Showing posts with label Kate Beckinsale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kate Beckinsale. Show all posts

100 Most Popular (Sexiest) Women In Movies, TV, SciFi And Fantasy #81- #90

90. KATE BECKINSALE

Beckinsale's irst major American film, Brokedown Palace (1999), was not a commercial success. Soon after, Beckinsale was cast in the 2001 film Pearl Harbor as the female lead opposite Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett. The film was one of the highest-grossing films of its year. In the years following, she appeared in a series of American films that, while high-profile, were given mixed reviews, including Serendipity (2001), Underworld (2003) and Van Helsing (2004). In 2004, she portrayed Ava Gardner in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, a role for which she gained 20 pounds.

In 2006, Beckinsale was placed at #23 in FHM's "100 Sexiest Women in the World", after being #71 in 2005. She has also been placed at #16 in Maxim's "HOT 100" (2003), #63 in Stuff's "100 Sexiest Women in the World" (2002), and was chosen by the English magazine Hello! as "England’s #1 Beauty", also in 2002.

In January 2006, Beckinsale reprised her role as a vampire in the movie Underworld: Evolution, a sequel to her 2003 film, Underworld, again directed by her husband, Len Wiseman. The film opened in the #1 spot at the box office, grossing over $26 million in its first weekend of release. Also in 2006, Beckinsale appeared in the comedy Click, starring Adam Sandler, which opened on 23 June. Next, Beckinsale replaced Sarah Jessica Parker in the film Vacancy, released in 2007. Her next role was in Snow Angels, which was released in 2008.

At Comic-Con 2007, Beckinsale expressed interest in playing Catwoman in the current Christopher Nolan-directed Batman films. In April 2007, during an interview promoting Vacancy, Beckinsale claimed no knowledge of the rumors linking her to a remake of Barbarella. "I was told on the set yesterday, a crew member Chris Pacpaco said, 'Oh I hear you're doing Barbarella,' he was one of the grips. So that's the most official it's become. Every woman would consider Barbarella for a moment, but I don't know." Beckinsale eventually won a libel lawsuit against the Daily Express concerning the matter.

Beckinsale is Esquire magazine's Sexiest Woman Alive 2009.

89. AMANDA SEFRIED

Amanda Sefried is an American actress, singer-songwriter and former child model. She began her career as a child model when she was 11 and when she was 15 she began her career as an actress; starting off with uncredited roles and going on to have a recurring roles on As The World Turns and All My Children, which expanded into her successful television and film career.

In 2004, Seyfried made her film debut in Mean Girls playing Karen Smith, the ditsiest of the so called 'Plastics'. She then went on to other films including Nine Lives (2005) and Alpha Dog (2006). In 2006, she landed a lead role on HBO's popular television series Big Love. After that, Seyfried appeared as Sophie Sheridan in the 2008 musical feature film Mamma Mia!. Other recent notable appearances include lead roles in Jennifer's Body and Chloe in 2009, and one of the two lead roles in Dear John the following year.

Seyfried auditioned to play the title character on UPN's television series Veronica Mars. Although the role eventually went to Kristen Bell, Seyfried portrayed the title character's murdered best friend, Lilly Kane. Although her character was only shown in flashbacks, Lily was vital part of the first season's plot and made Seyfried one of the show's familiar faces. Seyfried appeared in ten episodes from 2004–2005. In 2005, Seyfried played the lead character, Samantha, a role written specifically for her, in one of the nine parts in the film Nine Lives, comprising nine short films with different themes and an ensemble cast. For her performance in the film, Seyfried won an award from the Locarno International Film Festival, for Best Actress, which she shared with the film's other female leads. The same year she played supporting character Mouse in the critically acclaimed independent film, American Gun. In 2006 Seyfried appeared in five episodes on Wildfire as Rebecca and had lead role as Chrissy in the award winning short film titled Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves, by writer-director Andrea Janakas. Seyfried also contributed a minor role as Julie Beckley in Alpha Dog. From 2004 to 2006, Seyfried made multiple guest appearances on television series, including House, M.D., Justice, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. In 2008, Seyfried also appeared and played a supporting role in the independent short film, Official Selection.

88. DEBBIE ROCHON

Debbie Rochon is a Canadian B-movie actress and former stage performer, best known for her work in Troma films.

In 2009, Rochon starred as "Alice" in Slime City Massacre, a follow-up to the cult film Slime City, both directed by Gregory Lamberson. She presented the movie on the Premiere at 2010 Beloit International Film Festival on 18 February 2010.

Rochon appeared as herself in the 2008 novel Bad Moon Rising by Jonathan Maberry. She is one of several real-world horror celebrities who are in the fictional town of Pine Deep when monsters attack. Other celebrities include Tom Savini, Jim O'Rear, Brinke Stevens, Ken Foree, Stephen Susco, Joe Bob Briggs, James Gunn and blues man Mem Shannon. Rochon portrayed Madam Won Ton in the horror comedy film Won Ton Baby!, she stars in the James Morgart film alongside Gunnar Hansen which is set for release in 2010.

