| Alice Krige's Profile Coming Into View
by Steve Dollar Her Pre-Raphaelite tresses could flow off a Rossetti canvas, the auburn locks of a tragic Ophelia, floating down-current amid delicately oiled river blossoms. But the memorable face belongs to a handful of big-screen appearances, portrayals undiminished by their brevity: a torch singer in "Chariots of Fire," a ghost in "Ghost Story," a literary editor who falls for a skid row poet in "Barfly." As an actress, Alice Krige seized her opportunities to make a mark, and having made it, moved on. "If I were to start worrying about my profile, I'd be in big trouble," Ms. Krige says in a careful, articulate voice whose gracefully Anglo accent - South African via the Royal Shakespeare Company - connotes class. "I think all you can do is work that moves you, that captures your imagination. There's no point in doing work that doesn't, for the most part, unless you have a big bill to pay." The actress laughs, in a perfectly poised form not always common to movie-folk engaged in that marathon of chat known as the Atlanta publicity stop. Perched in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton Atlanta, she's relaxed, engaging. And why not? Her profile is doing very nicely, thank you, certain to receive a whopping boost with the release of "See You in the Morning." The new Alan Pakula drama forefronts Ms. Krige as Beth Goodwin, a 30-something widow with two precocious kids (Lukas Haas and Drew Barrymore) who navigates a rocky second marriage with a divorced psychologist, played by a bumptious Jeff Bridges. The film, also written by Mr. Pakula ("All the President's Men," "Orphans"), is a seams-and-all exploration of the emotional landscape of remarriage, how new beginnings are ever-shadowed by ties to the past, how stepparents adapt to new kids who are never quite their own, and how the kids cope with a fresh adult presence that must co-exist with memories of their own father. For Ms. Krige, 34, the movie offers the kind of full-dimensioned character that's often scarce, a needle in the haystack of high-concept projects and high-powered star packages. "I felt a great sympathy for what they were trying to do," she says. "That attempt to find a point of balance in a relationship, where you're taking care of your own needs, as well as those of your mate or partner - it's a very difficult place to arrive at and it's a difficult place to remain at." Ms. Krige pinpoints Beth, the self-sacrificing first wife of a concert pianist destroyed by a crippling disease, as a guilt-wracked perfectionist. "It's very easy to start to do, for me at any rate, what Beth did in her first relationship," she says. "To devote oneself to the people that you love as opposed to aspects of your own talent. I think it's a trap that many people fall into, and I do think it's a trap. Ultimately, if one person in a relationship is unfulfilled, even if they don't realize it at first, then it's not as creative as that relationship could be." A crucial point in the film revolves around Beth's decision to pursue a lifelong passion for photography, and accept a job documenting a musician friend's tour of the Soviet Union. She leaves for a month, and all hell breaks loose on the homefront. When Beth returns, she's overwhelmed by guilt. The situation had resonance for Ms. Krige. "I was touched by Beth's specific journey, of someone who's reared to believe that she has to set impossibly high standards, so that she can't help but fail and feel bad about herself," she says. "And her children do exactly the same thing." Ms. Krige's particular journey has taken her from South Africa, where a drama class at Rhodes University detoured plans to become a psychologist. Following a stint at London's Central School of Drama, she landed a series of movie and made-for-TV roles ("A Tale of Two Cities" for the BBC, "Chariots of Fire" and the American miniseries "Ellis Island"), then returned to the stage as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. After that experience, she returned to the both big and small screens with parts in the made-for-TV films "Second Serve" (where she played the fiance of a pre sex-change Rene Richards, played by Vanessa Redgrave, another Central alumna) and "Wallenberg," and a Biblical turn as Bathsheba, opposite a loin-clothed Richard Gere in "King David." Bigger challenges awaited in "Barfly," French director Barbet Schroeder's slice-of-lowlife romance, based on a brief chapter from the booze-sodden days and nights of cult poet, drunk and womanizer Charles Bukowski. Scrambled together in about four weeks, the film allowed no time for rehearsal, which meant that Ms. Krige would have to wing her part as an upscale literary editor seduced by Mickey Rourke's grizzled street poet. She'd also have to brawl with Faye Dunaway, whose "distressed goddess" Wanda would rather fight than give up her man Mickey. "Oh, we had a wonderful time," Ms. Krige says. "It was, in fact, so exciting, that we did the bulk of [the fighting] ourselves. I really got in there." As for the rakish Mr. Rourke, "You never quite know what's going to happen next, there's a constant sort of flow between you," she says. Such spontaneity was a key aspect of "See You in the Morning," where a comparatively leisurely shooting schedule meant a 180-degree tilt from the creative chaos of "Barfly." Ms. Krige waxes rhapsodic over a four-week rehearsal process, and Mr. Pakula's generous method for working with actors. "He does a wonderful thing, which is take who you are and wrap it around the character," she says, waving a pair of elegantly tapered hands through the air. That's what all actors try to do, of course. But, she says, "He takes it a step further. When he's shooting, he constantly helps you keep it alive." It wouldn't be uncommon for the director to haul Mr. Bridges from the middle of a scene to confer in a corner. "And have this big discussion," Ms. Krige says. "And I knew something was going to happen that I wasn't expecting. ... And you play off of that. Alan has a unique gift to stimulate that." And stimulate careers, perhaps? Ms. Krige doesn't seem overly concerned with stardom. Though she's recently rented a small apartment near Los Angeles, Ms. Krige also visits a modest rowhouse in St. Albans, north of London, that she shares with her husband, film-and-stage director Paul Schoolman. "I don't know where I live," she says. "I'm a gypsy. I live an itinerant kind of existence. Our dog is in England, so maybe that's home." April 22, 1989 Copyright (c) 1989, 2007: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution |