Rosario Dawson, Jessica Alba, and Brittany Murphy star in Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s Sin City, opening April 1st. ComingSoon.net discussed many aspects of the visually arresting movie with the women.
The film places women in a power position, which Rosario Dawson believes is the reason women will flock to see the film. “Are women going to want to see it specifically for that reason? I think absolutely. When she’s standing there and he actually punches her across the face, and she actually tries to chop his pecker off… all the women working in Old Town – we take care of ourselves. We are very in control of what we are. We know what our assets are. We make money off of it. We call the shots, which I think is really powerful. It’s a very even keel sort of strength between the men and the women. The guys get their balls ripped off and the girls get to do it and will. It’s a pretty tough town on both sides.”
Jessica Alba and Dawson found it refreshing to work in front of a green screen for the entire shoot. “I’m not very experienced in theater,” said Alba. “The only training I really had was David Mamet’s theater company, the Atlantic Theater company. And all I did was go on these little stages and imagine things, but they were in small rooms so the difference is you still had to shout and project your voice, but everything was little bit bigger and the same with Robert, it’s very specific. He fine-tunes your performance so its kind of a marriage of film and theater I felt.”
“It was just incredible,” said Dawson. “You’re standing there in this outfit, just completely naked and vulnerable to everything and this crazy dialogue. With Robert’s experience – I was kind of lucky because I came out on the very last segment of shooting, so I was there three months into it and actually saw a lot of other footage, so I got the benefit of being able to look at it and go – okay, this does look really amazing, I’m just going to do whatever he tells me to do.”
Alba’s character, Nancy, appears completely nude in the comic book, but Alba decided to opt out for the film. “I looked at the graphic novel and all the pictures. I then found out she was a stripper and was bottomless and topless and, nudity was an option. We could have done it if we wanted to, it absolutely was an option. Robert said that we could do it if we wanted to and obviously it would have been more authentic. I just felt like dancing around with a lasso and chaps was going to be sexy enough, I think being nude, for me, would have been distracting and I really couldn’t be bottomless for my dad. He would disown me and freak out.”
Brittany Murphy and Dawson both work with Clive Owen in the film. “Clive’s a stunning actor,” said Murphy. “Benicio and Clive were the only actors who were actually in the room with me when I was there. What a joy to work with Clive Owen, I mean really. Any girl…or any boy would. He’s an extraordinarily talented man and I learned a lot from him.
“It was wonderful,” said Dawson. When I saw (Clive) in ‘Closer’ afterwards, I completely understood because your sense of humor is just wicked. I just had so much fun working with you. It was such a crazy character, such crazy dialogue. We both laughed about it then went gung-ho for it. It was funny. The first time I walked out in my outfit, I had this robe on and everyone was being really good about covering up. I remember, I was taking it off and you’re like ‘Okay, so I’ve got to act with that?’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, exactly, I’ve got to act with this as well.’ We’re doing these scenes and he’s backhanding me across the face and it was so amazing. He was so game. I was so game. It was awesome.”
Source: Andrew Weil