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12-Apr-09:
Natalie Imbruglia emerges from her long winter
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WHEN Jennifer Aniston was preparing for her first post-Friends movie lead – that of a small-town depressive shopgirl whose life has stalled in The Good Girl – she had the wardrobe department sew small rocks into the lining of her sleeves.
The gritty role was so far removed from the fizzy sitcom character that had turned her into a household name that Aniston needed the added weights to remind her not to wave her arms around, as "Rachel" would have done. It's a transformation that our own Natalie Imbruglia can now relate to.
The last time audiences saw the former Neighbours beauty on the big screen, it was as Rowan "Mr Bean" Atkinson's animated sidekick in madcap spy spoof Johnny English. Also, there's the matter of Imbruglia's fiery Sicilian heritage. By her own admission, she tends to speak with her hands and whenever things get a little testy, well, "it's like a kettle boiling".
Closed for Winter: To inhabit her first leading role in the new Australian film Closed For Winter, based on Georgia Blain's acclaimed novel, the 34-year-old songbird had to unlearn all of her most instinctive mannerisms. Imbruglia plays Elise, an anguished recluse still tortured by the tragic childhood disappearance of her big sister, Frances. Twenty years on from the day that Frances went missing from a South Australian beach where the sisters were playing, Elise has gone missing from her own life.
She has retreated into a purposely mundane existence; completely shut down emotionally as she cares for her equally damaged mother Dorothy, who had left the girls on their own that fateful day while she went out to work, just as she'd done by necessity all summer long.
At times, it's an oppressive film to watch. Not just because of the disturbing theme and the dilapidated physicality of Elise and Dorothy's lives, but because much of Elise's "journey" takes place within her long, heavy silences.
"I was concerned about it," confesses Imbruglia on the phone from Sydney. "Especially if you're an emotive person; I'm very expressive – it's the Italian in me." To prepare for the challenging role, Imbruglia consulted a grief counsellor and worked on developing Elise's memories so that each pared-back scene would be less of a struggle. "By the time we started shooting, I felt completely engrossed in Elise's energy and her past and how she felt."
Keep reading the interview Here
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