work the case under confidentiality and in a hearing closed to the public - a cloak of secrecy that masks further injustice in the name of national security.
The film has obvious contemporary relevance, but it also relates personally to Hall. The 31-year-old actress has seen her life made the fodder of British tabloids for her relationship with director Sam Mendes.
“I find it slightly disturbing that privacy means that you’re guilty of something that you have to hide,” Halls says. “That probably stems from the fact that I saw my parents have their privacy invaded on by the press when they were going through their divorce when I was five.”
Hall’s father, Sir Peter Hall, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company and is a renowned figure in British theater. Her mother, Maria Ewing, was an acclaimed opera singer.
As a child, Hall was immediately drawn to acting: Her first professional part came as an 8-year-old in her father’s TV adaptation of Mary Wesley’s “The Camomile Lawn.” She later attended Cambridge for two years but then quit, wanting “to do something bold and decisive and not have anything to fall back on.”
With such an independent streak, she initially recoiled when her father offered her a part in his production of George Bernard Shaw’s “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” in the West End.
“Then I changed my mind after six months and realized I might as well get it out of the way,” she recalled. “Either I’ll be mauled by the press and I’ll never be allowed to do this again, or they’ll get over the fact that I’m Peter Hall’s daughter.”
AP
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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