Jessica Biel Interview , The Illusionist

"The Illusionist," written and directed by Neil Burger based on the short story, "Eisenheim the Illusionist," by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steven Millhauser, stars Edward Norton as the mysterious stage magician, Eisenheim, and Paul Giamatti as Vienna’s shrewd Chief Inspector Uhl, two men pitted against each other in a battle of wits. Jessica Biel plays the beautiful, enigmatic Duchess Sophie von Teschen, engaged to Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell), whose future is inexorably altered when she encounters Eisenheim. The film, shot on location in Prague, is an entertaining thriller that combines romance, politics and magic to create a world where it’s hard to tell where reality ends and illusion begins.

Biel was the last leading member of the cast to join and admits the role of Sophie is "so very different from anything I have done before or anything I have ever had the opportunity of doing." Her co-star, Edward Norton, shares, "She came into the process really late, and stepped up to that challenge admirably. She is an incredibly hard worker and really put in the hours with the dialect coaches. Jessica also looks very much of that period – you can see her as a country girl or as a Slavic princess. When I first saw her dressed as Sophie, she looked like she had stepped out of an old painting. She didn’t look like a modern girl at all."

Biel welcomed the role departure that Sophie represented, and went after the part with zeal: "One day, out of the blue, I was asked to audition, and soon I found myself reading with Edward and it was a bit of a whirlwind actually! Suddenly, I found myself in Prague…it was all last-minute and very, very exciting."

"Playing someone like Sophie is completely new for me," Biel continues. "She is very different, very fresh, and I felt like every day I was discovering a little bit more about her. Neil urged me to read Alma Mahler’s diaries – a composer herself, she was a young woman in her twenties in 1900 in Vienna. I read her diaries to really get a sense of what it was like to exist at that time; what women thought about and what in particular this woman thought about. She was very modern and very different from most of the women from that time. That is how I think of Sophie, in a way. She is a modern woman stuck in the past."

So determined was Biel to inhabit her challenging new role that she also immersed herself in books such as "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and films like "Amadeus" and "Age of Innocence." She even went so far as to keep a journal as her character, Sophie, to achieve what she called, "the calm, still layer on the surface and a bubbling brook of emotion underneath. That is how it felt like for me to try and be a woman who lived during this time in history."

Ms. Biel recently sat down with me to discuss what it was like playing Sophie in the "The Illusionist." Sporting a dark blouse, a light colored skirt, and attractive gold hoop earrings that framed her face, Biel appeared relaxed and eager to talk to Movies Online about her new film. Here’s what she had to say:

Q: How are you feeling?

JB: Hey, I feel great!

Q: It must be kind of a romantic dream playing a European Duchess in a European country that dresses like Romy Schneider?

JB: It is. It was. It was fabulous. It was just so much fun. I mean I dressed up like a princess every day. And that wasn’t necessarily a goal for me as a little girl. I wasn’t necessarily princess crazy, but as an adult, it was just so fun and lovely and living in Prague for a couple months was … If I didn’t ever have to come home, I wouldn’t have. I would have stayed forever.

Q: But if it wasn’t the princess, what drew you to the character in the first place?

JB: I was really interested in this woman who in my opinion was stuck…this modern woman stuck in 1900…but I felt she could have easily been me just put back in a time where I was restricted by so many things…society’s restrictions and family and everything that you … all the stuff that you have to not do and not say and everything. I was intrigued with bringing that person to life. I also had only done modern characters who were very expressive and talk with their hands and this and that. With her, she’s just bubbling under the surface at every moment. There’s so much going on, but everything is placid and perfect up here [gestures towards her head] …so I was really interested in working with those elements as well as an accent which I had never done before and dressing up and really creating a person and really stepping into the shoes of someone that I really had no idea or I had no previous experience ….

Q: Having never done it before, was it easier or harder than you thought it would be?

JB: I think that it was probably harder than I thought. I definitely didn’t expect it to be easy. But I put a lot of pressure on myself to get the accent really right and that was a constant worry and challenge every day. So that was my main thing and creating a relationship and a love between two people in a very short amount of time that never really could express itself until one moment. And it was a challenge. It was a big challenge every day.

Q: What about being the only main female in the cast? Was that a little daunting?

JB: Well, maybe a little bit, a little intimidating on the first few days but it’s fun. It’s really fun to be the one female around. I mean this is a bit of a boy’s club. All of those guys kind of went to school together, and I’m a little bit younger than them, and they’re all about the same age, and they knew each other before, but they were cool. They treated me really well and kind of brought me into the inner circle. It was fun.

Q: So no catering? You didn’t get the special treatment?

JB: No, definitely not. (laughter) I was just treated as one of the guys which is how I would prefer it anyway.

Q: Being a movie about magic, what magic tricks did you learn, if any?

JB: I didn’t learn any magic tricks. Edward (Norton) learned everything. I didn’t really get to spend much time with the advising magician either. I just sort of sat back and watched him learn all of his sleight of hands and everything. He was really good too.

Q: How was the audition process? I heard a story that you came in your costume. What was that like when you first auditioned for the role?

JB: It was really last minute and kind of chaotic. The person who was supposed to be playing the role…I don’t know who that was or what happened, but there was an opening and literally at 6 PM one night I got a frantic call from my agent who said, ‘Can you do this audition tomorrow? Can you have an accent and can you be great?’ (laughter)

Q: Wow! No pressure. (laughter)

JB: I can do it! (laughter) So I went in and I read with the casting director and we worked it through, and she took the tape and sent it to Neil who was already in Prague. This was like two weeks before they were going to shoot, and he liked it, and Edward hadn’t left yet and so they brought me back the next day to read with Edward. And I just thought, ‘You know, I’ve got nothing to lose. I’ve got one opportunity. I’m going to go for it.’ So I bought this crazy outfit, fully decked from head to toe. I looked like some crazy person, you know, walking down the street and it worked. I thought either I’m going to be totally laughed at or they’re going to love it. One or the other. And I guess…I have no inhibitions at this moment and I put it out there and I walked in and I think there was a little shock at first like, [whispers] ‘Oh God, No!’ (laughter) And then Michael London (the film’s Producer) said, "Oh, thank god, well at least we have one costume out of the way!’ (laughter) And he put me at ease. ‘Ah, you love it. OK!’ And I had a good audition. And then they sent it back to Neil and I waited for four days to get this, to know ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ It was ‘yes" and the next day I had to leave for Prague. Wow!