Patricia Clarkson enjoys playing her character in ‘Out of Blue’
PATRICIA Clarkson enjoyed playing a character who wasn’t “traditionally feminine” in ‘Out of Blue’.
The 59-year- old actress portrays homicide detective Mike Hoolihan in the crime drama and after previously playing the overtly feminine Adora Crellin in HBO thriller series ‘Sharp Objects’ she enjoyed the challenge of being “stripped of all her feminine wiles”.
In an interview with The Observer newspaper, she said: “I had to shed all of Adora, I had to take those nails off, hair, eyelashes, dresses, undergarments, and just to be stripped of all of my feminine wiles. And I loved it. It was such a seismic shift as an actress, and as a woman - just to walk in every day and put on those heavy, thick- soled boots. To suddenly have no adornments, no frills, nothing to fuss about. It’s sexier than I imagined playing a masculine type. Though I never thought of Mike as masculine; I think of her as not feminine in the traditional way.”
The upcoming film, which is based on Martin Amis’ novel ‘Night Train’, follows Mike as she investigates the death of an astrophysicist ( Mamie Gummer) and realises that her own childhood memories relate to the case.
The ‘ Untouchables’ actress explained that she was originally drawn to her character but was soon hooked on the story, and added that the original novel is “very different” to the film.
She said: “I’m always first drawn to the character, because that’s the journey that I have to take, and that’s the journey that will cause me grief. Then I started to realise the unusual disparate worlds I was in. This very grounded, unadorned, monosyllabic, insular woman, with astrophysics, the cosmos, existentialism and Martin Amis! The film is very different from the book, and that’s also beautiful.” — BANG Showbiz