Mena Suvari: 'I never had my jaw hit the floor so many times reading a script,' the actress says about 'Stuck.' But she's in it for the challenge, not the bikinis.
THE PERFORMANCE
IT'S NOT clear that Mena Suvari is even remotely interested in being a glamorous actress. Now 29, she entered the national consciousness in a forceful and disturbingly sexual way almost 10 years ago in "American Beauty." Her character, Angela Hayes, rapidly became a shorthand reference for precocious teen libidinousness and the effect it can have on middle-aged men trapped in depressing suburban cul-de-sacs and airless professions.
Suvari was young enough at that point -- yet sufficiently wise in the ways of Hollywood, where she had been working since she was 14 -- to develop a career that hinged on big-budget movies punctuated with the occasional cred-preserving indie detour. Instead, she decided to make more distinctive and, as she likes to put it, "challenging" choices.
Of course, we've heard that from actors about 10,000 times, but in Suvari's case, her decisions back it up. Since "American Beauty" in 1999, she has appeared in two "American Pie" movies; "Spun," an exploration of the crystal meth subculture; as a lesbian poet in several episodes of "Six Feet Under"; as Warhol superstar Richie Berlin in 2006's "Factory Girl"; and in numerous other downright strange roles. This Friday will see the release of "Stuck," her second collaboration with Stephen Rea and director Stuart Gordon. Just for the record, the last time she worked with Gordon, on 2005's David Mamet-scripted "Edmond," she was credited simply as "whore."
"Look, I could put on a bikini and make a lot of money," she says. "But I'm trying to stimulate myself as an actor."
Suvari makes no apologies for a style that's anything but meticulously prepared and often executed at high speed. "Sometimes, I like to work that way, in an intense filmmaking process," she says. In "Stuck," she plays Brandi, a nursing home caretaker with an appetite for Ecstasy and a drug-dealer boyfriend who can keep her supplied. One night, while high, she hits Stephen Rea (a downsized white-collar guy who's ended up on the streets), who crashes through the windshield of her car. There he remains for most of the film, trapped in a garage, slowly bleeding to death from a variety of gruesome wounds, while Brandi hopes he will "just go to sleep." The plot is based on actual events that occurred in 2001 in Fort Worth.
