golden girl
Bryce Dallas Howard gives her latest film the Midas touch.
Ionce got a $40,000 wardrobe bill on a publicity tour,” says Bryce Dallas Howard of discovering the cost of being a US size 6 (Australian size 10) in Hollywood. “If you’re not sample size, there are no clothes for the stylist to loan from the designer, so they have to purchase them and I have to pay for them. I nearly had a heart attack. I guess they thought I had a trust fund.” The mother of two now buys her own red-carpet outfits and has earned a reputation for being relatable as a result: she wore a $320 Topshop dress to the Critics’ Choice Awards last December, and a Jenny Packham gown bought off the rack at department store Neiman Marcus earlier in 2016 at the Golden Globes.
Discussing her new movie Gold, in which she stars opposite Matthew Mcconaughey, in a suite at New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel, the porcelain-skinned redhead (she and actress Jessica Chastain have been mistaken for each other so often it’s become a running joke) gives the impression she’s eager to avoid the celebrity lifestyle, despite starring in high-grossing films like The Twilight Saga, Terminator Salvation, The
Help and Jurassic World (with a sequel on the way). The daughter of Oscar-winning director Ron Howard admits she’s cautious when it comes to social media. “When I send an email, I read it over and over again, so something as flippant as tweeting out my thoughts in the moment is not my thing,” she says. But that doesn’t mean she’s not opinionated: on America’s controversial new president, Howard says “being vocal is really important” and that “some things I hear feel like a gut punch”. She also feels strongly about correcting the gender pay gap in Hollywood. “People [film executives] are going to be so ashamed of themselves when it all comes out.”
Her attitude towards social media – to use it but not get too caught up in it – was influenced by her Screen Actors Guild Award-nominated role in cult Netflix series Black Mirror. She plays a woman desperate to raise her ranking in a fictional (though disturbingly relatable) world where people rate each other for every interaction using an app. Howard relished the role. “The shoot was four weeks in Cape Town and was the first time I was away from my kids for more than a few days, and I was so well-rested,” she laughs. “Also, I often find the sadder my character is, the happier I am in real life, and the happier the
character, the more therapy sessions I need. Because I’ve got to get it out somehow!”
It’s hard to say if the 36-year-old needed a therapy appointment after playing Kay, long-time love of Mcconaughey’s character Kenny, in Gold. Based on the true story of an ’80s prospector who strikes gold, the film takes them on a nauseating roller-coaster ride of highs and lows. Kay’s an anchor for the wild and unpredictable Kenny, though the on-screen relationship is pushed to intense moments, some of which weren’t in the script. “We were shooting the fight scene here in [this] hotel and my character went into the bathroom. He took his glass and threw it, and made a hole in the door. I’m sure someone got sent a bill for that.” At least this time it wasn’t Howard.
Gold is in cinemas now