In her disarmingly charming way, the shapely Ghost Rider star talks about her first femme fatale, updating Joan Crawford, and Frank Miller's "lovely insanity."
During a press tour on Saturday, 29 September, the IESB's Rachel Howard got some updates on Will Eisner's The Spirit from star Eva Mendes.
Eva (about whom rumors are currently swirling, saying that she may be pregnant) begins filming in a couple of weeks, and she just wrapped a remake of The Women, based on the play by Clare Boothe Luce.
"It was fantastic, a great experience," said Eva. "I did the role that Miss Joan Crawford played back in the day. I know, I’m gonna get a lot of $h!t for that one. I’m ready for it!"
In The Spirit, written and directed by Frank Miller, and co-starring Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Sarah Paulson and Gabriel Macht, Eva plays Sand Saref, the tragic former lover of Denny Colt, a.k.a. the Spirit (Macht).
"Frank Miller gave me some of the old comics," she said. "And I’m excited because I’ve never actually played, like, a real Femme Fatale. And this woman is just, you know, she is just, she would eat you for breakfast."
But she has to look good doing it.
"We have a forties feel to some of the outfits and stuff but obviously modernizing Frank Miller’s, you know, lovely insanity. But that can at least change once we’re there, it usually does."
One change Eva thinks is definitely for the better is the opportunity to work with "exciting and new" Macht. "I saw him in, I think it was Love Song For Bobby Long. And I thought he was lovely, I thought 'why doesn’t this guy work more?' And I did one of my first jobs, about 8 or 9 years ago, with Scarlett. And she was, my gosh, she was 14 years old, or 15 years old, and she ran circles around me. I was like 'this little girl is gonna be such a star'."
"What [movie] was that?" asked Howard.
Eva was slow to answer. "You don’t really need to know about that...Because...You know...It’s called My Brother The Pig. It’s kinda genius though. I’m not joking! I am so serious. So yeah."
Will Eisner's The Spirit is due in theaters on January 16, 2009.
* NOTE: You can't get the full flavor of Eva's full-throttle cadence from my summary. I strongly encourage you to hop over to the IESB and enjoy Rachel Howard's original interview.
[Thanks to sfgate.com.]
Ryan Anthony
10/1/2007
IESB