On Wednesday, December 9, 2009 it was discussed on the Howard Stern Show that Debbie appears in a new feature film by Sean Pomper Productions, "Killer Hoo Ha." Howard confirmed that Sal the Stockbroker and Richard Christy both have roles in the film. On Friday, December 11, 2009 Brimstone and producer Sean Pomper were guests on Rochon's Fangoria Radio show and discussed the film. The cast of the film includes Brimstone, Gina Lynn, Lloyd Kaufman, Leilene Ondrade, and Erik Chopin. Sean Pomper announced that Killer Hoo Ha will be a horror trilogy.

87. MADELINE SMITH

Madeline Smith is an English actress-comedian, who was married to David Buck, a film actor. She was a model in the 1960s, and appeared in many comedy films (e.g. Carry On Matron), television series, and Hammer horror films during the 1960s and the 1970s.

Her father owned an antiques shop near Kew Gardens, while she had a temporary job working at Biba's boutique, a fashion house in Kensington High Street, London, during the 1960s.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Smith was considered by many to be very photogenic. She was also frequently the subject of cartoons by J Edward Oliver, which made constant admiring reference to her disproportionately large bust.

Her television acting credits included The Two Ronnies (appearance in the comic serial "Hampton Wick"), Clochemerle, Doctor at Large (5 episodes), The Steam Video Company, and in 1970 His and Hers with Tim Brooke-Taylor. She was a member of the regular cast for the BBC2 series The End of the Pier Show (1974) and In The Looking Glass (1978), along with John Wells, John Fortune, and Carl Davis.

Though credited as 'Maddy Smith', Madeline Smith first worked for Hammer films in Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969), as an East End prostitute, a non-speaking role. Her Hammer Heroine cult status derives primarily from The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974); although she appears partially nude in the former, Ms Smith exuded a natural innocence in her role as the target of Ingrid Pitt's vampiric appetites.

86. ELLEN PAGE

Ellen Pageis a Canadian actress. Page received both Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for her role as the title character in the film Juno.

She is also known for her starring roles in Hard Candy, Inception, Smart People and Whip It, and as Katherine "Kitty" Pryde in X-Men: The Last Stand. In addition, Page received attention in Canada for award-winning roles in Pit Pony and Marion Bridge, as well as television shows Trailer Park Boys and ReGenesis.

In 2008, Page was nominated for Time's 100 Most Influential People list and placed #86 on FHM's Sexiest Women in the World list, and moved up to #70 for 2010. In June 2008, Page was named on Entertainment Weekly's future A-List stars list.

Page hosted Saturday Night Live on March 1, 2008 and on May 3, 2009, she guest starred in the episode "Waverly Hills 9-0-2-1-D'oh" of the animated series The Simpsons as a character named Alaska Nebraska, a parody of Hannah Montana. She also starred in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, Whip It, alongside Juliette Lewis, Marcia Gay Harden, Drew Barrymore and Kristen Wiig. The film premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and had its wide release on October 2, 2009.

She features in Michael Lander's film Peacock, opposite Cillian Murphy, Susan Sarandon, Bill Pullman and Josh Lucas, which was released in 2010 despite an original release date of 2009. In August 2009, Page began shooting the thriller Inception, a film directed by Christopher Nolan and co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ken Watanabe. The film was released on July 16, 2010.

She is attached to star in the film Super, and will reportedly play Stacie Andree in an upcoming film about Laurel Hester.

As of 2010, she serves as a spokesperson for Cisco Systems in a series of ads appearing in three commercials set in Page's "hometown" of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. On May 26, 2010 it was reported in a column on "Deadline Hollywood" and by Entertainment Weekly that Page will star in the new HBO series Tilda alongside Diane Keaton, who plays the title role. Tilda is based on the life of Nikki Finke, the founder of the influential Hollywood blog, DeadlineHollywood.com.


85. MICHELLE TRACTENBERG

Michelle Tractenberg is an American television and film actress. She is known for playing Dawn Summers in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the show's final three seasons, Penny in the 1999 film adaptation of Inspector Gadget, Wendy in Mysterious Skin, Jenny in EuroTrip, and Harriet M. Welsch in Harriet the Spy. Trachtenberg also appeared in the television series Gossip Girl as Georgina Sparks, Mercy and more recently has had roles in the films 17 Again and Cop Out.

