Rhona Mitra Comic Con Interview

As you all know I am sure at comic con we were running out butts off doing interviews and as promised here is our complete interview with the lovely and talented Rhona Mitra from Comic Con. We talked with her about Underworld 3, what got her into acting and her stint as the REAL Laura Croft from Tomb Raider.

Her new film Underworld 3 is a prequel story that traces the origins of the centuries old blood feud between the aristocratic vampires known as Death Dealers and their onetime slaves, the Lycans. In the Dark Ages, a young Lycan named Lucian  emerges as a powerful leader who rallies the werewolves to rise up against Viktor the cruel vampire king who has enslaved them. Lucian is joined by his secret lover, Sonja, in his battle against the Death Dealer army and his struggle for Lycan freedom.

How does it feel to be a part of this film?

A: Well it felt then and it feels now...it's the oddest thing because automatically I think I was probably thinking what a lot of the fans were thinking. I think people, one, weren't expecting it first of all to be a prequel. They were thinking that it was just going to be a continuation which was like "Oh God, really!" And exactly like you just said, Sonja is going to be taking on the role of Kate Beckinsale. That's suicide. And it's not. I went in and spoke with the creators and Patrick who was our director and they explained to me that it was going back into the Twelfth century.

We have these two amazing actors being Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen who are still not only very much there but at the helm of it and who have incredible gravitas and are phenomenal at what they do. The meld of taking this vampire world and this werewolf world and putting it in the Twelfth century and just seeing how that's going to play out with a man like Patrick at the helm who's such a visual genius, it's all really quite exciting and it was all really exciting from the very beginning when initially I was like, "Oooh, this sounds really scary and weird and awful." And then when they explained it all to me it just seemed like a....

What attracts you to these fantasy worlds? You did Doomsday and now you're doing Underworld. What's the fascination in it for you?

A: I think it is maybe for some reason I wish I could say that I would be out there fishing for it and I go and find it, but it seems to come to me so maybe you might ask the people in power why they come to me. I get presented with the opportunity and for the most part there's a lot of play involved. It's a lot of really fun, amazing play which I don't think anyone would get the opportunity to do otherwise. I have a huge sense of that and who I am and it's why I got involved in this job to begin with. To get the opportunity to do reverse 180 hand brake turns in a Bentley and learn how to wrestle and head butt and sword fight and, you know, horse ride with fangs in and eyes in and get paid for it. Look, it's either your cup of tea or it's not. It's a big cup of tea for me, a pot. I love it. I love all of it. And you know then on top of it I get to... you know it seems that my film work has been very much about that and then television stuff I get to maybe go and work with really great writers, whether it's David Kelley or Ryan Murphy on Nip/Tuck. You know I get a lovely balance. It's just the features I do and the characters that seem to come to me happen to be quite physical and there's always a term that comes up, and it's not out of my language or vocabulary, but it's just badass. And then when I say it, it's [English accent] bad ass. So it's like "So why do you choose these badass characters?" And I'm like, "Well I don't really, they pick me."
 
How did you train and prepare physically for this role?

A: Well for Doomsday I had done intensive training for that and I'm already very athletic anyway. Thank goodness I am already very athletic and I do a lot of horse riding and rock climbing and all that stuff anyway. So I'm already in that way disposed. But Doomsday really prepared me for this. I could pretty much put on my corset and my fangs and my eyes and slip into this one pretty easily and the only thing I had to think about was sort of like how I maneuver everything with the corset and the fangs and the eyes because that impairs your visibility and your function. Otherwise I think my training...I had two months in South Africa for Doomsday beforehand...just me by myself with stuntmen going for it so I can kick some ass.
 
Where did you shoot?
 
A: We did this one in New Zealand, in Auckland. We finished in March.
 
How was it shooting there?
 
A: Amazing. Beautiful. It's beautiful country. Beautiful country, amazing crew. It was wonderful.
 
The costumes in the first film were very iconic. Should we expect something similar along those lines?
 
A: Yeah, interesting, it was a big, heavy conversation, that one and it was one that I got really involved in exactly for the reason that you presented because the first one was so iconic and it presented so much without even having to say anything, and when you saw Kate in that costume you're like "Okay, that's just iconic." Iconic, exactly that.

So we actually ended up getting the same woman who designed the first costume, Wendy Partridge, who can work her way around leather and corsets and rubber like nobody else and it is a very specific art. And I think what we did, because obviously it's not futuristic, we couldn't use any of the latex and the shiny, wonderful, spanky stuff so we took it back and we used all natural materials but you can definitely see the common thread and where this Selene character and the Sonja character are actually connected just so the audience feels there's kind of like an 'at homeness' to it all like "Oh, it's there!" But it's entirely different.

