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Interview: Jessica Biel

Interview: Jessica Biel
Hun Lee  |  by movies.ign.com. All rights reserved. 16.07 | 23:24

April 25, 2007 - IGN got the chance to speak with Jessica Biel last year on the San Pedro set of Next, a science-fiction thriller starring Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore that opens Friday. The Lee Tamahori-directed pic -- based on the Philip K. Dick story The Golden Man -- follows Cris Johnson (Cage), a man with the unique ability to see future events and affect their outcome.

Relentlessly pursued by FBI agent Callie Ferris (Moore), who is seeking to use his abilities to prevent a global terrorist threat, he is ultimately faced with the daunting choice of saving his beloved Liz (Biel) or saving the world. Q: So do you actually get to play the girl in this? Or do you get to kick butt again this time around?

Jessica Biel: No, I'm playing more of the girl in this. I wouldn't necessarily like to call her a damsel in distress, but you know, she's just sort of a normal person getting swept up into this wild adventure. Not really having a clue what's going on and it really has nothing to do with her except this man is looking at her and then he finds her and it kind of blows up in her face.

Q: Is that what attracted you to the role? Biel: Well, I think number one was to work with Nick and Julianne, and with Lee. That was like the number one thing.

Anything that this group of people are doing, you want to be involved in. And yeah, it was..

. I definitely wanted to do something that wasn't necessarily as tough and as hard core as what I sort of had been doing in the past. So yeah, being the girl, being, I guess you could call it the damsel, a little bit different for me and fun and good and challenging.

You know, I'm trying to always keep it switched up and not do the same thing over and over again. Q: For a film like Blade: Trinity where you had to be very physical in the role, did you have to forget all that stuff to play this person, or is it just sort of natural? Biel: Yeah, well, yeah.

I mean I didn't have to work out, I didn't have to learn any special skills or anything like that. I just had to be a normal person who's a school teacher, this is what I know, I have a simple life. And now I'm running from the cops and the feds and this guy's saying he can see in the future and it's just I have to just really realistically play a woman who's just getting all this new information and being thrown into this really terrifying situation.

So yeah, I'm trying...

I guess I'm trying not to run really cool. Like ahhh! And I can't really, I don't get to beat anybody up, but I've been telling Lee, "Put in some sort of.

.. give me some more action.

" I got to roll out of the car once. Yay. Q: Is this one of the tougher things you've had to do?

Biel: Well, it's tougher because I think I...

I would naturally rather be dodging logs and elbowing people and punching people. I just think that's really fun, I find that fun. It was cool to do that in Blade and it was cool to be really physical in Stealth.

So I guess it's a little bit harder for me to be a little bit more feminine and to be a little bit softer, but it's fun. [Nic]'s got to work a lot more, he's got all the pressure on him. I just come and I do my stuff and I get out of here.

It's a little both ways.

Click for more hot images of Jessica Biel in Next.

--- end image div --> Q: How long did your character and Nic Cage's character know each other or been involved with each other before all the trouble ensues? Biel: Not very long. We meet and maybe two days later we have this kind of wild, whirlwind romance.

I meet him in this diner and I'm giving him a ride somewhere and the road's blocked, so we end up having to spend the night in this weird motel and I make him sleep in the car, and all this stuff goes on. But he's really charming and I'm starting to fall in love with him really quickly, but literally two days after we're with each other, I get stopped by Julianne and she says this guy's crazy. Be prepared, we need you to do this, and then he tells me everything and we go on the run, basically.

So it's fast. Really fast. Q: What is it about his character that makes your character fall in love with him so fast?

Does he have a quirky sense of humor? Is there an innocent quality to him? Biel: He's definitely quirky.

He's got this kind of eccentric, wild personality but he's really like a sweet, tender person. He's very open, and I think definitely there's a sense of innocence there where he kind of puts it out there. Like I believe in destiny, you know, I'm your future.

It's just like what are you talking about, but he's kind of like, "This is it, man. This is who I am." And he's charming and he's kind of odd and he doesn't really push anything on her and I think it's just one of those natural things.

I think also because he's precogged her, that's the woman for him anyway, so all they had to do was meet each other and their personalities are just going to gel. And that's what happens. They instantly have a nice connection, a good, nice discourse.

They're just talking and connecting from the second he gets in her car after he gets beat up. Q: Can you talk about working with Nic? Biel: It's been amazing.

It's been so much fun really. He is very similar to the character because he's very..

. he's very kind of eccentric and cool, and he's always got these wild stories and he's a total goof ball, which I didn't really expect. I didn't expect him to be so fun and silly and he really is that way.

I mean, he's very serious about his work, and he's very...

can be very intense when we're working, but he's improvising all the time and just making it fun. I think that's what it's been we have this nice connection because we're just playing around. We're having a really, really good time.

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Keywords: Jessica Biel, So Yeah, Biel Well
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