In November 2006, Trachtenberg guest-starred in the sixth season of the Emmy-nominated crime drama Law & Order: Criminal Intent. In the episode "Weeping Willow", she played the role of Willow, a kidnapped video blogger based on lonelygirl15. Trachtenberg also made a cameo in the Fall Out Boy music video for "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race" (with fellow Buffy cast member Seth Green), Joaquin Phoenix-directed video "Tired of Being Sorry" for Balthazar Getty's band Ringside, and Trapt's video "Echo". In 2007, she was cast as the female lead in an ABC comedy pilot called The Hill, set in Washington, D.C. Trachtenberg provided the voice of Tika Waylan for Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight, a direct-to-video animated movie based on the novel of the same name.

Trachtenberg appeared on The CW hit show Gossip Girl as Georgina Sparks, who recently left rehab and brings back the dark past Serena van der Woodsen desperately wants to leave behind.[14] She returned to the show for a multi-episode story arc towards the end of the second season.[15] Trachtenberg appeared in the season 3 finale.[16] In 2009, Trachtenberg was a cast member on the NBC drama Mercy, the series however was not renewed for a second season.

Trachtenberg appeared in the 2009 film 17 Again alongside Zac Efron, Sterling Knight and Matthew Perry. She had a small role in the comedy film Cop Out

84. ANA DE LA REGUERA

Ana de la Reguerra is a Mexican actress who has starred in telenovelas, films and the HBO television series Eastbound & Down.

Reguera has been in many commercials and television shows in Mexico, such as: Mujer, casos de la vida real, Al derecho y al Derbez, Íntimamente Shanik, Chiquitos pero picosos, La venta increíble, Llévatelo and Cómplices en familia.

In theatre she has participated in El cartero directed by Raúl Quintanilla, for which she received two awards from the 'Mexican Association of Theatre Journalists.

Her introduction to film began in Por la libre, under the direction of Juan Carlos de Llaca. Later she acted in the film Un Secreto de Esperanza and in 2003 Ladies Night, alongside Ana Claudia Talancón. In 2005 she played the starring role in Gitanas which aired on Telemundo in the United States.

She is perhaps best known for her role as Sister Encarnación in Nacho Libre, a film by Jared Hess, director of Napoleon Dynamite.

83. EMMA STONE

Emma Stone is an American actress. She made her feature film debut in the comedy Superbad (2007), playing Jules. Stone was previously a cast member of the TV series Drive. She appeared in The House Bunny (2008) and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009). She then starred in the horror-comedy Zombieland and the indie comedy Paper Man in 2009. In 2010, Stone voiced the character Mazie in Marmaduke, and will star in the high school comedy Easy A.

Stone had a voice role in Marmaduke in 2010, a film adaptation of the long running comic strip about a Great Dane.[20] She voiced Marmaduke’s friend, Mazie, an Australian Shepherd who is a bit of a tomboy. Stone will also star as a high school student in Easy A with Amanda Bynes, a comedy directed by Will Gluck. Stone's character divides the strictly moral students and teachers against the liberals in her school after a false rumor circulates that she's sexually promiscuous. The script contrasts the novel The Scarlet Letter and its heroine, Hester Prynne, to the life of the protagonist in the film.

Stone will star in Crazy, Stupid, Love, alongside Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Ryan Gosling and Marisa Tomei. The Warner Bros. film, about a husband (Steve Carell) with marital problems and difficulties with his children, began shooting on April 16, 2010 in Los Angeles. Stone will also star in an adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling novel The Help, a period piece set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s. She plays Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, an aspiring writer, and plans to employ a Southern dialect for the role.

Stone joined the voice cast of The Croods, a 3D computer animated caveman comedy by DreamWorks Animation. She will voice the role of Eep, the oldest daughter of Grug (Nicolas Cage) and Ugga (Catherine Keener). Ryan Reynolds voices Gy, the love interest to Stone's character. The film is scheduled for release on March 30, 2012. She also joined the cast of Friends With Benefits, starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis, and directed by Will Gluck. The relationship comedy began filming in July 2010 in New York

82. JESSICA BIEL

is an American actress and model. Biel is known for her television role as Mary Camden in the long-running family-drama series 7th Heaven.

She has also appeared in several Hollywood films, including Summer Catch, the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Illusionist, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and The A-Team.

At the start of 2008, Biel shot Easy Virtue, an adaptation of the play by Noël Coward. Like the play, the movie is set in the 1920s and Biel plays young widow Larita, who impulsively marries John Whittaker in France and must face her disapproving in-laws on returning to England. The film premiered in September 2008 at the Toronto International Film Festival. Critics praised Biel for her performance, with Todd McCarthy of Variety saying Biel "more than kept up" with veterans Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth and praising her "sparkling" performance. The Hollywood Reporter described her performance as "an irresistible force of nature — a kind, witty, supremely intelligent and beautiful woman who ... is capable of rejoinders that thoroughly undercut her opponent's withering criticism."

