Agyness Deyns to DAnce
Former model studies striptease for role in ‘Pusher’
A t least one good thing — aside from the absurd catchphrase “Release the Kraken!” — came out of 2010’s “Clash of the titans.” that’d be Agyness Deyn, the English model, who for the past decade has been among the most famous faces in editorial and runway fashion. After that Greek fantasy flick, she decided to devote herself full-time to acting.
“I had a really small role [playing goddess Aphrodite], and I was only working for just over a week with Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson,” Deyn says. “I’d done a few short films before and thought acting was really creative, but when I worked with those guys, I was just like, ‘Wow!’ they had such fun and freedom. they were trying things and stretching themselves. It was so inspiring that I was like, ‘I definitely want to do this!’ ”
Somewhere, her fashion agent is weeping.
Deyn, however, appears not to be turning back. For now, she’s retired from modeling — not a gigantic sacrifice, perhaps, at age 29 — and she’s focusing solely on making films.
And she knows what you’re thinking. Isn’t this like Keanu Reeves forming a band or Lucy Liu painting? Creative types who branch out into other pursuits are often met with eye rolling and scorn.
“I’m not oblivious to that connotation of changing careers, so I’m just going in and doing the job,” Deyn says. “I think that you can’t fake doing the job. All I want to do is deliver. that’s my focus.”
So far, so good. the actress has gotten surprisingly solid reviews for her as-yet small body of work, including her first major film role, Friday’s “Pusher.”
the movie is a remake of the 1996 Danish film from director Nicolas Winding Refn, who also made last year’s “Drive” with Ryan Gosling. the gritty crime drama follows a small-time drug dealer (Richard Coyle) who loses a kilo of coke and must quickly come up with close to $80,000, lest he be killed by a kingpin (Zlatko Buric).
Deyn plays the dealer’s stripper girlfriend; like any good actress, she researched the role thoroughly by spending a few days with a real London pole dancer.
“I wanted to get a lot of reality,” Deyn says. “I’d go in the back and play around with the other girls. they’d teach me moves, teach me how to dance basically.
“Being such a tomboy growing up, that was one thing that changed me as a person, as well,” she adds. “It broadened me, like me cracking myself open in a certain way.”
She admits she’s nervous about changing careers, and her confidence in her acting at times wavers. Doing a London play called “the Leisure Society” earlier this year helped shore her up. In a review, the UK’s Daily Mail said of Deyn, “If she has finished with fashion, the London stage can probably use her.”
“For me, being onstage for an hour and a half, my confidence was really huge for me,” she says. “Doing eight shows a week for a run, I was like, ‘I’m actually doing this.’ And now I feel more confident going into something.”
Next up is “Sunset Song,” a period drama about the daughter of a Scottish farmer that begins shooting in January.
Deyn also has a new husband, actor Giovanni Ribisi, whom she married in June, and a new house in LA. the model had been splitting her time between LA and New York for a while, but last year, made a more permanent move to the West Coast.
She reportedly now lives next door to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Wonder if they know anyone in the movie business?