Thandie Newton
THE ACTORS
She stars next in Oliver Stone's 'W,' as Condoleezza Rice, and in Guy Ritchie's 'RocknRolla.'
THANDIE NEWTON has garnered way more column inches for a movie she didn't make ("Charlie's Angels") than for any of the 21 already under her petite belt. At 35, she has starred as girlfriend, wife and daughter of Tom Cruise, Will Smith and Oprah Winfrey, respectively, and worked for an international clutch of esteemed directors (Bernardo Bertolucci, John Woo, Jonathan Demme, Neil Jordan, Paul Haggis). But if the universe conspires in her favor, Newton will merit her most expansive and complimentary coverage yet for playing Condoleezza Rice opposite Josh Brolin in “W,” Oliver Stone's George W. Bush biopic out Oct. 17.
"I feel a real pull from 'W,' a grief at its having ended," Newton says by phone from her "ramshackle beach house" in Vancouver, Canada, where she is filming the disaster epic "2012" for director Roland Emmerich ("The Patriot"). "Every now and then it's good to do a bigger movie. And every now and then there's a recharge of the battery. 'W' was one of them." So, she says, was her other fall release: Guy Ritchie's “RocknRolla,” a crackling London underbelly crime caper releasing Oct. 8.
Initially, she was less gung-ho. "When Oliver said, 'So, Condoleezza?,' I was thinking, 'Have you lost your mind?' Then I thought, 'Maybe I'm so used to girlfriend, wife, mother, attractive-appendage-to-male-lead, I've gotten artistically flabby,' " says Newton, who pronounces her first name as Tan-dee.
Stone was adamant she could do the role. "This is one of the top 10 actresses in the world, no question," Stone said during filming over the summer in Shreveport, La.
Nonetheless, six weeks before shooting, Newton says she was "pretty scared" Stone would fire her. "I didn't have my voice, my body language. But he said, 'I know you, you're a plodder.' And I am. I take my time, thinking, considering. Physical stuff comes last."
She followed suit for Ritchie, who touts her "class and wicked sophistication." Again hesitant, Newton perceived playing snarky, crooked glamour puss accountant Stella as unknown territory. "But I like jumping without opening my eyes, otherwise you get pigeon-holed, and that's anathema," she says.
On the "W" set and almost unrecognizable as anyone but Rice, Newton sits on a sofa in the Oval Office sporting false teeth, dark contact lenses, a Condi Rice circa 2002 wig, hip padding and extensive "theater makeup shading" (prosthetics were out due to local humidity). Even without dialogue, her face emotes furiously.