In 2009, Biel lent her voice to the animated science-fiction film Planet 51.

In April 2008, Biel began working on the political satire Nailed, with Jake Gyllenhaal. The movie centers around a woman who accidentally gets a nail lodged in her head, then travels to Washington D.C. to fight for better health care. Filming wrapped up in late June after several production shutdowns. She is also co-producing and starring in Die a Little, a contemporary adaptation of the novel by Megan Abbott. A filming start date has not been set.

81. JULIA VOTH

Julia Voth is a Canadian-born actress and model who lives in Los Angeles.

Her modelling career has included photo shoots and commercials for brands such as Calvin Klein and Shiseido. She is noted for being the character model of Jill Valentine of the 2002 Resident Evil video game.

She appeared alongside America Olivo and Erin Cummings in the action film Bitch Slap

(All Bios From Wikipedia)

See Also: 100 Most Popular (Sexiest) Women In Movies, TV, SciFi And Fantasy #91- #100

Whiteout (2009)(Warner Bros)

Source: Warner Bros

Nature never intended you to survive here.

For U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko, things are about to get even more dangerous. The only law enforcement in this unforgiving territory, she has just been sent to investigate a body on the ice. Antarctica's first homicide. A shocking discovery in itself, it will plunge her into an even more bizarre mystery and the revelation of secrets long-buried under the endless ice...secrets that someone believes are still worth killing for.

As Stetko races to find the killer before he finds her, winter is already closing in. In the deadly Antarctic whiteout, she won't see him till he's a breath away.

"Audiences won't immediately know what circumstances brought U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko to seek a post in Antarctica, or what she hoped to find there, but they will feel from the film's opening beats that she is anxious to get out," says Joel Silver, who produced "Whiteout" under the banner of his Dark Castle Entertainment, and calls it "the coldest thriller ever made."

Director Dominic Sena, marking his second collaboration with Silver following their 2001 action thriller "Swordfish," concurs. "Whatever she came looking for at the bottom of the world, she didn't find it. Meanwhile, the place has gotten to her, the cold, the claustrophobia, the isolation. She's at the breaking point and counting down to that last flight out before winter closes in with its six months of darkness."

Stetko's departure plans are put on hold when a body turns up in the ice field between the U.S. research station, the Amundsen-Scott, and its distant Russian counterpart, Vostok. It's a popsicle, in the wry jargon of a region where losing a glove can mean losing a hand and a few minutes' exposure can kill anyone caught outside without protection.

Frozen to the ground by blood and ice, his arms and legs strangely contorted, the body is that of an American geologist named Weiss, a member of a small research team studying meteorite fragments. Closer examination reveals numerous broken bones and a fresh gash in his leg that has been crudely stitched up, but the cause of death is a deep chest wound delivered by an instrument very common to this rough terrain: an ice ax.

As much as Weiss's death is a mystery, its location is even more baffling. Miles from nowhere. No tracks, no maps, no gear. What was he doing way out here? A murder victim is the last thing Stetko expected to find after two years of arduous but uneventful duty, and certainly the last thing she wants to deal with now. Nevertheless, passing him off to the nearest U.S. authorities at McMurdo Station 900 miles away is not an option.

Kate Beckinsale, who stars as Marshal Stetko, understands her position. "She realizes that this man needs her to figure out what happened to him. Like it or not, her sense of responsibility and her law enforcement instincts take over and she's in."

Unfortunately for a woman whose bags are already packed, this doesn't look like the kind of case that can be wrapped up easily. Instead, it becomes immediately more complex as Stetko turns her attention to the two remaining members of Weiss's team, men who could be either prime suspects or the next victims of a killer whose motivation she has yet to discover.

Meanwhile, amplifying the tension is the extreme weather, says Silver. "You feel the raw force of Antarctica impose itself as an ever-present character in the story. Things are more intense when every move you make is potentially fatal. Even investigating a crime scene is a more dangerous proposition here than it would be anywhere else--the transportation, the exposure, the possibility of being stranded. You take a risk every time you step outside

"Though it's part of our world, it looks like it could be outer space," producer Susan Downey attests, noting that sub-zero temperatures at the South Pole "can drop lower than numbers recorded on equatorial Mars. With this as our setting, it allowed us to put images onto the screen that have never been seen before in this genre, like the whiteout sequences, which are really dynamic, the aerial photography of the base or the Twin Otter coming in for a landing in weather that's already getting too choppy to support a plane."

Once the filmmakers committed to depict Antarctica, Downey confirms, they were explicit in their intent. "We wanted to lay out clearly what the temperatures are, how quickly a person can get frostbite or die from exposure. It's all there and it's all true."

