Tuesday April 18, 2006
Gretchen Mol enjoys being `Notorious'
By Daniel Fienberg
LOS ANGELES - If ever an actress were entitled to a do-over, it's Gretchen Mol.
Mol was plopped on the cover of Vanity Fair back in 1998 in a supernova of hype that didn't necessarily benefit her career.
"I just think I was young and it's part of the story," is Mol's current terse response to the swift rise to fame that didn't generate correspondingly strong film roles.
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Mol arrives for the premiere of The Notorious Bettie Page on April 10, 2006 in New York. - AP Photo/Dima Gavrysh |
"I always thought of Bettie as sort of vixen with a whip. And bad girl. Truth is, she was so much more," explains Mol. "It's almost the opposite when I did a little bit of research. So I sort of thought I had nothing to lose and that maybe has been why it worked out. I don't know. But I just went in and had a good time with the audition. Right away, Mary really responded to it and then we had to kind of get everybody else on board, which took a little more time."
Mol was ready to inhabit Page's character - a contradictory mixture of brazen sexuality, religious devotion and unexpected innocence - but she still wasn't a dead ringer for the model.
"One of the first things I did was go out and buy one of those US$15 wigs just so that while I was working on it, I could get out of myself and see Bettie a little bit," she says. "Little by little, it all came together and that had a lot to do with the hair and makeup, the good wig and a great costume designer who worked with my body and fitting these clothes."
Coming off an energetic and exhausting Broadway run in Chicago, Mol couldn't dedicate much time to putting on weight to exactly emulate Page's figure, though she put exercise on hold for a while. She just wanted to seem confident in front of the camera.
"(T)hat was something that was so important and integral to the character was her lack of self-consciousness in front of the camera. So I thought if nothing else, I owe this to Bettie."
Given that Page helped redefine sexiness for a generation, have Mol's ideas on the subject changed?
"I don't know what my definition is," Mol admits. "I just know that any time you're trying to do it or be it, it's probably not it."
"When I would look at other pinup models and you'd see them doing the come-hither look, it just didn't quite - it wasn't as sexy as when Bettie was just flaunting it out there and she had so much self confidence and lack of self consciousness. It's so infectious. It's such a sexy quality. And subtle. Less is more."
Copyright © 2006 KRT News Service
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