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| Clancy Brown (who co-starred with Alice in 1995's Donor Unknown and 1999's In the Company of Spies): Clancy: So Tom (Berenger) comes in with the condition that he put together his own team (for In the Company of Spies), which is a team of a bunch of old timers, people that he's comfortable with. That includes me and Alice Krige... Q: You were pretty tough on Alice Krige in that Donor Unknown movie... Clancy: Yeah, as I said to Alice, "I'm so glad I'm not brutalizing you." Because she's so sweet and she's so beautiful, in a very off-center way. And she's the nicest lady in the world...a terrific actress. But on the first day there I saw her and I didn't recognize her, and she's waving to me, and I'm thinking, "Huh...Hey! I've still got it!" And I go over and it's Alice...I think I hid my disappointment that she wasn't anonymous, but actually somebody familiar...But it was good to see her. It's gonna be great. Ewan McGregor (who co-starred with Alice in 1993's Scarlet and Black): His most candid revelation is that he became aroused during a sex scene with Alice Krige in the BBC play Scarlet and Black in 1993. He said: "I had to lie on top of her and they kept on pulling back the sheet. They wanted to see my naked bum and her naked thigh, so we couldn't wear any underwear. It was very embarrassing. It was a case of, 'Cut! We'll go again.' I calmed myself down and we just got on with the scene." The Quay Brothers (who directed Alice in 1995's Institute Benjamenta): I think we did exactly what we're doing with you. We sat down with them and talked. With Mark Rylance or Alice Krige, we sat down one to one in an intimate place. And you sort of say: “This is our ropy universe. This is the Institute.” And just talk with them. We hadn't directed actors but we know how to talk with people. We knew they were very gifted and you just have to give them a few clues. We never said: “This is what we'd like.” We just sort of surrounded the subject and we captured what they'd do. Sometimes the nuance came from the actors. She (Alice) wasn't too sure, she would ask for 13 takes. Mark would get it on the first take. She spent a lot of time exploring. Gottfried John could do everything on the first take (a genius that guy). In a way, for us, it was like this: Heir Benjamenta (Gottfried John) was the double-bass, Jakob (Mark Rylance) was the straight violin, Lisa (Alice Krige) was another instrument, and they all had their voices. And Kraus, we couldn't get inside Kraus, but he was the perfect zero. That's the side that we thought we could make work in telling a dark fairytale, from everything we had learned from the puppets. I think we'd do anything to work with actors again like that. Brent Spiner (who co-starred with Alice in 1996's Star Trek: First Contact) and Rick Berman (the film's executive producer): Rick Berman: We talked to everybody from Cher to you can't imagine the people we talked to. Then Alice Krige came in and it was boom. She was it. I had remembered her from Chariots Of Fire and had fallen in love with her then. We were looking for a woman who could be both sensual and seductive as well as evil. She has that quality. Alice came in and read the part and that was it. Brent Spiner: I really liked playing the scenes with Alice. She was spectacular. They were also the most challenging on the page. We really didn't know if those scenes would work. Or if we could find someone who was capable of playing the Borg Queen. It was such a difficult role. Alice came in and brought so much to it and had such a grasp of it. We seemed to have the right kind of chemistry to make it work. It became more and more exciting as we were working on them. They were actually the last scenes shot in the movie. It got more nerve-wracking as the movie went on. I kept saying that everything was going so well and we haven't done that yet. I think we warmed up to it. Q: Was Alice a good kisser? Brent: I'm not the type that kisses and tells. Reporter: She told. Brent: Did she? She's giving ratings herself is she? Hey, you know. Alice is gorgeous. It was thrilling. It was my first real on screen kiss. It was rockin'. It was terrific. Alice is so good as an actress. I felt we had a real respect for one another when we were working. It was a wonderful scene to play in every way. What we wanted to happen was actually after the kiss they cut away to another part of the story. We wanted them to come back and the two of us would be laying on that rack smoking a cigarette. Guy Maddin (who directed Alice in 1997's Twilight of the Ice Nymphs) and George Toles (the film's writer): Toles: If I didn't know exactly what an ice nymph was before seeing the film, encountering Alice Krige in this rainforest episode makes me feel that I know what ice nymphs mean and why they matter. Maddin: I really wanted her to play a lot older just to be more fragile, but Alice criss-crossed me by showing up in a more robust, fit form. Somehow when I first met her in Telluride, way up in the altitude, she seemed pale, British and frail. I imagined little china-cracks on her, but up in Winnipeg she looked about ready to haul down a buffalo and skin it. Maddin: I hate to play favorites, but Alice is my favorite actress...period. As a result, I repay that love by never phoning her or even talking about her now when I have the chance, but I just adore her. I have sent her a couple of scripts in their very earliest stages with her name pencilled into a few parts, and I really want to do something with her. Someone will eventually think I have a mania for missing limbs, but I do want to take one arm off Alice...or at least sew it to her abdomen or something, and have her charging around a movie set in a project a couple pictures down the road. Toles: Perhaps this is something she's always wanted too? Maddin: Well, so she says...so we're not at loggerheads at the moment. |
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