Take her career to the Banks
Everything’s coming up Elizabeth Banks at the movies this fall.
She’s half the title in the raunchy comedy “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” scheduled to open Oct. 31. She plays Laura Bush in Oliver Stone’s more prestigious, less raunchy “W.,” which opened Friday. And her first big horror picture, “The Uninvited,” is due in January.
“It’s weird to be standing on a street corner in New York City and have the taxi drive by with the sign on top that has your name and face on it,” she says. “Surreal, for sure.”
So those years being labeled “the blond Parker Posey” may be over for Banks, 34.
“Of course, I’m flattered by the comparison,” she says graciously, having done her time in supporting roles on “Scrubs,” in small parts in “The 40-Year Old Virgin,” “Fred Claus” and “Invincible.”
Early reviews are calling her role as a down-and-outer who turns to porn “the heart” (The Hollywood Reporter) of “Zack and Miri.” And she’s earning great notices for her Laura Bush, with Variety’s Todd McCarthy saying her performance “goes a long way toward clarifying the close marital bond” between the president and his wife.
“They’re a good match,” Banks says of the First Couple, which she and Josh Brolin play from courtship during George W . Bush’s drinking years through most of their White House days. “They complement each other. They’re very yin and yang. Not everybody gets together with their equivalent. He makes her laugh, and she gives him class.”
Banks won the Laura role after a short meeting with Stone, the acclaimed director of “Platoon,” “Wall Street,” “JFK” and “Nixon.” Banks thinks she got the job because “he wanted a lightness to her, not some Stepford wife.” To get Laura Bush’s accent, “I kept her in my ear for the whole movie, her interview with Charlie Rose on my iPod, listening to her between scenes.”
“Zack and Miri” is a complete departure, with Banks playing a working class woman whose 10th high school reunion – and the fact that she and her roomie (Seth Rogen) can’t make the rent – causes her to realize she’s made a lot of bad choices. Her next bad choice? Making a porn film, with her roommate and best friend, to raise cash.
“There’s a lot of Miri in me,” Banks says. “She might be my favorite character that I’ve ever played. She’s a lovable loser, just a little lost in life. She’s so lost that she doesn’t realize she’s in love with her best friend. That’s lost. I responded not to the title, which is catchy, yes, but to the romance.”
But the part she “fought for?” That would be the villainous turn in “The Uninvited.”
“Delicious,” she says. “I wanted to show that I could do it. Very ‘Hand That Rocks the Cradle,’ that character (a wife who menaces the teenage daughter of her new husband). You’re not sure of her motives, not sure of her past. She keeps you on your toes.”
The birthday bunch
Actor William Christopher (“M*A*S*H*”) is 76. Musician Tom Petty is 58. Actress Melanie Mayron (“thirtysomething”) is 56. Actor Viggo Mortensen (“Lord of the Rings”) is 50. Drummer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld of Hootie and the Blowfish is 44. Bassist Doug Eldridge of Oleander is 41. Rapper Snoop Dogg is 37. Actress Jennifer Nicole Freeman (“My Wife And Kids”) is 23.