Michelle Pfeiffer is a
Golden Globe Award winner and three time Academy Award nominee who over the
last three decades has captivated film audiences with her stunning beauty and
compelling performances.
Most recently, Pfeiffer was seen
in Dark Shadows, a film that reunited
her with Tim Burton for a big-screen take on the gothic vampire series from the
1960s. She also appeared in Alex Kurtzman‟s drama People like Us, opposite Chris Pine, Olivia Wilde and Elizabeth
Banks, and Garry Marshall‟s romantic comedy New
Year’s Eve, alongside Robert De Niro, Hilary Swank, Sarah Jessica Parker
and Ashton Kutcher.
This year
she is starring opposite Robert De Niro in the film "The Family," Pfeiffer
plays the wife of De Niro, who plays a Brooklyn mobster. Their family has been
forced to move to Normandy, France, under the witness protection program.
“Michelle Pfeiffer was Luc‟s first choice to play Maggie Blake. She agreed to do the film very quickly because the story is so appealing and so was the idea of working with Luc and Robert.”
Although
De Niro and Pfeiffer both starred in the films Stardust
and New Year’s Eve, they had
never actually appeared in a scene together. Still, De Niro says he felt very
comfortable working with her. “I figured
it was a good match for us,” he says. “I‟m very happy that Michelle was
available and wanted to do this.”
Pfeiffer came in to
meet with Besson full of ideas on how to make the character richer and more
rounded. “Michelle is very focused,” says
the director. “Pairing her with an actor of the caliber of Robert De Niro
brought out the best in each of them. They had not shot together before, so
they really wanted to show each other that they could be counted on. It was
just a pleasure for me, because they respect each other so much. They‟re great
team players.”
Pfeiffer
says she came to the set looking forward to working with De Niro and was not
disappointed. “He‟s such an icon,” she
says. “There are maybe five actors that have godlike status for me, and he‟s
one of them. He is very humble, very quiet and collaborative, and he has a
generous spirit. I really enjoyed being on the set with him and with Luc
Besson.”
The actress, who
starred in Jonathan Demme‟s 1988 Mafia comedy Married to the Mob, admits she has a fondness for playing
gangster‟s wives, but the real attraction for her was the Manzoni-Blake family
dynamic. “They take a genre that I love
in a new direction. This is really about how they interact with each other and
the outside world, which is a great source of humor in the film. They are their
own worst enemies and impossible to protect because they just can‟t behave.
It‟s really about the family connection and that overrules all, no matter the
circumstances.”
Maggie is the bedrock
of the family, according to Pfeiffer.
“She does have a temper, but she always hits the ground running and tries to
make the best of the situation to keep her family‟s spirits up. She has
accepted that this is now their way of life, but she still has some issues and
her rage has got to come out somewhere. She‟s humiliated by the whole
experience, especially the anti-American sentiment that they keep encountering
in France. She tries to fit in, to do good and to respect the culture that
she‟s in, but she feels she is being treated unfairly.”
Pfeiffer enjoyed
working on Besson‟s warp-speed schedule, even though it was occasionally
challenging. “I like that,” says
Pfeiffer. “You constantly have to be on your toes. At the same time, it lends a
really good energy to the film. Luc is constantly thinking, which I love. He‟s
collaborative, but I knew that my ideas had to be very well thought out,
because he doesn‟t waste time on debating anything that he thinks won‟t work.”
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