The producers selected Manitoba, Canada, to represent exteriors of the frozen Pole; a location frigid enough to give cast and crew a feel for this element of the story and a genuine respect for the whiteout, a natural phenomenon that can literally steal your senses. Says Beckinsale, "There were times when I looked out and couldn't distinguish where the land and the sky met; it was just one huge whiteness. Totally disorienting. It's easy to imagine how scary that would be if you were alone. You could turn away from your camp for a moment and not find your way back."

"Antarctica will kill you. The elements alone tell us we don't belong there, and 'Whiteout' demonstrates this dramatically," states producer David Gambino.

That assessment is born out by the extensive research of Greg Rucka, who, with Steve Lieber, created the original Eisner Award-nominated graphic novel Whiteout on which the film is based, and also served as an executive producer. Declaring the continent "a desert without sand," Rucka says, "environment as a character intrigues me. So much of what we do and who we are is a direct result of the physical situation we're in. Antarctica has its own beauty. It's spectacular, but terrifying. It never allows you to let down your guard. The sun can be out but the wind will suddenly rev up to 130 miles per hour. You can't afford to be careless and forget what's beyond the door."

Sena's own fascination with these ideas, specifically the power of a severe environment on human behavior, was piqued years earlier. "I was in Lillehammer, Norway, shooting commercials for the 1994 Winter Olympics. At that time of year there were only about three hours of daylight. It was zero degrees at noon and 40-below at night, too cold to go out, so we stayed cooped up in our rooms. After several weeks, it was depressing. We found ourselves sitting around drinking night after night and it began to affect everyone's mood. My usually mellow producer started screaming if his coffee wasn't right and threatening to fire people over typos. Grips were fighting in the snow.

"I came home from that experience wondering what could happen to any group of people trapped in a harsh, claustrophobic place, not for weeks but for months," the director continues. "What if you threw in some dramatic event? What would these people do? I thought it was a great idea for a movie."

"You find out a lot about characters when you put them under unusual stress. It forces them to reach deep and reveal their best and worst qualities," offers screenwriter Jon Hoeber, who worked on bringing "Whiteout" to the screen with his brother and writing partner Erich Hoeber. Adds Erich, "Sometimes people can be so bound up with surviving that they lose their moral compass."

When the graphic novel was published in four installments by Oni Press in 1998, Sena followed it with avid interest. He tried unsuccessfully to secure film rights to the property, which were already spoken for. Then, he relates, "One day my agent mentioned, 'Joel Silver has a script called Whiteout; are you interested?' I said, 'Are you kidding? I've been trying to get ahold of this thing for five years!' So I called him. I said, 'Joel, I know this project. I've been making this movie in my head for years!'"

Indeed, screenwriters Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes suggest that the film's capacity to shock is rooted in "the way that Dominic captures this unbelievable and unpredictable world that so few people know, and the way in which he leads you to realize that being in a whiteout is very much like being lost in the dark."

It's no surprise to Sena that South Pole workers undergo psychological evaluations prior to long-term assignments. "The place can definitely get to you. What it comes down to is that some people can handle it and some can't. People who aren't necessarily bad end can up doing pretty bad things and that's one of the themes this movie explores."

As Beckinsale observes, "All that confinement can create a real powder keg. Explosive emotions are ready to blow and you don't always know what's coming. That's why I love thrillers. I love trying to figure things out and wanting to see what happens next."

"'Whiteout' is every inch a thriller, but it's character driven. It's very much Carrie Stetko's story interwoven with the action, like two mysteries unfolding simultaneously," says Joel Silver. "She's smart, she's tough, and it's a toughness that's not just physical but a fundamental part of her personality. She commands respect in a predominantly male domain. But she's also carrying a burden from her past that could complicate the work she needs to do. I have always appreciated strong female protagonists, and particularly in these kinds of stories. Kate really does a phenomenal job with the character."

Caught between the cold and a cold-blooded killer, the troubled marshal's history is revealed in fragments through the escalating drama around her until it becomes clear why she sought what Gambino calls "a metaphoric purgatory" in such a lonely place.

Says Sena, "We learn she was originally based in Miami. Something happened there that made her question her instincts and wonder if she's good enough at her job. So she retreats to the middle of nowhere and as far away from Miami as you can imagine, a place where nothing ever happens and she doesn't even have to carry a gun. She doesn't expect to be challenged here and, more importantly, her compromised judgment--if, in fact, it is compromised, won't put anyone's life in jeopardy."

Sena believes Stetko's decision to dig in and investigate Weiss's murder is a significant turning point for her. "In that respect, it's kind of like a classic Western and she's the marshal in a one-horse town, forced to pick up her gun again."

"What I found intriguing about the story and about Carrie Stetko is how human and flawed she is," says Beckinsale. "Because you don't know her backstory, you don't know what she is capable of until you see events unfold. How damaged is she? Are her instincts still good and will they carry her through or will they fail her again?"

