| By Fred Topel
In Theaters Now
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Melissa George plays a devoted mother of three in The Amityville Horror. Besides looking fabulous for presumably giving birth three times, she’s only 28 in real life! Nevertheless, the world of the film, set in 1970s New York, allowed George to believe in herself as a mom.
“When I met the children, I’m like to the oldest one, ‘Hey, I was 12 when I had you,’” she joked. “It was perfect because what I’m realizing in Hollywood is that you can play any role if you believe it. And I did believe it. Like if the kid’s 11, that’s fine, Long Island, my mother had three kids by the time she was 25. So in those days that’s what women did. They had kids at 16 even. I mean, my grandmother had kids at 16. It’s what you did. So we’re thinking of a modern day woman which waits a little bit longer. I couldn’t play a modern day woman in 2005 with three children. That wouldn’t make sense. And then my next audition that I went for was a 21-year-old girl and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, if they only knew what I just played I probably would never get this role.’”
The Amityville Horror is based on the true story, as documented in Jay Anson’s book. The Lutz family moves into a house where murders took place a year before, and George Lutz becomes increasingly maniacal, hearing the same voices that the previous murderer claims to have heard.
George remained skeptical about the supposed psychic phenomenon but committed to the film’s script. “Let’s start off saying I’m not sure,” she said. “Personally, these things I don’t really believe. But when you really read about what happened, you kind of think something did go on. As an actor doing a role in a true story, I’m not trying to imitate her at all. I just got the facts and I wanted to keep my interpretation of the role, to play this tortured soul and actually feeling like I was the eyes for the audience in a way. Like what I was feeling as Kathy Lutz, I’m assuming is what the audience is going through as well watching this movie. To do a true story in general I find you’ve got to be careful in a way that you make it believable and true to the story and I think we did. It’s a horror film definitely, but what I love about this movie is there’s real scenes. I’m not just running and getting slaughtered or whatever. There’s actually a real story and a real performance going on.”
As the hapless wife, Kathy Lutz’s struggle to love her husband despite her haunted house’s curse becomes a metaphor for domestic abuse. “I feel very responsible in a way and I love the tone of her character where she loves until the end which I think is a great thing. I mean, I know that I love my husband and no matter what. We’re very resilient I think as women. And to see this woman just fight back and almost kill him and knock him out and become this warrior. I mean, I know that if I get put in the position where my life is at stake, I become a crazy feline, I think a woman could kill if you push them far enough. She just fought back so I feel very responsible.”
Fans are used to seeing George as a cold blooded killer on TV’s Alias, where she seemed to have died last season. But despite reprising her role as the dead body of her character, George still hopes for a return to the series.
“I just wanted to get back in that show somehow, so in one of the takes, I’m in the coffin and I just open my eyes and they all jumped and freaked out. It’s so cold that she’s not really dead. I was adding all these things and they’re like, ‘No, no, no, you better keep your eyes closed.’ And I’m like, ‘No, she’s alive, she’s alive.’”
She may have convinced somebody, because even though the corpse shot has aired, there is still talk of bringing her character back. “I have this image of Lauren in the south of France and she doesn’t have the British accent anymore. She actually really was French all along. The whole thing was a lie. Like I’m in the corner smoking a cigarette or something and she turns around with a black wig and a scarf and stuff, and she just has this beautiful French accent. Isn’t it great?”
Despite the experiences of her two post-Alias films, Amityville Horror and the upcoming Derailed, Reed misses the family atmosphere of series television. “It was just such a fun, fun role and just to go to work every day with Jennifer and Michael and Victor and just have this cast… okay, TV’s hard work. It’s probably harder than film I think. I even e-mail Victor and go around to his house for dinner, so we just had a great time.”
George is tight lipped about her role in Derailed, but did say she plays opposite Clive Owen, but not Jennifer Aniston. “Jennifer and I are the two women. I do the first half of the film and she does the second.”
As her Hollywood career builds momentum, George looks back on her Australian heritage to get through some of the industry’s tough times. “I know that if I get tired of all the craziness in Hollywood, I would just get on the plane and go back home. That’s a nice comforting thing. It’s made me more humble. I think Australians do well here because we feel a bit naughty, like we’re in America and if they only knew how much fun we were having, we’ll all get thrown out. So there’s that mischievous thing that we feel that gives us this beautiful kind of sense of joy in a crazy, hard town. We laugh through it a little bit which you need that. I say what’s the worst thing about Hollywood is because you get rejected a lot. But you look at Australia, you might get rejected once every six months and that’s only because there’s one film every six months, you know what I mean? Whereas here it’s like six movies a day and six nos. That’s hard to take but you just put it all in perspective and being from Australia helps that.”
See Melissa George in The Amityville Horror starting April 15. |
