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......"Most of the crew . . . got tick bite fever, even
sleeping under mosquito nets, but the bugs left me alone. They generally
do, for some reason. And I didn't get into any scary situations, except
for when the door of the plane flew open." Already a nervous flyer, Sevigny,
30, was in a two-person prop plane with a pilot she guessed was about
14. To take off, they had to fly over a cliff, and when they got to the
end of the runway, the door flew open. Fitzgerald said everything fell
out of the plane except his star, who portrays Clara, the novice who is
central to his exploration of active spirituality in the world.The celebrated filmmaker, whose films Hanging Garden (1997), Beefcake (1998), The Wild Dogs (2002) and The Event (2003) also screened at the Atlantic Film Festival, thought 3 Needles had been cursed by a local witch doctor. "We went to a midnight ritual. I dragged (producer) Bryan (Hofbauer), and Chloe brought her friend Lily. There was to be an animal sacrifice under the full moon, and the witch doctor took an instant dislike to us for some reason and said 'Go away.' We said, 'But we brought beer,' but he sent us packing. Then Lily was held at knifepoint while our leading actor was mugged. "Bryan and I went swimming and were swept out by a riptide, and it took 45 minutes for some very brave teenage boys to save our lives . . . and Bryan was driving Olympia Dukakis and Sandra Oh down a mountain when the tire exploded, and it sent the jeep into a retaining wall. . . . Bryan got out and stepped into nothing and fell into a gorge and broke his ribs. "We called the witch doctor back and asked him to take the curse off. He told us in Africa, when you die you don't go to heaven, you go to the ocean and when someone is taken into the ocean they are inspected and if they are sent back, it's because they have something important to do. That completely lifted the spirits and enthusiasm of the tribe. After the ancestors gave the thumbs-up, they were a very enthusiastic bunch."  The rail-thin actor, who wore a grey cardigan, white shirt,
black miniskirt, thigh-high black knit stockings and black lace-up flats,
said she has always wanted to portray a novice and spoke with her priest
several times in preparation for her role as Clara. "I have so much admiration
for people who devote their life to the church," said Sevigny, who like
Fitzgerald was raised Roman Catholic. "I was quite inspired by Clara.I was inspired by her drive to do good, by her willingness to sacrifice herself and her body. How inspired she was inspired me." Fitzgerald said that because many of the cast and crew members had never seen a movie, they believed Sevigny was a nun and gave her a great deal of respect - at least while she was in her habit. "In my regular clothes, I got finger-pointing and snickering," Sevigny said. Her long blond hair attracted the children, who "patted my hair, brushed my hair," she said. "It was very sad to walk away, knowing the life they were going back to was one of poverty." Sevigny is also appearing in Broken Flowers with Bill Murray and stars in Manderlay, screening Tuesday at 9:30 p.m. at the Oxford Theatre as part of the Atlantic Film Festival. She said it was the character of Clara that drew her to the 3 Needles script, although she spoke with Fitzgerald only on the phone before flying to Africa to shoot about three years ago. "He is the first director I've worked with who is a truly good person," she said. "So many are tyrants . . . really mad. I was in awe on the set. He was such a nice person; it was very refreshing," she said, as Fitzgerald joked he was nice because he was channelling his inner nun. Sevigny came to Halifax for Thursday's red-carpet gala because of her belief in the film and the fact that it was Fitzgerald's town. It's her first time in the province, but she does have a family connection. Her grandmother was from Nova Scotia but she doesn't know where, because she died when Sevigny was very young. The actor, who missed the premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival because she was doing media interviews, was looking forward to seeing 3 Needles in Halifax on Thursday. She usually dreads seeing herself on screen but had already seen part of the film and said the lighting was beautiful and Fitzgerald had done an exceptional job, so she wasn't worried. As for the city, she said she was excited to hear the noon gun on Citadel Hill and enthusiastic about the "college town." "And I saw a lot of kids with great looks. There were punky kids with leopard print hair and one with a stuffed animal around his neck. It's not what I expected." (Article was written by Andrea Nemetz for "The Halifax Herald Limited") |
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