Forget Lindsay – Rachel’s flying pretty high in ‘Red Eye’
“Mean Girls” may have been the coming out party for Lindsay Lohan, but considering Rachel McAdams’ red-hot career, some revisionist history is in order.
McAdams, who portrayed the head of The Plastics (the hot girl high school clique) in the 2004 film, has emerged as 2005’s most talked-about young actress.
The 28-year-old Canadian has been on the rise since the romantic film “The Notebook” last summer, winning the MTV Movie Award for breakthrough female performance earlier this year.
McAdams was Owen Wilson’s love interest in the recent hit comedy “Wedding Crashers.” In the new Wes Craven thriller “Red Eye,” she plays a woman held hostage on an airplane by Cillian Murphy, a rising star himself after “28 Days Later.”
And come fall, she’ll appear in “The Family Stone” with an ensemble cast including Diane Lane and Luke Wilson.
Q. Do you feel like the spotlight on you is getting brighter?
A. Well, I did the promotion for “Wedding Crashers” and now for “Red Eye” and soon I’m going into promoting “The Family Stone” – I guess I’m realizing that if you film for half a year, you’re going to do press for half a year.
Q. Are you caught off-guard by the quickness of it?
A. It feels very new. There’s no training for this life. I think Toronto (where she lives now) helps keep me grounded. I try to do other things when I’m not working.
Q. Like what?
A. I don’t do a lot; I’m pretty domesticated. I’ve started doing some gardening, but mostly it’s just spending time with friends and family.
Q. You’ve said you like to “physicalize” your performances – that being in motion makes you forget yourself. But in “Red Eye” you’re stuck in an airplane seat for much of the movie.
A. That was what I was so drawn to – being in a confined kind of space and still have it dramatic. I just wanted to play with the idea that if you think it, the camera will see it. The evolution that happens in her life, I wanted to be able to express that without a lot of dialogue. … And I knew I would have that payoff at the end where I could take off and be in motion.
Q. Were you claustrophobic shooting in a fake airplane all day?
A. Yeah, it was incredibly claustrophobic. … I was literally stuck on the plane for 12 hours every day. And the cameras are really close to your face and Cillian is in really close proximity to me and I can’t get away.
Q. What kind of scripts are you getting now? Do you notice any kind of theme?
A. There seems to be an overall theme to female roles in Hollywood: a lot of obvious parts like the wife, or the girlfriend. I’m trying to get away from that, which is why I loved Amy Stone (her character in “The Family Stone”). It’s a small part, a supporting role, but it’s so rich, not a typical character.
Q. Is there an actor or actress whose career you’d like to emulate?
A. There are so many women that I admire and have learned so much from them – watching them work and the choices that they make. I guess I want to carve out my own path. But I lo-v-v-v-e Elizabeth Taylor.
The birthday bunch
Actress Valerie Harper is 65. Actress Cindy Williams (“Laverne & Shirley”) is 58. Singer Tori Amos is 42. Rapper GZA (Wu-Tang Clan) is 39. Rapper Beenie Man is 32. Singer Howie Dorough (Backstreet Boys) is 32. Actress Jenna Leigh Green (“Sabrina the Teenage Witch”) is 31.