TORONTO -- Heather Graham spent a restless night after reading the script for the Jack The Ripper movie From Hell.
"I was really terrified and I was in my house alone and I was waking up throughout the night just like petrified that someone would come in my room," says Graham, who stars as Mary Kelly, the prostitute believed to be the infamous English serial killer's final victim.
But once on the Prague set last summer, cast and crew spent more time laughing like hell, the 31-year-old actress told The Sun yesterday.
Despite the subject matter, the working atmosphere was kept light, largely due to the film's co-directors, twin brothers Allen and Albert Hughes.
"They showed us all the (prop) bodies and it was just that we were so excited about it. 'Hey, look at this body. Wow, cool.' It was all like a little adventure we were on. It didn't seem so horrific," Graham said.
She affectionately described the 28-year-old brothers as "obnoxious jokers" who taught her street slang in cellphone text messages, played rap music during shooting breaks to keep the energy up and lectured her on her love life like protective older brothers.
At a press conference earlier in the day, Allen Hughes owned up to that reputation.
"I don't think we were, like, poking Heather and cracking jokes before she had an emotional scene or anything like that, but an hour before that you could be damn sure we were," he said.
And yes, Graham laughingly told The Sun, she entertained a twin fantasy or two about those handsome Hugheses.
"We went to see the film in Venice and I walked in with them each on my arm. I was like, 'I've got these two hot dates,'" she said.
It was the Venice film festival that made her miss the Toronto premiere of her other new movie, Sidewalks Of New York, directed by her ex-boyfriend, director Ed Burns.
Graham, who has also had high-profile romances with actors James Woods and Heath Ledger, is single for now.
"I don't have a new boyfriend. I wish I could give you some interesting (news) but no."
Her From Hell romantic interest is Johnny Depp, a police inspector who falls for Mary while tracking the Ripper, partly through drug-induced visions of the crimes.
Although some of the butchery is graphically depicted, From Hell is less a horror movie and more of a murder mystery and social study of the terrible poverty of the 19th-century English underclass.
"There's definitely gore in there for those people who like horror movies, but it's not like a sit on the edge of your seat 'Ah! Ah!'," said Graham, who was attracted to the project by the prostitutes' spirit and camaraderie.
"I think (my character is) actually really brave and strong that (she) could survive in those conditions. The conditions were so bad. It wasn't like as in today's society, someone might choose to be a prostitute to make more money or they might work at Burger King. Women then didn't have those choices."
From Hell opens in Toronto Oct. 19.
More Artists
