Maria Bello may be small enough to fit in the palm of your hand but she can still kick ass -- figuratively speaking, of course -- on the big screen.
Bello took the role Rachel Weisz had in the first two Mummy instalments (Brendan Fraser's feisty wife) and she can't wait to talk about her life as an action queen.
"I've been swinging on chandeliers. I got to fire a Winchester rifle in the Himalayas. I'm having a blast!" she says of the action role.
"I'm serious when I say it is the role of my dreams. Since I was a little kid I've wanted to be Indiana Jones. That's one of the reasons I started acting. So my whole career I've gotten all these dramatic roles, and all I ever wanted to do was an action film."
Action aside, Bello, 40, and her castmates have managed to pull off a terrific romantic comedy in The Jane Austen Book Club.
Bello plays an unmarried woman determined to ignore her own attraction to a younger man, played by Hugh Dancy.
The film has a very sophisticated script, and Bello says, "It was brilliant working with all these great actors, they all gave so much. It's like a great game of volleyball with people who are at the top of their game ... There's a lighter side to me that I've never been able to show before in any of my other movies, and Robin saw that in me."
Speaking of Robin Swicord, how did Bello enjoy working for a female director? A reporter asks her to compare it with working for David Cronenberg, with whom she made A History of Violence.
"Working with Cronenberg isn't so different from working with Robin," she says. "He's a very sensitive man, soft spoken and gentle, and that's what Robin's like. I would never say it's a male/ female thing that differentiates people. There are a lot of men who come from a testosterone place, and there are women who come from that place as well. And then there are men and women who are gentle, but firm."
Her role in The Jane Austen Book Club brings out the fact that Bello is an avid reader -- and she says she has a quibble or two with Austen's characters. "They never go all the way emotionally," she says.
"I've read since I was a little kid, and I read a couple of novels a week. I tend to like testosterone-driven, hard -- Philip Roth, Hemingway, Simone de Bouvoir -- right on the page, writing. Legs splayed open on the page, basically. I find Austen a bit more sensitive, emotionally and physically, than I like. I could become open to it more and more, though."
Bello has been an actress for 15 years and a star for 10. TV roles in Mr. and Mrs. Smith and in ER (as Dr. Anna Del Amico) gave her a public profile and she quickly found strong roles in such films as Permanent Midnight, Payback and Coyote Ugly.
She has become a favourite of the Toronto Film Festival through Duets, The Cooler and A History of Violence, among other films, and her resume includes Thank You For Smoking, Flicka, World Trade Center, Auto Focus and Silver City.
Bello also has extensive theatre experience.
In future, besides The Mummy III, Bello will appear in The Yellow Handkerchief with William Hurt and Downloading Nancy with Jason Patric.
"And I may do a movie in Vietnam called 105 Degrees," says the actress. "My 6 year old just started first grade, so I'm trying to pull out for a bit. I was so lucky to be there for his first day at school!"
Bello seems to have consistently chosen good movie roles over the years. What's her secret?
"It's a gut thing," she says.
"Head, heart and hips -- when they all line up. That's how you pick a man, and that's how you pick a job."
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