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I, CONNIE

Danish actress Connie Nielsen, star of this year's blockbuster Gladiator, is
beautiful, intelligent, and ambitious. Ariadne Calvo-Platero meets a player
who wants to change Hollywood for ever.

Connie Nielsen's suggested venue for our interview is the lobby of the W
Hotel, a sleek newcomer to midtown Manhattan. Another actress might have
chosen it for its fashionability, but Connie Nielsen, typically, has a more
practical reason: it is one place in politically-correct New York where she
can smoke with impunity. She runs into the hotel's dark faux-wood interior,
past the stylish stainless-steel bookcases, hand-in-hand with a small
freckled boy - her ten-year-old son, Sebastian. The reason she is late, she
explains breathlessly, is that they were waiting for the baby-sitter who
failed to show up. It seems rather an ordinary excuse for one of Hollywood's
hottest properties, but Connie is not one to play the film star. In the
street, you would never recognise her as the woman who plays the beautiful
Lucilla, daughter of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, in this year's blockbuster,
Gladiator. Her hair -jet-black on screen - is now strawberry blonde; the
elaborate jewellery has given place to a small cross on a silver chain; she
wears no make-up, and half of her pale, clear face is hidden by green-tinted
dark glasses, protecting her eyes from the glaring New York sun. She is
dressed very casually, in a downmarket yet hip combination of grey T-shirt,
ankle-length black skirt, blue-and-white striped ankle socks, and trainers.
A faded denim jacket is tied around her waist, and the whole ensemble is
topped off with an incongruously chic Kate Spade bag of grey worsted wool
decorated with small white flowers. She could be any stylish young New
Yorker, which is the way she likes it. 'I don't want to be famous,' she
says. 'That is one of the reasons I chose to live in New York. Here, you can
be anonymous.'

We had actually met a few weeks earlier at a dinner given by the English
designer Rufus Albemarle, where she had been so low-key and matter-of-fact
about her acting work that, when we said goodbye, I was unaware that she was
about to appear in one of the biggest films of the year. In an industry and
a city of trumpet-blowers, Connie's understatement is a large part of her
charm.

We go out on the terrace and order brunch. Connie tucks into pancakes with
berries with a good slosh of maple syrup and a large cappuccino. Sebastian
behaves perfectly, eating his waffles and reading quietly. This is nothing
new to him: until he was seven, he spent every day with Connie, learning
from tutors on film sets. Unfortunately, her gruelling film schedule now
means that they sometimes have to be apart, which makes Connie feel guilty
-'But I am very strict about his schoolwork, and I am determined that he
will get a good education.'

'I like to go to new places and meet famous actors,' Sebastian pipes up,
'but I don't like it when she is away so much. At weekends, they have a
ritual of going to bookshops. 'Sebastian is allowed to buy one book, maybe
two,' explains Connie, who is herself a voracious reader: Ridley Scott, who
directed Gladiator, claims that she knows more about Roman history than
anyone he has ever met.

Connie may look like a New Yorker, but -her heart remains in Europe. She
speaks half a dozen languages fluently, and spends a lot of time with Danish
friends ('We are a loud crowd, have long lunches, and talk about
everything.') She also makes a point of taking Sebastian home with her every
summer.

She was born in Elling, a tiny village on the northern tip of Denmark, where
her father was a bus driver. Connie always wanted to act, and made her stage
debut at fifteen, opposite her mother (a local insurance clerk) in summer
repertory, which is something of a tradition in Denmark. At eighteen, she
took herself off to Paris and then Rome and Milan, where she performed in a
minor film, a television series, and an array of commercials, got married,
and had a baby. (On the subject of Sebastian's Italian father, she remains
silent, as she does about subsequent relationships.) Along the way, she also
learnt to sing. 'My teacher told me that if I had started a little earlier I
could have had a career as a coloratura,' Connie recalls, a little
wistfully. 'I would have travelled around the Italian countryside singing
operetta. Not a bad life.'

Instead, she moved to America and within a month of arriving three years
ago, landed the part that got her noticed: the lawyer-cum-Stan's daughter in
Devil's Advocate, complete wit a raunchy scene with Keanu Reeves and Al
Pacino. Connie blushes as she recalls one reviewer's opinion of her
performance: 'Many will leave the film asking, "Who is she, and how can I
buy a continent?"' She admits she is extremely uncomfortable in sex scenes -
feeling embarrassed for her family - and hates watching herself on screen.
She even claims that her agent takes the phone off the hook after a premiere
so as to avoid her anguished calls.

