Gretchen Mol is "The Notorious Bettie Page"

In Theaters April 14

Usually when somebody gets their life story told on film, it's a by the numbers timeline of their childhood trauma through their success, near disaster and recovery. The Notorious Bettie Page has all of that, but it makes it fun. Page was the famous pinup and fetish model of the '50s, so to capture the importance of her notoriety, the film had to handle her story with the same kind of innocence with which she handled a whip and stiletto heels.

Gretchen Mol plays Bettie and she responded to the film's innocence. "It was definitely on the page," Mol said. "It was subtly on the page, but certainly the lines, Bettie was the one who would look at boots and sort of not know what they were. I had to kind of go and strip away everything that I know about what's on every street corner with the bondage and fetish thing. You kind of have to look back and realize that this was really the first time that she was seeing this, but I also think that Bettie was able to maintain that kind of innocence because I felt that something in her had sort of been halted by those early experiences in her life. It was almost that she was arrested then, and then when she was in front of the camera she was able to kind of tap into that and go to that other place where she could just be purely alive and herself. She was sensual and sexual, but it was innocent and she wasn't sort of playing with any need for anything. It was sort of an innocence, a very childlike quality that she maintained. I did think that it did have a lot to do with probably the abuse that she had suffered."

When the film shows Bettie performing in bondage movies, it presents the set as a pure businesslike atmosphere where a bunch of colleagues get together to do their work. "When you see those old reels, the ones that we were recreating in the film, they really were like that. It was sort of though she had found another family, sort of a haphazard family. And those friends of hers, the girls there, whether they were friends or not they were all just sort of having a good time. It's like being backstage at the theater with clothes on or off or whatever. You get over it in five minutes and everyone is just kind of doing their job."

There are still Bettie Page fans today, downloading her old photos and movies off the internet. Mol thinks it is her innocence that keeps men of all ages enthralled. "I think when she was in front of the camera, she unleashed this sort of purity, this innocence and this healthiness of her spirit that she never sort of was playing sexy. She was never playing with any need for a reaction. She was just fully kind of in herself. And there's that line in the movie where she says she wanted to be lifted up or taken to another place and I always felt that when she was posing, she did go to that place. And when I saw the loops where she's moving around, she's like in her own atmosphere. It's Bettie's world. And I think then that really allows whoever is looking at and admiring and using this photograph, it gives you permission for it to be whatever you need it to be. That's why I think Bettie's appeal kind of crosses borders of men and women and generations."

Page did not wish to be involved with the film, so all Mol had to go on were the existing materials. "I knew the image, the iconic image of the vixen with a whip and the leopard print bathing suits and all of that. Then I had seen an 'E! True Hollywood' biography of her and I remember that at the end she came on and she was all kind of blacked out. She didn't want anyone to see her today. She wanted them to remember her as she was, and her voice just really struck something in me because she has this really kind of earthy southern accent and a very melancholic quality to her voice. After looking at all these images where she was so joyful and healthy I just wondered who this woman was, that there was this dichotomy with her. That proved to be what I found with her when I started getting involved."

Mol was involved with the film for the past two years, from fighting for the role to sticking it out through production delays. "I didn't think that Mary would hire me. So I had nothing to lose when I walked into the room in the first place and then once she was interested in hiring me it became about proving to the people that would put the money up for the project that I could do it. And I don't blame them. I wouldn't have thought of myself as someone for an original film about Bettie Page. So that whole process was like that from the get go, and then this film was kind of going to go for a while and then I think that I did another project in between. So there was almost a year or two where I felt attached to this thing and then I felt like it might slip away, but then it finally came back to life. Frankly, just having the lead in a film, I really hadn't had that opportunity before."

When the film hits theaters, will it reawaken the same sexual questions that Bettie Page faced in her day? Or have those questions always been out there? "Well, I think that it's interesting that Mary did start this film almost eight years ago when things seemed to be a little bit better and now this is sort of a little more relevant with the censorship that's going on. But I don't think that she meant that. I think that it's interesting and I believe that this film is very subtle in how it deals with that. I think that the ideas are in there though."

The Notorious Bettie Page opens April 14.