Word: friel
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...Friel's role as Closer's Alice, a raw-nerved waif with an irreparably scarred heart, has easily made her one of the most talked-about actresses in Manhattan. Among those who've visited her backstage are Steven Spielberg and Mr. and Mrs. Tom Cruise, who brought flowers ("to be that famous--and so nice," she remarks). Friel's stellar reviews include one from the New Yorker where she was described as the "powerhouse" of the play's cast and "a ravishing newcomer whose authenticity makes it impossible to take your eyes off her." Next week Friel will make...
...possession of beauty at once sultry, pixie-ish and refined, Friel grew up in northern England aspiring to capitalize on her skill for argument rather than her looks. "I wanted to be a lawyer," she says. "I was on the debating team; we'd re-create Parliament, and I won computers for our school." But a life as Marcia Clark was not to be. During her middle-school years, Friel became involved with a local theater group, performing in student-written plays. At 15, she landed her first TV role, as Michael Palin's daughter in the British series...
...essentially Friel's lack of self-consequence that makes her so appealingly distinct from other British actresses--and many American ones too. "Anna doesn't have stage-school technique," notes her countryman Patrick Marber, writer and director of Closer. "She's very natural and all from the heart...
...even though she finds American men somewhat inscrutable: "Men are wonderfully upfront here. But you go out, you have a lovely time, you're asked a lot of questions, and you don't know if the guy's ever going to call again." Following her nightly performances on Broadway, Friel often goes to a divey neighborhood bar, where she has been learning to swing dance. We suspect that she doesn't run into Dame Judi Dench or Kate Winslet there...
...fate of Anna Friel's character, Hermia, to get rather lost in so-so productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and sure enough, that's what happens in Michael Hoffman's adaptation, which oxymoronically manages to seem both leaden and hasty. Reset for no discernible reason from ancient Athens to 19th century Tuscany, it focuses on the fun stuff--the fairies who inhabit the damp but enchanted wood, the rude mechanicals (led by Kevin Kline's hammy but well-cured Bottom) and their awful-wonderful production of Pyramus and Thisbe...