After Devil's Advocate came Mission to Mars, in which she starred opposite
Tim Robbins and Gary Sinise, followed by the much-acclaimed Gladiator. 'I
adore working with the English,' she says of Ridley Scott and her co-stars
Richard Harris, Derek Jacobi and Oliver Reed. 'They have and unbeatable
combination of a wonderful sense of humour and consummate professionalism.'
She describes Reed, who died during filming, as a man 'very beloved on the
set,' and recalls how work was suspended for several days while the stunned
crew mourned his death.

Lucilla, the most intriguing character in the film, is a perfect role for
Connie. She was attracted to it both by Lucilla's strength and by the
pivotal nature of the part: 'She's not just a Caesar's daughter and
another's sister, but a conspirator in her own right.' Her ambition is to be
part of a generation of actresses who will have roles on a par with their
male equivalents: 'Look about you. Women are prime ministers and presidents,
attorney generals, doctors, and police chiefs. We should be playing parts
that direct the dramatic plot. There should be real women in real roles.'

For her next film, Innocents, Connie plays a nurse who becomes entangled
with a travelling cellist played by French heartthrob Jean-Hugues Anglade.
It is a psychological thriller in which she has an opportunity to play a
much darker character.

Though clearly a very rational being, and apparently in control of her life,
Connie confesses to being 'horrendously superstitious'. She keeps her
great-grandmother's ring close at hand as a talisman, and has what she terms
the 'narcissistic habit' of believing that unconnected external events can
affect her life: for instance, that if a traffic light changes before she
gets to it, it will bode well or ill for her, depending on her particular
dilemma or project at the time. And, like Lucilla, Connie appears to be
fiercely protective of her son. All in all, she would have been rather at
home in Ancient Rome, hanging about while priests examined the entrails of
birds for omens. Clearly, Connie's success is due to more than good luck.
She works hard on her roles, but, no matter how much preparation she does,
she always feels nervous when she is called. 'I like the adrenalin,' she
says, 'but sometimes I am, scared out of my mind - until the camera rolls'.

