Kate Beckinsale has turned her back on zombies and monsters for comedy, in the Robert De Niro starring movie 'Everybodys Fine'. On screen since she was just 2 years of age, Beckinsale's most infamous role is that of Selene in Underworld. Other movies in her CV include Whiteout, Vacancy, Van Helsing, Pearl Harbour and Click, to name but a few. She's currently working on Underworld 4.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about Everybody‘s Fine?
KB: “Sure, I play a woman called Amy. Not only did I co-star with Robert De Niro and Drew Barrymore, but with my daughter Lily too! I play Robert De Niro’s daughter, Amy, and Lily plays the younger me.”
Q: How did you feel when your daughter Lily got a part in the movie playing you?
KB: “They'd gone through this extensive casting process and found this little, tiny person that looked like Drew Barrymore and one like Sam, and he kept saying to me, ‘Could Lily please audition?’ And I said, ‘No, over my dead body.’ I thought if she didn't get it she’d come to the set with me and see the child that's playing the young me and she'd make that face like Joan Crawford in the beginning of Baby Jane. But Lily overheard me saying no and was furious. There were like a hundred kids auditioning but she got it, amazingly enough. I was really pleased. She auditioned fair and square and she got it.”
Q: Did she get nervous?
KB: “I was more nervous. I’m quite scared of Robert De Niro because I used to have a picture of him on my fridge at college and that felt really weird.Lily was a bit bummed out that it wasn’t somebody famous like George Clooney
or Sponge Bob Square Pants. She’s totally not intimidated and had a great time. I was much more concerned about it than she was.”
Q: And how was it watching your daughter play you?
KB: “Quite creepy and obviously on every psychological angle of your brain it was weird. But she did really well..”
Q: Does she have the acting bug now?
KB: “She says no. She really enjoyed it but she’d much rather be a writer..”
Q: Is there anybody that Lily wants to see you work with?
KB: “She’s really retro so she says 'Oh I wish you could work with Joan Crawford or Janice Joplin.' I’m like, 'They're dead now. It’s probably not going to happen.' She’s into Marilyn Monroe and John Lennon and all these people. Maybe if I worked with Taylor Swift I'd be golden.”
Q: I read that you said you were really able to create a family atmosphere on this movie set - how did you do that and how did you translate it to the screen?
KB: “Well Sam Rockwell and I had worked together before and Drew Barrymore and Sam had worked together before so I think that happened really quickly and easily and Lily was there, so all the generations were linked in some way. I was a bit sad there wasn’t a part for my mum then we could’ve got everybody in. The director Kirk Jones is just one of the loveliest men ever, he’s informal, really smart and warm and funny and I think that when the director is like that then everybody else sort of trickles in to that place. We all love and worship Bob, so that was nice anyway.”
Q: What was it like working with Robert De Niro?
KB: “It was so amazing to work with him - partly because you think it is one of those things you think will never happen. It is one of those daydreams that actually came true for once: ‘One day I will become president and another day I will work with Robert De Niro and play his daughter.’ He was amazing, it was a privilege to be in scenes with him. He was just a lovely person to have on-set. The thing is because I used to have that picture of him on my fridge at university I felt like I was harbouring this dirty secret the whole time.”
Q: Had you ever worked with De Niro before?
KB: “I’d come across him years and years ago when I just had Lily and he was putting together a reading of The Good Shepherd. I had a panic phone call the night before saying ‘Somebody quite important has dropped out of this reading with Robert De Niro. Can you do three different accents by tomorrow? German, Brooklyn and Russian.' I thought, 'Oh god, okay.’ I figured out the accents and showed up and De Niro said, 'Yeah, I’m going to invite a few friends.' I got there and the friends were like Marty Scorsese and Chazz Palminteri. And I thought, 'F***, I've got a Brooklyn accent to do and all these people from Goodfellas are sitting here.
This is terrible.' I was sweating, 'Oh my god, I know I'm from Chiswick, West London, I've got no business being here doing a Brooklyn accent in front of Martin Scorsese, I just want to die.' In the end it actually went okay and they were very nice about it, but it was one of the more hair-raising lack-of-preparation shocking moments in my life.”
Q: You have worked with Christian Bale in the past. If you were offered the role of Catwoman – would you take it?
KB: “Because I have a thing for black latex? I do, I know we all do so lets join hands for a moment! (Laughs) I don’t know. I just think Michelle Pfeiffer was such an awesome catwoman I would be really intimidated to get into that suit after she filled it but I don’t know if my husband would ever talk to me again if I turned it down. So I would have to give it some very heavy consideration I think.”
Q: Have you ever been approached to do or considered doing a James Bond film?
KB: “I have. I can’t remember which one it was, because it wasn’t recently but I don’t know if I would. I do feel I have embarrassed my daughter enough in terms of the fact that you always have to be in your underwear at some point and I am becoming a bit too elderly for that sort of thing I think.
Maybe not me so much but I think once your child gets to third grade it gets a bit embarrassing for them. That was the whole question with Wonder Woman – because her costume is still essentially underwear. You never know but I don’t think so. I know it was talked about briefly for a minute.”
Q: Have you learned to drive yet?
KB: “(Laughs) No.”
Q: How’s it going?
KB: “I’m at pretty much the same point as last time, which is nowhere. I'm looking forward to knowing how to drive because I get those anxiety dreams where I’m suddenly in control of a car on the freeway. I’m assuming those will go once I know how to drive. I drove a golf cart on holiday and did quite admirably with that. That's a start.”
Q: Do you have it written into your contracts “no driving of any vehicles”?
KB: “No, I'm constantly having to do that. I drive in every movie. I drove a twenty-foot truck in Underworld. On this movie I had to say, 'You do know I don’t know how to drive?' And everyone thinks it’s a joke. And I said, ‘I really don’t know how to drive and I’m not insured and you can't let me drive.' And they go, 'Sh*t, now we've got to find money for one of those things to pull you along.’ It’s become much more embarrassing as well as I've got older. One day I’ll get there.”
Q: You were named the Sexiest Woman Alive in 2009 - how did that make you feel?
KB: “I felt the least sexy I have ever felt when I was told that. I was told and I thought ‘Marvellous’. The next day the pressure was huge! A comedian friend of mine told me that if he was named the funniest person alive he would probably never crack a joke ever again. I woke up the next day and felt like a hunchback with blackheads. Vile. It was a real compliment at the time though. But I was raised with four brothers don’t forget so the second you start saying that you are the sexiest woman alive you’re likely to get countless wedgies and noogies.”
Everybody's Fine is now showing at Irish Cinemas
Underworld 4 is currently in development