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Humble in Hollywood: Thandie Newton

As red carpets roll, Thandie Newton keeps her feet on the ground

There are three things that you must know about Thandie Newton.

The British actress, best known for her role in special effects blockbuster Mission Impossible II and hospital drama ER, is incredibly humble and praises everyone but herself.

Second thing – she tends to pepper her sentences with effervescent superlatives like amazing and fabulous and lovely. Oh, and she is one of the nicest women that I’ve ever met.

When I meet her at the Dorchester she looks radiant but bird-like in a peach-pleated chiffon creation by designer Louisa De Panier (I memorised that!) and has just received a best supporting actress award from the London Film Critics’ Circle for her role in the independent movie of 2005 Crash.

The 33-year-old actress is waxing lyrical about actor Terrence Howard, who she starred alongside in Crash and who is up for a best actor award at the Oscars later this month.

TERRIFIC

“Look at Terrence Howard, you can see what happened to him, he’s just exploded," she enthuses.

“I think he is terrific, he’s amazing. He reminds me of Gérard Depardieu. He has an amazing sensitivity, almost a kind of femininity. He’s not afraid to show that vulnerability but at the same time he is incredibly strong. He has a very sexy presence."

Crash, set in LA, follows six different people as their lives collide over a period of 24 hours with sometimes extreme consequences, and lays bare some of the innate preconceptions that we all have. Filmed on a shoestring budget of £6m and lasting just a few months, this was one independent film that was unlucky from the beginning.

First of all, producers found that raising money for a film about racism and bigotry in Hollywood was, predictably, quite hard. But rescue came in the unlikely figure of feted character actor Don Cheadle who agreed to act in the project and take on the role of co-producer.

Then the director Paul Haggis keeled over from a heart attack halfway through filming, leaving Thandie’s co-star Sandra Bullock wracked with guilt. This meant that many indoor scenes were filmed in Haggis’ LA house with him resting in between takes.

Most of the cast, including Hollywood heavyweights like Don Cheadle, Ludacris, Sandra Bullock and Laurenz Tate, had to buy their own flights to LA and were underpaid by any standards.

But for Thandie and co, the public response and the six Oscar nominations including best picture and best director, has made the hardship well worth it.

“It didn’t feel like a low budget film at the time, I didn‘t feel restrained by the lack of money. We were all really passionate about the movie," she explains quietly, not quite drowning out the din of the baying mob of photographers trying to capture the perfect image for the next day’s front pages.

She is first to admit that Crash was one of the most interesting projects that she has worked on in a long time and it certainly does make uncomfortable viewing. Especially the scene where she is sexually assaulted up against her husband’s fancy car by a racist cop, a scene, which she admits, she never thought she could do.

“Whether it’s rage or shared displeasure, Crash has prompted discussion among a lot of people. It’s got people feeling. It’s aggravated something, and isolated prejudices that we all have but would never admit to."

Right now she is girlie and giggly, excited about choosing outfits for the awards season. Later this month she will be attending the Baftas for her first time as a nominee, (best supporting actress in Crash) and she hopes to make an appearance on the red carpet at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.

Born in New Zealand to a Zimbabwean mother and an English father, Thandiewe Newton lived in Zambia as a child, and discovered boys and first kisses in Cornwall.

A back injury wrecked her hopes of becoming a professional dancer (she trained in modern dance), but she discovered her second trade when she was cast alongside Nicole Kidman in Flirting when she was only 16, playing a Ugandan girl who comes to an Australian boarding school in the 1960s.

Off screen, a tumultuous affair with Australian director John Duigan, then 41, ensued. But when things went wrong she suffered a nervous breakdown and battled anorexia. In fact she recently condemned him in the press for abusing her trust at such a young age.

FISH

“I was hooked like a fish, trying to swim away and being tugged back. I think the film business is a really dangerous place for young people. It’s about exploitation. I’m not angry with him anymore. I just feel very fortunate that I’ve come through all that," she said.

She credits her early years in Africa for giving her a very multicultural view of the world and did not become personally aware of racism until Flirting. Since then she has been very outspoken about the difficulties of British black actresses finding roles in this country and in Hollywood. She says: “I have encountered clumsiness with racial stereotypes in Hollywood.

“I remember having a meeting with a studio head and talking about a role. She said: ‘Yeah, Thandie, but are you black enough for this role? Is it believable that this character has a degree?’ I said: ‘Yes, I am black enough and have a degree myself.’ And she said: ‘But you are different.’

“I have also met black filmmakers who think I do not have enough street cred. They ignore the fact I am an actress and can play anything."

After winning a place at Cambridge to study anthropology, she combined her studies with auditions and screen testing.

Her big break came when she played a devil child who comes back to haunt her murdering mother in Beloved. By the time she cinched the lead role alongside Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible II she was a household name.

But it doesn’t stop her from craving meatier roles.

“To be honest my preference would be for a film that is centred around the performance of the actors rather than around the performance of the technology. I’m not saying it’s not valuable, the technology, but I like the idea of taking theatre into film."

Her next cinema outing will be in family drama Pursuit of Happiness released this Christmas. She plays the estranged wife of Will Smith, a man who wins custody of his sons after his divorce but then becomes homeless. With two young children herself, how difficult did she find filming the scenes?

“It was emotionally gruelling and the man who the story is based on, Christopher Gardner, was on the set every day. To actually confront him, when we were shooting films that were inspired by his life… it’s humbling when you are confronted by what he went through."

Then, in typical Thandie fashion, she enthuses about the film’s leading man.

“I loved Will Smith, even before I met him, for his integrity and the fact that he is not afraid to be seen as a family man. For someone like that, who you think you know, to surprise you is amazing. I was privileged to witness him in a completely different light. He is a massive talent and he is very committed to a true portrayal of the real man behind the movie. We had a bit of fun in the makeup trailers."

Fun? What kind of fun?

“We were trying to ease the tension… but mainly it was really sweat and tears. It was a very serious subject and I became close to the people on the film. You’ll see when you see it, it’s not something that you can watch without becoming very affected."

SUFFERING

Thandie admits that she is very affected by human suffering, and is saddened by the increasing tension between Islam and the West, most recently played out in the violent slogans of Muslim cartoon protesters. Despite her phenomenal success, she remains a down-to-earth homebody who prefers hanging out with her young children aged one and five and her husband, up-and-coming screenwriter Oliver Parker.

He seems to reciprocate an equal amount of devotion and they hold hands, almost desperately, all the time.

“My idea of a great night out is actually staying in… Or going to a nice restaurant where my husband and I can talk and hold hands and be together," she says.

Her husband grabs her some champagne and they head off to socialise, his hand thrown protectively over her shoulder. You can’t help but feel that Thandie is clinging on to him and to a normal life in the crazy world of Hollywood – for dear life.

Published: 23 February 2006
Issue: 1206

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