Stetko's first lead takes her to Vostok to speak with one of the victim's former partners. Claiming to be terrified and on the run, he has inexplicably taken refuge at the Russian outpost. There, Stetko encounters U.N. investigator Robert Pryce, played by Gabriel Macht. Pryce has been sent to help expedite the case and control the flow of information about the crime, the first of its kind in a continent with no central government, loosely controlled by a multi-national treaty. In many ways, Pryce could prove to be the right man in the right place. But from Stetko's point of view, his arrival only means that she now has something else she wasn't looking for: a partner.

Says Macht, "Pryce offers his help but finds her disinterested to the point of hostility. From that beginning, it's interesting to see how he attempts to gain her trust. What develops is a kind of cat-and-mouse element between them that mirrors the cat-and-mouse of their tracking the killer."

Downey explains, "She's not sure what to make of him. He appears unannounced on site and essentially forces his way into the case. It seems to her that an awful lot of high level attention is being focused upon the death of one unremarkable geologist."

"Pryce has an interesting background, too, some of which is high-level military, but he keeps his history as close to the vest as Stetko does. Gabriel lets the details emerge subtly in a way that seems very natural for that kind of a personality," says Sena.

Meanwhile, alleviating some of the tension between the two is the young pilot Delfy, pulled from evacuation detail to fly Stetko first to the murder site and then to Vostok, and who will remain with her as needed. Or, as long as he can keep his plane's engine from freezing up. Columbus Short stars as the optimistic Iraqi War vet on his first civilian assignment, transporting personnel and equipment through the volatile conditions at the Pole.

"This is Delfy's second desert, with ice in place of sand," says Short. "He has an interesting view of the world. He sees the beauty in things, even in this desolate frozen wasteland. No matter how strange or difficult the circumstances, Delfy looks for the positive and the challenge and tries to meet it. To him, it's all an adventure."

Whiteout - Fighting For Your Life On Screen And Behind The Scenes

Source: Warner Bros

Seeking a practical location that would evoke the cold, the barren spaces and utter remoteness of the South Pole, the filmmakers for the upcoming Warner Bros release, "Whiteout", relied upon executive producer Don Carmody, a veteran of nearly 40 Canadian-based productions, who says simply, "I know where the snow is."

Carmody adds, "The first lesson about snow is that it generally doesn't stay where you want it. It can be hard to find a place that will be iced over for the time you need it. Since this was meant to represent Antarctica, we not only needed snow but an expanse of flat surfaces to recreate those incredible South Pole vistas and a frozen lake that would support a set." Following an encounter with an inquisitive polar bear while scouting locations in Churchill ("It was as big as a Volkswagen," he swears), Carmody and production designer Graham "Grace" Walker found what they needed outside of Gimli, Manitoba.

Arriving on set to shoot the exterior scenes of the film was a bracing experience for the cast. Says Tom Skerritt, "It didn't have to be Antarctica. Manitoba is plenty cold. Everywhere you look, the ice is endless." At times during the shoot, the mercury at the Northern Canadian locale dropped lower than numbers logged that day at the South Pole.

Having worked in Budapest, Prague and other parts of Canada, Kate Beckinsale believed she had a fair tolerance for cooler climes, but concedes, "This was a whole new level of cold. My first breath outside made me cough like my throat was seizing up. People were walking around with frost on their eyelashes and in their beards."

To allay anxiety and help protect the cast and crew, production managers provided everyone with what Beckinsale jokingly calls "a telephone directory on all the different ways to die or be injured from the elements: frostbite, hypothermia, exposure. It was terrifying. Columbus and I were convinced we'd never get out of there alive."

"Yeah, the smart people on set didn't read that," Macht teases.

Aside from the camaraderie it fostered, one practical advantage to the weather was how it allowed for protective padding under clothing for the high-impact stunt scenes. At the same time, that posed its own challenge. Says producer Downey, "It takes a lot of effort to move around with all those layers. The logistics of just getting from point A to B, let alone staging an action sequence, can be exhausting."

Beckinsale rises to the challenge physically in "Whiteout," in which the action unfolds not as superhero fantasy but as a series of gritty life-and-death struggles between people desperate to survive. In that respect, notes Joel Silver, she brings credibility and tenacity to the character. "She makes you believe that she will use her gun and her fists and anything else that is available to her when she has to."

Says Beckinsale, "The action is based in reality and I think that will make it more intense for audiences because they might imagine what they would do in the same situation. Stetko is not some fearless, invincible being with superpowers, scaling walls and fighting off 14 attackers simultaneously; it's not that kind of movie. She's often taken by surprise and reacts on a gut level."

"Whiteout" placed Macht under the tutelage of stunt coordinator Steve Lucescu for the second time, following their work together on "The Recruit" in 2003. Says the actor, "It was like roughhousing with my brothers, growing up. I had a great time playing around in the snow with the stunt crew. It brought back fond memories."

