Angourie Rice is moving to centre stage | P572LZN | 2024-02-01 14:08:01
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The new woman
For some time now, Angourie Rice has been on the fringes of stardom, with supporting roles in 'Mare of Easttown' and the 'Spider-Man' films. But as the lead within the new version of iconic ten comedy 'Mean Women,' she's simply moved to centre stage.
Phrases by JANE ALBERT. Images by SIMON EELES. Styling by KARLA CLARKE
WHEN ANGOURIE RICE was within the early years of main faculty in Perth, she and her younger sister, Kalliope, had three DVDs they might watch on high rotation: Excessive Faculty Musical 2, The Sound of Music — and Mean Girls. The women' mother and father each labored in the theatre, so after-school hours have been sometimes spent poring over their moveable DVD participant within the nook of a theatre or tech rehearsal room, watching and re-watching their favorite films. "Mean Women is likely one of the films I know actually, rather well as a result of I watched it so many occasions," Rice says at present. "We owned the DVD and that was uncommon as a result of most of them we borrowed from the DVD store."
That worn-out DVD has definitely proved its value. Fast forward 17-odd years and Rice, now an acclaimed international movie actress, is performing the lead position within the highly anticipated Mean Women remake. An adaptation of the Tony Award-nominated musical based mostly on the unique 2004 movie (sure, that's a mouthful), Imply Women stars Rice as naïve new scholar Cady Heron alongside queen imply woman Regina George (Reneé Rapp, who starred within the Broadway musical), love curiosity Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney) and a forged that includes unique members Tina Fey and Tim Meadows.
Rice continues to be pinching herself for landing the position made well-known by Lindsay Lohan, in a movie that was seminal to her youth. "I get fairly excited by these movies that really feel related to my childhood, like Barbie, so to be in it feels very surreal, particularly once I assume if my life had taken a totally totally different path, and I wasn't an actor, I might be going to the films the day it got here out and seeing it."
Because of the Hollywood strike that prevented actors chatting with the press, it has taken seven long months to connect with Rice. However, finally, here she is, zooming in from her Airbnb in Los Angeles, the place she's been doing long-lead press for Mean Girls. Dressed casually in a pale purple cotton jumper, hair unfastened and make-up free, Rice proves to be articulate, clever and interesting firm, thanking me for my endurance in waiting until the strike was resolved and sending a personal message to my fangirl daughter: "Inform Annie I say hi, I hope she enjoys Mean Women, I feel it's going to be actually enjoyable, really enjoyable," she enthuses.
"All throughout my childhood I beloved being around and watching performers. I'd go house and recite the strains and placed on exhibits for my mother and father and drag my sister into them for dance exhibits and singing exhibits and plays. It was my entire life," says Rice, who's named after a revered browsing seashore in northern New South Wales.
Rice made her display debut aged 11 in Australian Zak Hilditch's brief film Transmission and she or he's never seemed back, happening to carry out alongside Ryan Gosling in The Nice Guys and Nicole Kidman in Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled. Given the tender age at which she started there was never any time — or perhaps want — for formal coaching. And yet, like a bower fowl rigorously watching and choosing up valuable kernels, Rice is regularly observing and studying both appearing expertise and life lessons.
This was definitely the case when capturing Mare of Easttown, an excellent, dark and gritty collection coping with murder, grief and substance abuse. Rice found herself struggling to shake her troubled character Siobhan within the many long hours and days she wasn't required on set. Sensing her unease, Winslet made some extent of supporting her by way of a difficult intimate scene in a automotive the place Siobhan shares her first kiss together with her female love curiosity. As Rice has revealed beforehand, Winslet provided to cover in the automotive boot so she might assist coordinate the scene and information the young Australian, who's the same age as Winslet's daughter.
"What's superb about each Kate Winslet and Jennifer Garner is that they're so prepared to increase kindness and generosity to new or younger individuals within the business and supply safety and steerage that they don't need to, however they need to, because they're variety individuals. It makes such a distinction to me to feel really protected by the lead of the present."
Rice additionally praises Rachel Perkins, who was shadowed by a younger lady taken with turning into a filmmaker when Perkins directed Australian function movie Jasper Jones. "The position of director is so exhausting as a result of individuals all the time want answers from you, but Rachel took the time to information her on set, show her the script, show her a shot record, speak about how she goes about her day as director, as a result of Rachel knew that was necessary. That kindness really caught with me."
Rice makes some extent of in search of out female-led tasks (Reese Witherspoon's feminine narrative-focused production company Howdy Sunshine helmed The Last Factor He Informed Me, which was co-written by Laura Dave and executive-produced by Garner, for example) and it was no totally different together with her current mainstage debut in the MTC's My Sister Jill, written by esteemed local playwright Patricia Cornelius and directed by Susie Dee. Again, it proved a masterclass in learning the craft of stage appearing, given all six fellow actors had been to drama faculty; nevertheless it additionally pressured Rice to confront her intense stage fright.
