| By Fred Topel
In Theaters Now
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Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang blasts the names of Robert Downey, Jr. and Val Kilmer across its posters and advertisements, because they’re the names you know. But there’s another face in the film that you will be seeing a lot of from now on. That face belongs to Michelle Monaghan, who plays the femme fatale in this homage to hard boiled detective thrillers.
Having appeared in small roles in films like The Bourne Supremacy and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Monaghan still auditions for everything and Kiss Kiss was no exception. “I’m always surprised to get any role to be quite honest,” she said. “People ask me, is this your breakthrough role and I think, ‘Well, God, every job that I ever get that I’ve never had is like a breakthrough role for me.’ That Secret deodorant commercial I did six years ago was a breakout thing for me.”
Once she came in, writer/director Shane Black knew he wanted her instantly, and he fought for her with producers and studio executives. How did she make such an impression on him?
“When I first read the script, it was one of those that you just can’t put down. I read it literally in an hour which is a record for me. And I had such an idea, it just spawned all these ideas in my head. I just got really excited about auditioning but at the same time, I went, ‘Oh my gosh, I don't know if I can do this.’ And I did it and I didn’t hear anything for a couple of months. Then they called, they had me come in from Berlin. I was working on The Bourne Supremacy and they flew me over quickly. I auditioned with Robert, had a great audition with him, a lot of chemistry. We improv’ed a little bit. It was really fun. And then I started three days later.”
Being the new girl on a set with veterans is already daunting, let alone when those veterans have the reputations of Downey and Kilmer. Luckily, they were all nice to her. “Certainly they have reputations that precede them but I have to say, it’s funny at the end of the day when you get this question because they’re both healthy and happy and they’re in such good places that I never encountered anything but goodness from them truly. I can really honestly say that. They were just so supportive to me, I don’t have any dirt or anything like that. It was nothing but a really wonderful experience to me.”
Growing up in Winthrop, Iowa, a town of 700, Monaghan never thought about acting until she was almost finished college. “I always wanted to be a journalist. It was a little town, a farming/rural community and I actually went to school in Chicago. I studied journalism and it was after the end of my third year, I think I had a semester left and it was just something my heart told me. I didn’t want to be a journalist. I wanted to pursue something creative but I didn’t know what. I knew I wanted to move to New York City so I moved to New York and I’d been modeling in Chicago at the time, putting myself through school so I just continued that when I moved to New York for lack of anything else to do. And then slowly but surely started doing commercials, like the Secret deodorant one I mentioned and such.”
Perhaps the seeds were planted in her mind earlier, but social politics kept her from realizing her potential until later. “I did plays in high school but I never really thought that you could be an actress. When you grow up in a town of 700 people, everyone around you works in a factory. My dad’s a part time farmer as well. It’s just certain other goals and aspirations and I always thought, ‘Okay, journalist. That’s what I want to do.’ And you never think that you can be on TV.”
Now that she has become a success, Monaghan is one of the biggest names in Winthrop. “They’re so excited. I’m as big as the mayor now. They’re thrilled. It’s really funny because they still just look at [me like a child.] You go home, it’s kind of similar, it’s really small. I’m still the daughter of Robert and Sharon. My parents still live there and all my family is still there. They’re all excited for me but you go to church and they’re like, ‘Oh, Michelle’s home.’”
Now that she works with the likes of Downey, Kilmer, Charlize Theron and Tom Cruise in the upcoming Mission Impossible 3, Monaghan must balance the jitters of her burgeoning career and the confidence she needs to make it work.
“Certainly, you have butterflies. Absolutely, how can you not? But at the same time, you have to have that level of confidence where it’s like, ‘All right, they’ve hired me to do this job, they believe in me.’ I really love the audition process for example, certainly there’s some level of being nervous when you go in to audition but at the same time, they’ve invited you there. They want you to get that job and you kind of just keep that in the back of your mind. You realize that you actually have control of the situation as opposed to them. So I’m really positive like that. It may sound cheesy but it’s the same as a work day. Like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got this really intense scene and oh my God, I’m so nervous, can I do it?’ Of course I can do it. I auditioned, they hired me, they believe in me to do this job. And maybe it’s just a line of bullsh*t I’m feeding myself, but I have to continue doing it because it’s been working. It’s just really about like psyching myself up so I don’t pee my pants.”
See Michelle Monaghan in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang in theaters now. |