During one perilous pursuit, characters best described as hunter and prey confront each other while clinging blindly to rope guidelines, or "storm lines," to avoid being blown into oblivion by the gale force winds of an Antarctic whiteout. Writers Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes orchestrated this sequence, involving multiple colored ropes connecting the various out-buildings of the Amundsen-Scott. "It's like fishing line, and you have to hook into it to get from here to there. There's a green line, a yellow line, a blue line... and we have people crossing from one to another, constantly changing course," Carey explains.

Adding to the risk, Chad cautions, "is not knowing which way to move when one end of the line leads to safety and the other end could deliver you into the waiting arms of a killer. You can't see. When you feel the rope ahead of you tightening it means someone else has just hooked onto that line. But how far away is he and which direction is he moving in?"

As the characters grapple with one another, some of these lines are severed, propelling them wildly out of control. Lucescu used winches, computer-calibrated to each actor's measurements, to safely monitor their acceleration and deceleration across the ice.

Still, there were moments when Beckinsale fought to remain upright. "She got knocked over several times," Sena remembers. "Kate has a small frame, so when she got too close to a fan it could blow her off her feet. But she kept getting up; she was a real trouper. We dragged her across the ice. There are many things a stunt double can do but you want audiences to see the actors' faces and know it's them as much as possible. I had a fantastic cast. We put them through hell and I couldn't have asked for more enthusiasm and commitment. I just hope their bruises have healed now and that they've forgiven me."

An hour's drive from Gimli and an approximate two hours from Winnipeg, the "Whiteout" set took over a spit of private land jutting into Lake Manitoba that offered multiple shooting angles guaranteed not to catch a tree line or hint of cityscape. Best of all, the shallow lake provided four feet of solid ice. The downside, Don Carmody explains, was that everything had to be brought in, "from gear to steel beams to Porta-Potties. There was no electricity, nothing." The first arrivals laid roads and an air strip so the rest of the crew could get in.

Grace Walker, marking his fifth collaboration with Joel Silver on "Whiteout," notes that the producer is always looking for "something fresh, something that hasn't been seen before." This gave him some creative leeway in presenting the American Antarctic base, especially inside.

"In keeping with the almost lunar landscape at the South Pole, the idea was to build a research center that looked a little like you would imagine a space colony to look like," says Silver.

Thinking "modern but functional and industrial," Walker used floor tiles on the walls, with exposed piping and stainless steel to get good reflections. "The walls are primarily pinboard, appropriately lightweight and cheap to take to the South Pole. By comparison, Vostok is older and shabbier with a 1960s or '70s vibe, which is true to life because Vostok doesn't have the funds the Americans have for their base. There were no practical locations, every scene in the movie is something we created from scratch," the designer says, adding that the first floor was a physical set but the upper levels, where no action takes place, were CGI extensions.

"The challenge was timing," Downey explains. "Gimli gets so frigid at a certain time of year that nails just shatter when they're hit by a hammer. At the other end of the schedule, beyond a certain period, the lake begins to melt under you."

"Of course, it was our luck that Manitoba was having the warmest winter on record," Sena laughs, though emphasizing that "warm" is a relative term. He and cinematographer Chris Soos had to rely on cameras specially oiled to resist freezing, with special heating units attached to each magazine just to keep the film running.

The construction crew, a combined force of set specialists and local carpenters, faced a number of interesting logistical problems: equipment would freeze and stop working, cables would crack, high winds struck down newly raised walls, supply trucks got stuck in the snow and generators seized. In addition, the lake bed was too fragile to support the weight of standard cranes so the visiting team learned from the locals how to rig Bobcats to hoist siding into place.

Trucks delivering bolts or wall panels and larger pieces built in warehouses in Winnipeg often got delayed in transit. "There was always at least one tow truck bringing up the rear when we traveled to the set because invariably one of the convoy would slide off the road and need to be retrieved," Sena recalls.

Oddly, in a place where cold was taken for granted, one of the biggest issues was spot-thawing, which wreaked havoc on the newly constructed sets. The temperature might be minus-30, but if the sun came out and hit the steel beams they would soak it up. That, plus the weight of the steel itself, would begin to melt the foundation they rested upon just enough to shift the whole structure. Ultimately, the steel was insulated against the sun's rays, and foundations shored up with gravel.

Striking sets and moving out was another race against the clock with its own perverse humor. Says lead carpenter Tony Parkin, "A day before we got word to pull the set down, the weather changed from minus-15 to plus-2 and it rained. We could have traded our overalls for skin-diving suits for the amount of water that suddenly appeared. The whole place turned into a marsh and we were constantly sinking. At one point we had three trucks hooked up to each other and a crane to pull the first truck out of the mud."

