| February 18, 2007 |
| Eva Mendes, co-star of 'Ghost Rider,' gets pulses racing |
The curvaceous Cuban-American actress has shown her flair for comedy in such lighthearted fare as "Hitch," with Will Smith, and the Farrelly brothers' "Stuck on You."
But Mendes' role in "Ghost Rider," which opened Friday and stars Nicolas Cage as a motorcycling anti-hero who sells his soul to Satan, is the first of several films in which she gets to show a more serious side (even if it's in a comic-book world). Mendes recently wrapped a gritty cop drama, "We Own the Night," in which she co-stars with Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg and Robert Duvall, and just last week she began shooting a crime thriller, "Cleaner," in Berlin with Samuel L. Jackson and Ed Harris.
"We Own the Night," about a New York nightclub owner in the 1980s torn between loyalty to his police family and ruthless Russian mobsters, "was my first real dramatic role - and now I'm kind of hooked," says Mendes, who plays Phoenix's girlfriend. The film is due out this year.
"And now 'Cleaner' is a very dark film, too," she adds. "It was so much fun for me to go to a darker place as an actress," says Mendes, whose character in the film is a widow searching for answers to her husband's death. "That's the beauty of being an actress - it's such a perfect career for me because I'm such a moody person. I go through these emotions, and there are certain times in my life when I want to express myself comedically and there are times when I want to explore my darker side.
"Doing 'We Own the Night' opened up that darker side. It was like, 'Oh, wow - I have that in me, too, and now I'd like to get it out."
"Ghost Rider," based on the 1970s Marvel Comics character with a flaming skull and smokin' wheels, isn't exactly the kind of highbrow film that allows Mendes to flex her new dramatic muscles. She plays Roxanne (Roxie) Simpson, a reporter who was the title character's childhood love, and who now finds herself caught in the middle of a battle between Ghost Rider and the Devil's son (Wes Bentley).
"I don't really have that much 'action' stuff," says Mendes. "I'm 'the girl' in the movie, but without being an accessory. I'm [Cage's] love interest, yet there is nothing about me that is a victim." |
posted by viraks @ 6:33:00 AM  |
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