Copyright 2000 - Harpers&Queen




JULY 2000 HARPERS & QUEEN I, CONNIE Danish actress Connie Nielsen, star of this year's blockbuster Gladiator, is beautiful, intelligent, and ambitious. Ariadne Calvo-Platero meets a player who wants to change Hollywood for ever. Connie Nielsen's suggested venue for our interview is the lobby of the W Hotel, a sleek newcomer to midtown Manhattan. Another actress might have chosen it for its fashionability, but Connie Nielsen, typically, has a more practical reason: it is one place in politically-correct New York where she can smoke with impunity. She runs into the hotel's dark faux-wood interior, past the stylish stainless-steel bookcases, hand-in-hand with a small freckled boy - her ten-year-old son, Sebastian. The reason she is late, she explains breathlessly, is that they were waiting for the baby-sitter who failed to show up. It seems rather an ordinary excuse for one of Hollywood's hottest properties, but Connie is not one to play the film star. In the street, you would never recognise her as the woman who plays the beautiful Lucilla, daughter of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, in this year's blockbuster, Gladiator. Her hair -jet-black on screen - is now strawberry blonde; the elaborate jewellery has given place to a small cross on a silver chain; she wears no make-up, and half of her pale, clear face is hidden by green-tinted dark glasses, protecting her eyes from the glaring New York sun. She is dressed very casually, in a downmarket yet hip combination of grey T-shirt, ankle-length black skirt, blue-and-white striped ankle socks, and trainers. A faded denim jacket is tied around her waist, and the whole ensemble is topped off with an incongruously chic Kate Spade bag of grey worsted wool decorated with small white flowers. She could be any stylish young New Yorker, which is the way she likes it. 'I don't want to be famous,' she says. 'That is one of the reasons I chose to live in New York. Here, you can be anonymous.' We had actually met a few weeks earlier at a dinner given by the English designer Rufus Albemarle, where she had been so low-key and matter-of-fact about her acting work that, when we said goodbye, I was unaware that she was about to appear in one of the biggest films of the year. In an industry and a city of trumpet-blowers, Connie's understatement is a large part of her charm. We go out on the terrace and order brunch. Connie tucks into pancakes with berries with a good slosh of maple syrup and a large cappuccino. Sebastian behaves perfectly, eating his waffles and reading quietly. This is nothing new to him: until he was seven, he spent every day with Connie, learning from tutors on film sets. Unfortunately, her gruelling film schedule now means that they sometimes have to be apart, which makes Connie feel guilty -'But I am very strict about his schoolwork, and I am determined that he will get a good education.' 'I like to go to new places and meet famous actors,' Sebastian pipes up, 'but I don't like it when she is away so much. At weekends, they have a ritual of going to bookshops. 'Sebastian is allowed to buy one book, maybe two,' explains Connie, who is herself a voracious reader: Ridley Scott, who directed Gladiator, claims that she knows more about Roman history than anyone he has ever met. Connie may look like a New Yorker, but -her heart remains in Europe. She speaks half a dozen languages fluently, and spends a lot of time with Danish friends ('We are a loud crowd, have long lunches, and talk about everything.') She also makes a point of taking Sebastian home with her every summer. She was born in Elling, a tiny village on the northern tip of Denmark, where her father was a bus driver. Connie always wanted to act, and made her stage debut at fifteen, opposite her mother (a local insurance clerk) in summer repertory, which is something of a tradition in Denmark. At eighteen, she took herself off to Paris and then Rome and Milan, where she performed in a minor film, a television series, and an array of commercials, got married, and had a baby. (On the subject of Sebastian's Italian father, she remains silent, as she does about subsequent relationships.) Along the way, she also learnt to sing. 'My teacher told me that if I had started a little earlier I could have had a career as a coloratura,' Connie recalls, a little wistfully. 'I would have travelled around the Italian countryside singing operetta. Not a bad life.' Instead, she moved to America and within a month of arriving three years ago, landed the part that got her noticed: the lawyer-cum-Stan's daughter in Devil's Advocate, complete wit a raunchy scene with Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino. Connie blushes as she recalls one reviewer's opinion of her performance: 'Many will leave the film asking, "Who is she, and how can I buy a continent?"' She admits she is extremely uncomfortable in sex scenes - feeling embarrassed for her family - and hates watching herself on screen. She even claims that her agent takes the phone off the hook after a premiere so as to avoid her anguished calls. After Devil's Advocate came Mission to Mars, in which she starred opposite Tim Robbins and Gary Sinise, followed by the much-acclaimed Gladiator. 'I adore working with the English,' she says of Ridley Scott and her co-stars Richard Harris, Derek Jacobi and Oliver Reed. 'They have and unbeatable combination of a wonderful sense of humour and consummate professionalism.' She describes Reed, who died during filming, as a man 'very beloved on the set,' and recalls how work was suspended for several days while the stunned crew mourned his death. Lucilla, the most intriguing character in the film, is a perfect role for Connie. She was attracted to it both by Lucilla's strength and by the pivotal nature of the part: 'She's not just a Caesar's daughter and another's sister, but a conspirator in her own right.' Her ambition is to be part of a generation of actresses who will have roles on a par with their male equivalents: 'Look about you. Women are prime ministers and presidents, attorney generals, doctors, and police chiefs. We should be playing parts that direct the dramatic plot. There should be real women in real roles.' For her next film, Innocents, Connie plays a nurse who becomes entangled with a travelling cellist played by French heartthrob Jean-Hugues Anglade. It is a psychological thriller in which she has an opportunity to play a much darker character. Though clearly a very rational being, and apparently in control of her life, Connie confesses to being 'horrendously superstitious'. She keeps her great-grandmother's ring close at hand as a talisman, and has what she terms the 'narcissistic habit' of believing that unconnected external events can affect her life: for instance, that if a traffic light changes before she gets to it, it will bode well or ill for her, depending on her particular dilemma or project at the time. And, like Lucilla, Connie appears to be fiercely protective of her son. All in all, she would have been rather at home in Ancient Rome, hanging about while priests examined the entrails of birds for omens. Clearly, Connie's success is due to more than good luck. She works hard on her roles, but, no matter how much preparation she does, she always feels nervous when she is called. 'I like the adrenalin,' she says, 'but sometimes I am, scared out of my mind - until the camera rolls'. Copyright 2000 - Harpers&Queen