Deborah Unger is a serious actor with little interest in Hollywood trivialities. She keeps a home in Los Angeles, but doesn't have a publicist and after working on Winnipeg-made feature Fear X this week, her next project took her to Vancouver to help repair her grandma's llama barn.
But hey, even an earnest thespian can't help indulging in Hollywood's annual big night out. Unger, 35, laughingly admits that like more than 5 million other Canadians, she spent Oscar night glued to the tube.
"I did and I had to get up at four in the morning, but I had to watch them. I knew seven people nominated -- I'm probably a sentimental person more than I'd like to admit."
Unger worked with Nicole Kidman in late-'80s TV mini-series Bangkok Hilton and attended the prestigious Australian National Institute of Dramatic Arts with winning Moulin Rouge art director Catherine Martin and Martin's co-winning costume designer Angus Strathie. She counts nominees Russell Crowe (A Beautiful Mind) and Ben Kingsley (Sexy Beast) as friends, along with best actor Denzel Washington, with whom she worked in The Hurricane.
"I love Denzel. I just had to yap to People magazine about him," she says, adding she was also thrilled that Jim Broadbent (Iris) won a best supporting actor statuette. "I was really excited for him and I was very excited for Denzel except that the politics of this year I was not interested in."
What the Vancouver-born Unger is interested in is storytelling, a passion she got to indulge during her work on Fear X this week.
The suspense story from Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn (Pusher), who directs and co-wrote the script with Hubert Selby Jr. (Requiem For a Dream), is about a security guard (John Turturro) who hunts a mysterious killer after his wife is murdered in a shopping mall. Unger plays an enigmatic character whose connection to the case is shadowy.
She says she wanted to work with Refn and director of photography Larry J. Smith (Eyes Wide Shut). Unger will also be seen in the upcoming Between Strangers, shot in Toronto last year with Sophia Loren under the direction of Loren's son Edoardo Ponti.
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