Volunteers from the nearby communities of Gimli and Eriksdale lent their help, and portions of the set not earmarked for additional filming were left in their hands to be recycled into a planned daycare center. The crew also took care not to leave anything behind that could end up in the lake and be toxic to fish and other wildlife.

Production then moved the outdoors indoors, transporting and recreating the pieces of their set like a giant jigsaw puzzle on soundstages in Montreal.

"We wanted the big whiteout storm scene on stage where we could control it and that meant moving the foundations of four interconnecting buildings, the station and airplane hangar, to Montreal. We then used giant fans to blast them with fake snow, really beat them up with tons of salt," says Sena.

The special effects crew created a variety of indoor snow: some lightweight for blowing in the background, some in blanket form, some designed for having boots sunk into and some to blow onto the actors. Additionally, 120 tons of sand was mounded up and covered with 12 tons of salt to create giant drifts.

By Gabriel Macht's estimation, it was the artificial snow that caused more difficulty than anything they had encountered on the Gimli ice, mainly because it tended to adhere to skin. "Some scenes required a lot of physical exertion and that meant heavy breathing, so we needed to keep our passages open. The stuff got into our mouths and ears and up our noses. There was no avoiding it."

Fellow faux-snow victim Alex O'Loughlin offers his own take on it. "It's starch and salt, so you felt like you'd been rolling around in pizza dough all day."

Whether manufacturing snow, building sets on a frozen lake or staging a full-scale whiteout, every effort was made to offer entry into a world that few will ever experience.

Says Sena. "Rather than taking a stylized approach, I wanted to bring this story to the screen in a realistic way and present this environment as true to life. Antarctica is such an unforgiving place, and the whiteout is a powerful phenomenon. When those things hit you can't see three feet in front of you and your life expectancy can drop to minutes. It really makes a compelling setting for a mystery."

"The idea was to transport audiences to Antarctica. We want them to feel the cold, the fear, the isolation and the will to survive in this extraordinarily difficult and alien environment," says Silver, before advising with a smile: "Better bring a sweater."

See Also: Kate Beckinsale To Return For 3D Underworld Trilogy / Sneak Previews: Where The Wild Things Are, Whiteout, The Box, Sherlock Holmes And Ninja Assassin / Kate Beckinsale Wants The Catwoman Role For Herself

Kate Beckinsale Wants The Catwoman Role For Herself

Written By: Ken Hulsey
Source: WENN

Okay, before I get into this, I want to mention that this info comes from WENN, which I am starting to call "The Bureau of Miss-Information."

From the second that "The Dark Knight" hit theaters this past summer, there has been a swell of rumors surrounding the next Batman movie. Just about all of these rumors have been in regards to the "Catwoman" character and the actress who could play her. For months Christopher Nolan denied that he was even going to make another movie. Regardless the names kept a coming. First there was Cher, then there was Angelina Jolie, and as of last week Rachel Weisz was supposed to have landed the coveted role.

Well here we go, yet again. Now Kate Beckinsale is eying a date with a tight spandex cat suite. The actress, best known for the "Underworld" films wants to add more action roles to her resume a she thinks playing "Catwoman" in the upcoming "Gotham" film would be just the ticket.

So far there has been no official talk between Nolan and Beckinsale, that anyone knows about, but that isn't stopping the actress from making her interest known publicly.

Beckinsale recently told MTV.com, "Absolutely, that would be awesome. I'd love to do that." She then went on to talk about what a surprise it was for her to land the lead role in "Underworld," because she never was a very physical person, "One of the things I've done wrong with my career is not have a massive game plan for it. I was very surprised to ever find myself even considered for an action movie. I'm like the literary, academic geek who's not very good at sports, so it was amazingly shocking that anyone would ever do that. I like to be surprised."

Weisz, Beckinsale, Jolie or Cher? My God, what a mess. There hasn't even been any official word that "Catwoman" will even be in the film.

Then of course, there is that whole Eddie Murphy as "The Riddler" junk. Man I hope that isn't true!

"Gotham" was only announced a week ago and already my head is starting to spin.

See Also: Murphy As The Riddler? Weisz As Catwoman? Labeouf As Robin? Here We Go Again! / The Dark Knight Returns To Theaters January 23rd / Batman To Be Killed By Dad / Is This The End Of Bruce Wayne...Or Is It Another Publicity Stunt? / Christopher Nolan Still Denying That There Will Be Another Batman Sequel / Angelina Jolie Turns To Tera Patrick For Catwoman Advice / Don't Expect To See The Joker In The New Green Arrow Movie / The Dark Knight (2008)(Warner Bros) / The Dark Knight - Ledger Takes The Joker To A Whole New Level / The Dark Knight - Preserving The Iconic Images Of Batman & The Joker / Batman: The Dark Knight - Have Bat-Pod, Will Travel