BAZ BAMIGBOYE: Watching myself is murder, says Cara
A natural: Cara Delevingne says acting is her passion but can't face watching herself back on big screen
Cara Delevingne covered her eyes when she watched her new film. She’s super critical about her acting. ‘It freaks me out, watching myself. I sit there going: “Oh, God . . . I should have done this, or that.”’
When we spoke in New York on Wednesday, I told her she shouldn’t be so tough on herself because she possesses that rare ability to appear natural on screen.
In Michael Winterbottom’s film The Face Of An Angel, model and It-girl Cara plays Melanie, a British student studying in Italy who makes ends meet by mixing cocktails in a Siena bar.
Melanie befriends troubled film-maker Thomas — played superbly by Daniel Bruhl — who hooks up with a journalist (a powerful performance from Kate Beckinsale) to make a film about a student who has been brutally murdered.
The movie has garnered much controversy, even though only a handful of people — including me — have seen it, because some assume that it’s about the real-life murder of British student Meredith Kercher. There was even ill-informed chatter that Cara was portraying Kercher, which is not the case (although the film is dedicated to Meredith’s memory).
Winterbottom fictionalises aspects of the Kercher case, and uses them as a springboard to explore how truth can be lost when the media jumps on a huge international story.
I was on set in Siena and watched Cara shoot some of her scenes and was struck by her dedication — which seemed completely out of keeping with the party-girl moniker she has been branded with. ‘You can work, and then have fun once the work is done,’ she noted.
The Face Of An Angel will be shown at the Toronto International Film Festival and Cara will be in attendance with fellow cast members.
BFI London Film Festival director Clare Stewart has also selected it for the LFF. It will be shown at the Odeon, West End on October 18 and 19.
It marks the best performance Cara has given so far, and she credits Winterbottom for guiding her. ‘Michael’s fantastic. He lets the camera roll and he wants you to be very free and secure. More importantly, he’s so good at questioning what’s going through your head.’
There were also a few of what I like to call ‘Judi Dench moments’ on set, where there was naughty laughter.
Cara had to do a dream sequence in which she eats a beating heart. ‘I wanted it to be a real heart, in the weirdest way . . . you know, a pig’s heart,’ she told me.
‘But instead, it was made of icing and red sauce. Every time Daniel walked in, he kept laughing, which affected me — and everyone else.’
We were speaking this time in Manhattan, where Cara was combining the last of her summer break with some work meetings for projects she wasn’t at liberty to discuss. I asked if, by any chance, one of them might be a film musical, in which she sings Beach Boys songs (there have been rumours linking her with the project, tentatively titled All Summer Long). But she wasn’t allowed to say.
Was she having any singing lessons?
‘I was in the choir at school, but I’ve never had any formal singing lessons,’ she said. ‘I sing all the time, though.’
Controversial: Daniel Bruhl and Cara in a scene from Face Of An Angel, written by Michael Winterbottom
I know this to be true, because I heard her sing a couple of Beyoncé songs when I was in Siena.
Whatever is happening on the singing front, Cara’s acting career is gathering steam. I saw her on the set of Justin Chadwick’s extremely lively film version of Deborah Moggach’s novel Tulip Fever. In the picture — starring Alicia Vikander, Dane DeHaan and Christoph Waltz — Cara plays an artist’s model who becomes interested in the market for tulip bulbs.
She followed Tulip Fever with the part of a mermaid in Pan, Joe Wright’s new interpretation of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, though there wasn’t any actual water involved.
‘It was all green-screen work,’ she said. ‘It was quite strenuous because I had to do all the movements, mechanical arms and so on, pretending I was underwater.
‘I am all of the mermaids, which is a pretty awesome feat. They just multiply me, over and over. At one point there are 30 of me, all splashing about.’
She sees her acting and modelling careers as separate entities. ‘The fact that I can do them both is a blessing. I hope I can pursue acting more, because that’s my passion.
‘I love modelling, but it’s a funny thing to try to be passionate about, because it’s quite a crazy job. I always thought modelling would make it hard for me to act, but it hasn’t.’
In a way, modelling has allowed Cara to learn her acting craft, film by film.
She can afford to go up for small parts with exciting directors. And she’s only just beginning.
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