Nobody is more surprised than Kim Dickens by her sudden rise
to stardom. Sitting in a Los Angeles hotel suite, the beautiful
ex-model is bemused by all the attention. "It all seems so
surreal to me." Since making her film debut in the offbeat
independent film Palookaville in 1996, Dickens has been busy
"doing the whole Hollywood thing", and it's paid off.
This year alone, Dickens is featured in three high profile film
roles, the first of which is Maggie, the mysterious sister who
disappears in Great Expectations. "She was an interesting
challenge, a tough and rough-cut woman with a big heart for the
young Finn."
"I remember just walking the streets of New York as a waitress thinking: why am I doing this?"
Described recently as a modern equivalent of the young Jean
Seberg, the waifish, ["I'm skinny and pale. I got that
screwed-up, skinny-girl look."] Dickens has made a
reputation playing sexually powerful, even daunting characters.
But before those characters would come her way, the Alabama-born
former New York-based model was another struggling actress, who
at times was ready to give it all away. But something stopped
her. "I guess there was something inside of me that said:
keep doing it. Even against my better judgement, because I
remember just walking the streets of New York as a waitress
thinking: why am I doing this? It's so unfeasible, ridiculous and
too hard. But I just kept trying. I didn't want an office
job."
It was the classic 50s film Baby Doll that first inspired a young Dickens to step into those footsteps, so from the small Alabama town in which she was raised, the then 21-year old moved to New York. "That was a horrifying step for me. I didn't know a soul in New York, and spent the first week crying on the payphone in Washington Square Park to my mum. It was scary." Dickens then studied acting intensely before sending
out her headshots. Before that, she dabbled in modelling, and
walked the runway as part of Calvin Klein's 1994 spring
collection. Then appearing in regional theatre, commercials and
music videos, Dickens finally made her film debut as Vincent
Gallo's tomboyish girlfriend in Palookaville (1996). "Once I
had that film and got an agent, I was going on so many auditions
a day. It was a REALLY hard period of my life."
"He keeps to himself a
lot, because people are always trying to get at him with his fame" on Bruce
Willis
Her TV-movie debut came in Voice from the Grave: From the
Files of 'Unsolved Mysteries' (1996), and her second film, Kiefer
Sutherland's feature directorial debut Truth or Consequences,
N.M. (1997), once again placed her alongside Gallo. Mercury
Rising, one of the first Hollywood biggies of the year, offers
her as the female lead amidst heavyweights Bruce Willis and Alec
Baldwin. In this man-on-the-run action flick, Dickens has already
received strong reviews for her portrayal of a young woman who
befriends the renegade FBI agent, and an autistic child whom he
is trying to help. "She's a good-hearted girl from the
Midwest whose dreams of coming to the big city aren't really
working out for her," explains Dickens. "Art blows into
her life and she has to make a split second decision whether to
trust him." She describes Mercury Rising as her first
"really big Hollywood movie, the biggest kind of big. It was
exciting to do, if not a bit intimidating." Working with two
such heavyweights was an enjoyable experience, Dickens recalls.
"Bruce is very good at that type of movie; that's his thing.
He's also very serious, and keeps to himself a lot, because
people are always trying to get at him with his fame."
"It was
such a complex part." on Zero Effect
Following that film's release, is her favourite of the current
pack, due for release in September, playing a tremulous,
revenge-seeking daughter in Jake Kasdan's directorial debut, Zero
Effect, an off-the-wall private eye comedy/thriller in which she
stars opposite Bill Pullman. As with Mercury Rising, it was the
female lead. "It was incredibly exciting getting that,
especially after the countless auditions I had to go
through." It remains, she says, her biggest challenge thus
far. "That was such a daunting character to play, because
there are so many things going on there; it was such a complex
part." In Zero Effect, she plays Gloria, a mysterious young
woman with a tough past, out to wreak revenge on sinister
millionaire Ryan O'Neal, in the classically structured private
eye yarn. "I did instinctively respond to her depth of
emotion, but found her own experiences hard to relate to."
With three films out to showcase her talents, Dickens says
she'll continue to search for the good roles, not work for the
sake of working. "At this point, I'm going to try not to do
something that I'm not really inspired by. I've not been in a
position to turn down jobs so far, but I guess I've been lucky
with the parts I've played and I'd like to maintain that."