This yr is a BLANK SLATE as a result of the strike HALTED so many things and I didn't have anything lined up pre-strike. I feel VERY PEACEFUL about it
"I acquired the job in mid-2022 and can be falling asleep at night time then assume, Oh, my God, I have to try this play, and feel bodily sick about it within the months leading up to it," Rice says. "I keep in mind standing backstage earlier than our first preview considering, I don't know if I can do this. I was shaking. I felt sick. I simply felt I couldn't do it. But I did, and I'm so pleased with myself as a result of it felt like such a worry that I received via. And now that it's finished, I'm like, I might by no means do this again." Okay . . . but would she do another stage play or musical? "Yes, absolutely, I really would!" she says, without skipping a beat.
After a number of the darker collection she's been concerned with, Rice enjoyed the lighter material of Imply Women, shot in a New Jersey faculty early final yr. Based mostly on the 2018 Broadway musical, which is because of open in London's West Finish in June, the screenplay was written by Fey (who additionally co-wrote the unique), with music by Fey's husband, Jeff Richmond, and lyrics by Nell Benjamin, who additionally wrote the music and lyrics for the stage manufacturing. Whereas the film has been up to date, with modern references to issues like social media, it stays largely the story of latest woman Cady's makes an attempt to suit into the high-school jungle by pretending to befriend the popular 'Plastics' earlier than trying to deliver them down and falling for the improper man in the meantime.
"Tiny Fey is such a intelligent comedian and comedians are always updating jokes, transforming them to be relevant to young individuals, so it didn't feel unusual to read jokes that had been tailored to incorporate Instagram or Spotify," says Rice. "The high-school cliques and emotions [of the original] are all the identical; the strain of social media is the thing that's changed probably the most."
Rice doesn't feel overwhelmed following in Lohan's footsteps, mentioning it's an actor's job to deliver their very own characterisation to a task. But she does, she says, really feel a huge duty to maintain the character of Cady relatable, funny and sympathetic, as Lohan did. "I feel the strain of eager to satisfy the viewers that already loves Imply Women is the new factor, but the strain of eager to play the character truthfully and honestly stays the same with any position I take on."
Considering the actors' strike introduced the business to a halt for a lot of 2023, Rice considers herself extraordinarily lucky to have been so busy for the period. In addition to My Sister Jill, she and her mum launched their novel, a contemporary take on one in every of Rice's favorite novels, Delight and Prejudice, and she or he's persevering with to host her podcast The Group Library. Launched not lengthy after Rice graduated from high school in a bid to rekindle her love of reading (quashed by the calls for of the Victorian Certificates of Schooling), and inspired by the podcast Witch, Please, which analysed the Harry Potter books by means of a tutorial lens, The Group Library is about stories and the way we inform them.
"It connects me with my group, hopefully makes analysis lots much less intimidating, displaying popular culture — which you may assume frivolous or shallow — is value talking about and taking a deep dive into, because it's all over the place," she says.
A voracious reader, Rice had devoured 56 books throughout 2023 once we spoke in early December, and was juggling another four, together with The Sympathizer by Vietnamese-American professor Viet Thanh Nguyen; Mullumbimby by Melissa Lucashenko (whose previous novel she beloved); All the things I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, for ebook membership; and The Zebra-Striped Hearse by '50s and '60s American- Canadian crime novelist Ross Macdonald, one among her father's favorite authors and someone she reads each time she's in Los Angeles, for his local references. "I monitor my reading," she says, "It's one in every of my favourite things to do, and at the end I get statistics on the pages and genres."
For the first time in a very long time, Rice has nothing booked but for the yr forward, one thing the self-confessed planner is newly snug with. "This yr is a blank slate because the strike halted so many issues and I didn't have something lined up pre-strike. I really feel very peaceable about it," she laughs. Three weeks in Melbourne over Christmas together with her household and whippet-cross-kelpie was a gift – "Christmas in Australia is my favourite" — and she or he's sanguine about whatever the future might hold.
"For a couple of years now, I have finished a job understanding precisely how much day off I have before I start the subsequent, so what's really nice is I don't have that now and have the arrogance and belief that the subsequent undertaking will come, and it is going to be unimaginable. And until then I'll simply take pleasure in summer in Australia."
Imply Women is in cinemas now.
HAIR BY Lok Lau. MAKEUP BY. Ashleigh Carpenter. SET DESIGN BY Natalie Turnbull.
This text initially appeared in the February 2024 challenge of Harper's BAZAAR Australia/New Zealand. Get your copy here.
The publish Angourie Rice is moving to centre stage appeared first on Harper's Bazaar Australia.
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