I mean I have to say even though yes, I am wearing it, I will absolutely never in my life wear such a radically phenomenal, sexy outfit in my life. And I was pedantic about not wanting to show any flesh in the costume. You know, everything is covered up here. It's chain male, corsets, leather. It's kind of like Joan of Arc meets the Selene characters I suppose. Yeah, it's really cool.
 
Does that type of costume interfere with your physicality as an actor?
 
A: Yes, and on top of it which I failed to mention, there's an armor that's built because Sonja is a horsewoman and a swordswoman so when she goes out as a death dealer which she is as well, she has to wear this armor on top of all the corset and that's made with real armor so there's nothing pretend. All of the problems that would be involved with real armor and everything which is good because it gives you a sense of what that feels like. It's heavy.
 
Can you tell us where were you born and when you decided to become an actress?
 
A: I was born in London. I'm not actually English. I'm only part English. My mother is Irish. My father is Indian and English. And I actually went to Judi Dench's drama school when I was 17 and it just came sort of quite organically really that I wanted to go into the performing arts and I wasn't sure exactly how it would work out but I was so tenacious about it that I left drama school after a year and knocked on an agent's door because I wanted to work so much. And I've been fortunate that I actually haven't stopped really working and I started when I was in London.

I did a play and I did some small things and I got taken over to America when I was 23 and got offered a role in a TV show called Party of Five and actually since then it's just snowballed. It's interesting, even though I don't happen to have an incredibly large persona or anything like that, my work hasn't stopped. I'm always on the pitch. I always get to play, I always get to work with really great writers and sometimes a smaller part in a big film whether it's in The Life of David Gale with Alan Parker and Kevin Spacey or even Party of Five, a huge show. It's been running for 8 years and I get to jump in in the last season and learn from all these really amazing people. Gideon's Crossing was an amazing show which I did for a year.
 
Do you still live in London?
 
A: I live in London but I have a base in Los Angeles and really I end up going back to Los Angeles a lot because that's where I did Boston Legal for two years. I did Nip/Tuck for a season and then you go wherever your location is -- whether it's New Zealand or Cape Town for 7 months for Doomsday.
 
And you did Laura Croft for a while, right?
 
A: When I was 19, I think, I was hired to be the real life representation of Laura Croft. Yes. They motion captured me.
 
If they restart that franchise, would you be up for resuming that role again?
 
A: For me to be involved with that? Oh no. No, no, no. I think I might have gotten the best of it because I think the minute it was made into a movie, it's like anything, it's like Lord of the Rings. You either really get it absolutely right or you don't. And I got to play, and not really have to solidify anything, other than just be there at the stage where it was a new birth. No one knew what they were dealing with at all. No one knew the magnitude of this creature and it was an iconic, pixillated character and it was really good fun because there were no boundaries and it was just a laugh really.

And then this thing that was kind of a giggle turned into this catastrophic success and in her becoming iconic. The profile that went with that kind of somehow got muddied with mine and then people got confused really as to whether or not I was her or not. There was really an association with that that ran for quite -- I mean it's still running. We're still here talking about it and we're in the mothership of that.
 
What sort of action and weaponry can we expect in the movie with the costumes and the style where vampires fight one way and the Lycans fight the other way? How's that being treated?
 
A: Well it's just I suppose a bit more raw. The wolves are as wolves would fight but it's incredibly physical and amplified I suppose. Instead of guns we have swords. It's quite beautiful really. There are horses as well and you have these real live organic matter so it takes away a lot of the...it's still very slick but it just makes it a lot more raw.
 
Vampires are elegant anyway so a vampire on a horse with a sword...?
 
A: I mean I actually get excited about just the idea of seeing it. Did you watch the trailer? It's really cool. Yeah, you can get excited about it and go "Yeah, that looks kind of great." But this looks really, really... It's just so many different elements come together and the quality of it and the way it all blends and melds and it works.

At no point does anything kind of not work together and you don't think of like vampires and werewolves. First of all, there are vampires and werewolves anyway. That combination with the Lycans was already kind of a bit of a stretch. How's that going to work? And then you add all these other organic elements into it and it's just incredibly delicious to watch.
 
Can we expect a supernatural creature of any other sort to appear in the film?
 
A: No, not that you ever see, and it gets destroyed before it has a chance.
 
Does the movie have any sort of a cliffhanger or is it pretty much self-sustained?
 
A: Yeah, it does.
 
So you'll be back for another one if you don't die in this one?
 
A: I don't think so. I'm not the cliffhanger. The only cliffhanger I'm involved in is one of a sexual nature and we'll leave it at that. That's how vampires and Lycans mate.