Interview: Amber Heard

Monday, 11 July 2011 00:53

From her sexy antics on NBC’s upcoming show, The Playboy Club, which glamorizes Hugh Hefner’s boobalicious bunny farm, to her haunting portrayal

of a mentally unstable woman in John Carpenter’s latest film, The Ward, Amber Heard has quite a bit on her plate. Her career is sizzling, and so is controversy across the nation over her too-hot-for-television debut, as The Florida Family Association and New York’s Morality In Media fight back against the young starlet, protesting her pornographic public expressions. We caught up with Amber for her take on the controversy, and she let us know she can handle the heat. —TR

By Prairie Miller

Hey, how's it going? Good. Very, very good.

How would you describe your latest movie, John Carpenter’s horror film, The Ward? One with a lot of women!

Is it true that it was so low budget that they barely had enough money for hair and makeup? Yep!

It seems like you gravitate toward horror flicks. What's your game plan when choosing movies? I look for strong, badass, female characters. And not because I think a movie will be big or make me popular.

You've been pretty outspoken about your same-sex love life. Is there anything to avoid when it comes to intimacy? I think lot of women confuse physical with emotional intimacy.

What about doing nude stuff for a movie? Yeah, when I want to represent the raw intensity of a character.

Your latest role was in horror flick, The Ward. Which film of his is your favorite? Ooh, our movie is what's playing at my house!

Is The Ward like The Exorcist, or what? Personally, I don't try to bring pieces of other movies with me. You know, finding a character and relating to her and making her as real as possible means forgetting all of that stuff and trying to find the truth in that particular character's words. Luckily, I got to work with John Carpenter, who is quite possibly the best at what he does, and I jumped into it head first.

How cool are you with gore? There's something nice and valuable and wonderful about the suspense of classic horror, and an almost pornographic view of, you know, fear.

Was it hard to keep the twisted ending a secret? Absolutely. I mean, I've done movies like this before where you have twist ending. You have to think about what it's going to be like when you see the movie in its entirety but also what it’s going to be like the second time around.

I wanted to play this as truthfully as possible. I want it to be valid when you already know the ending and you're watching it a second time. So it's a struggle in these types of films. With help from John I was just able to find that constantly—to skate that line between being true to the ending as well as being true to the mystery we're about to discover. I think it's a challenge, but with a good director, you can do it.

Is there anything about The Ward that turned you off along the way? I think the movie that you'll see now is probably um, free of anything that I... Ha!  I don't think there's anything that I would really...

Well, without giving anything away, there is that one scene that maybe went too far. Like, really relishing that knife. Oh, that's right! I forgot about that one. That's true.

John Carpenter is famous for making horror movies. What do you think makes him so good at what he does? He's a living legend. We wasn't working for while, so there was a gap in his projects. When I heard that he was interested in making this one, I sat down with him and couldn't believe that I was going to work with him. I'm horror fan and I like to make these movies. They're my favorite kind of movies to make and I actually was thinking about taking a break from them until I sat down with John Carpenter. That was the end of that break!

What’s so unique about him? It can often be about the process and the machines and the technology, the explosions and special effects. But with All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, I felt like I was working in a different world than the director [Jonathan Levine], like we weren't working on the same project.

It kind of worked for that movie, and I mean that with respect, because the director did a beautiful job on that film, but none of them are like working with John Carpenter. You're really in it with John. You can't help but be sucked into his madness! You still feel like you're making the character that you believe in and that you want to live as. So I felt equally as protected and free. So yeah, I was honored. Honored!

Are you saying that you felt on Mandy Lane that you and the director were making different movies? Um, yeah. At times.

Wow...Well, I think we just worked in parallel lines. I worked making the character that I envisioned and he didn't give me any direction or any ideas to how he envisioned my character to be. He just let me do what I was going to do, and I similarly didn't try to cross lines with him.

And it worked! It really, really worked. I mean, we almost had no real communication during the process, which, I think, definitely worked for that particular setting, and it was also his first feature.

Maybe he thought you were scary. I've been called worse!

Speaking of which, what's up with all the anti-porn fuss over The Playboy Club coming up in the fall? Yeah...

What can you say about it now? Well, I love so much about the series. There's so much texture and I feel it's so rich and full of all these different elements, from music, dance and performance in a classical sense, to the crime and sex and love and social revolutions.

I mean, everything that was going on at the time, and just the music alone of that era, is exciting and fun and different than we have today. So I'm excited on so many different levels about the project and I have very high expectations of it. I hope it's as wonderful as it can be.

With the cancellation of the show by an NBC affiliate, where does the sexy side of The Playboy Club fit in on network television? Uh, I don't know! I guess that's up to the network to decide. I'm sure they can't push it too far. But from having filmed the pilot, I can say that it's not very racy!

I don't know if they'd want me to say that, but I don't feel it's that racy, and I'm sure because they are a network, they'll go as far as possible.

Do you think they're getting this all wrong? I think it's important to remember that this is a different time now. The Playboy symbol and the name was a different thing then than it is now.

The women of Playboy were very different than the women who make up that brand now. I think there were different opportunities for women and they were relegated to entirely different positions in life.

So for me, it's very interesting to live in a world where women had this very unique, small time period and a little opportunity where they were actually able to earn the kind of money that their fathers did for a very short amount of time.

In a very unique moment in time, they actually could use that money to, I don't know, get an education or invest in businesses, and many of them did just that. It's really interesting to know that there was this little tiny window of opportunity where they could live on their own and, you know, spread their wings and dance, and earn money and be as wild as they wanted, or be as studious as they wanted. They had this tiny little moment and I'm living in that right now with this new series and having lot of fun with it.

It happens alongside some wonderful and interesting moments in history, with the Civil Rights Movement and women's lib. I couldn't ask for a better setting, you know?

Did you get to have some conversations with the women who worked in those Playboy clubs and with Hugh Hefner? Yes! I haven't spoken to Hugh Hefner about it, but I hear that he's enthusiastic and that he's participating on some level, though I'm not quite sure what. I met with Playboy bunnies from that particular era. Many of them are still working alongside Playboy in more of the, you know, white-collar part of it, more of the business part of things. It's fascinating.

When I hear the women talk about it, there's lot of warmth and lot of appreciation. I have yet to meet a woman who is bitter about the experience. I'm sure there are some, but I have yet to meet them.

And what about Hefner? I'm learning all these interesting, wonderful things about Hefner, and the kind of spirit that he is, the kind of forward thinking, um, envelope-pusher! I mean, wonderful things I'm learning about this iconic image that we might have these other assumptions about.

Do you see The Playboy Club as a way of branching out from the string of horror movies you've been doing? Um, no! I am not running from my horror films. I love my horror films. They will always be part of me and very close to me. I am doing The Playboy Club because I love it and because I like the pain of the corsets. No, I'm kidding! It's the right project for me and a very interesting character. That's why I work on any project.

Are you still shooting? We finished the pilot and we're going to go into production soon.

Oh, wow. Where? Chicago. I'm very upset.

That's a tough place. I know. I don't know how I'm going to do it.

How's that bunny costume? Ugh, very uncomfortable! I do not recommend it!

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