Angourie Rice is moving to centre stage | 1O9RXNS | 2024-02-02 14:08:01
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The brand 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' movies. However because the lead within the new model of iconic ten comedy 'Imply Women,' she's simply moved to centre stage.
Phrases by JANE ALBERT. Images by SIMON EELES. Styling by KARLA CLARKE
WHEN ANGOURIE RICE was in the early years of main faculty in Perth, she and her youthful sister, Kalliope, had three DVDs they might watch on high rotation: High Faculty Musical 2, The Sound of Music — and Mean Girls. The women' mother and father each worked in the theatre, so after-school hours have been sometimes spent poring over their moveable DVD player within the corner of a theatre or tech rehearsal room, watching and re-watching their favorite films. "Mean Women is among the films I know really, rather well because I watched it so many occasions," Rice says as we speak. "We owned the DVD and that was rare because 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 worldwide movie actress, is performing the lead position within the extremely anticipated Mean Women remake. An adaptation of the Tony Award-nominated musical based mostly on the unique 2004 movie (yes, that's a mouthful), Mean Women stars Rice as naïve new scholar Cady Heron alongside queen mean woman Regina George (Reneé Rapp, who starred within the Broadway musical), love interest Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney) and a forged that includes unique members Tina Fey and Tim Meadows.
Rice continues to be pinching herself for touchdown the position made well-known by Lindsay Lohan, in a movie that was seminal to her youth. "I get quite excited by these movies that feel related to my childhood, like Barbie, so to be in it feels very surreal, especially 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 came 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, lastly, right here she is, zooming in from her Airbnb in Los Angeles, where 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, intelligent and interesting firm, thanking me for my endurance in waiting until the strike was resolved and sending a private message to my fangirl daughter: "Tell Annie I say hello, I hope she enjoys Mean Women, I feel it's going to be actually enjoyable, actually fun," she enthuses.
"All throughout my childhood I beloved being round and watching performers. I'd go residence 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 performs. It was my entire life," says Rice, who's named after a revered surfing 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 by no means seemed back, happening to perform alongside Ryan Gosling in The Good Guys and Nicole Kidman in Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled. Given the tender age at which she started there was by no means any time — or maybe want — for formal coaching. And yet, like a bower hen rigorously watching and choosing up valuable kernels, Rice is regularly observing and learning each appearing expertise and life lessons.
This was definitely the case when capturing Mare of Easttown, an excellent, darkish and gritty collection coping with homicide, grief and substance abuse. Rice discovered 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 means of a difficult intimate scene in a automotive the place Siobhan shares her first kiss together with her feminine love interest. As Rice has revealed previously, Winslet provided to hide in the automotive boot so she might help coordinate the scene and guide the young Australian, who's the same age as Winslet's daughter.
"What's superb about each Kate Winslet and Jennifer Garner is they're so prepared to increase kindness and generosity to new or youthful individuals within the business and supply safety and steerage that they don't need to, but 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 also praises Rachel Perkins, who was shadowed by a younger lady concerned 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 need answers from you, but Rachel took the time to information her on set, present her the script, present her a shot listing, speak about how she goes about her day as director, because Rachel knew that was essential. 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 firm Hiya Sunshine helmed The Final Factor He Advised Me, which was co-written by Laura Dave and executive-produced by Garner, for instance) and it was no totally different together with her current mainstage debut within the MTC's My Sister Jill, written by esteemed local playwright Patricia Cornelius and directed by Susie Dee. Again, it proved a masterclass in studying the craft of stage appearing, given all six fellow actors had been to drama faculty; however 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 something lined up pre-strike. I really 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've to try this play, and really feel bodily sick about it in 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 that. I used to be shaking. I felt sick. I simply felt I couldn't do it. However I did, and I'm so pleased with myself as a result of it felt like such a worry that I acquired via. And now that it's carried out, I'm like, I might never do this once more." Okay . . . however would she do another stage play or musical? "Yes, absolutely, I actually would!" she says, without skipping a beat.
After a number of the darker collection she's been involved with, Rice loved the lighter material of Mean Women, shot in a New Jersey faculty early last yr. Based mostly on the 2018 Broadway musical, which is due to open in London's West End in June, the screenplay was written by Fey (who also 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 updated, with modern references to things like social media, it remains 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 fallacious guy in the meantime.
"Tiny Fey is such a clever comic and comedians are always updating jokes, transforming them to be related to young individuals, so it didn't feel strange to learn jokes that had been adapted to include Instagram or Spotify," says Rice. "The high-school cliques and feelings [of the original] are all the identical; the strain of social media is the factor that's modified 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, feel an enormous duty to maintain the character of Cady relatable, funny and sympathetic, as Lohan did. "I feel the strain of eager to satisfy the audience that already loves Imply Women is the brand new factor, however the strain of eager to play the character truthfully and honestly stays the identical with any position I take on."
Considering the actors' strike brought the business to a halt for much of 2023, Rice considers herself extraordinarily fortunate 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 certainly one of Rice's favorite novels, Satisfaction and Prejudice, and she or he's continuing to host her podcast The Group Library. Launched not long after Rice graduated from high school in a bid to rekindle her love of studying (quashed by the demands of the Victorian Certificates of Schooling), and impressed by the podcast Witch, Please, which analysed the Harry Potter books via a tutorial lens, The Group Library is about stories and the way we tell them.
"It connects me with my group, hopefully makes evaluation so much much less intimidating, displaying pop culture — which you may assume frivolous or shallow — is value speaking about and taking a deep dive into, because it's in all places," she says.
A voracious reader, Rice had devoured 56 books throughout 2023 once we spoke in early December, and was juggling one other 4, including The Sympathizer by Vietnamese-American professor Viet Thanh Nguyen; Mullumbimby by Melissa Lucashenko (whose previous novel she beloved); Every thing I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, for guide club; and The Zebra-Striped Hearse by '50s and '60s American- Canadian crime novelist Ross Macdonald, certainly one of her father's favourite authors and somebody she reads each time she's in Los Angeles, for his native references. "I monitor my reading," she says, "It's one among my favourite issues to do, and at the end I get statistics on the pages and genres."
For the first time in a long time, Rice has nothing booked yet for the yr forward, one thing the self-confessed planner is newly snug with. "This yr is a clean slate because the strike halted so many issues and I didn't have anything lined up pre-strike. I really feel very peaceful about it," she laughs. Three weeks in Melbourne over Christmas together with her family and whippet-cross-kelpie was a present – "Christmas in Australia is my favourite" — and she or he's sanguine about regardless of the future might hold.
"For a few years now, I have finished a job figuring out exactly how much day without work I have before I begin the subsequent, so what's really nice is I don't have that now and have the arrogance and belief that the subsequent venture will come, and will probably be unimaginable. And till then I'll just take pleasure in summer in Australia."
Mean Women is in cinemas now.
HAIR BY Lok Lau. MAKEUP BY. Ashleigh Carpenter. SET DESIGN BY Natalie Turnbull.
This article originally appeared within the February 2024 situation 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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