Joan Allen Interview

A Tough Competitor

Actress Joan Allen was so convincing in her latest role as America's first female vice-president, she ended up getting the public vote.

"It's true," smiles the softly-spoken star, "I was queuing up to vote in our election last year and some people were saying, 'I want you, you're the one I want', and I was like, 'It's just a role'," she laughs.

But the star confesses she's make a rotten vice-president as she's not even political. "I've never had any aspirations that way," she says. "I don't have a political bone in my body. It's total acting."

It's testament to her acting skills that she carried off the role with such aplomb. Her performance in the new movie The Contender resulted in her third Oscar nomination. What's more the role was actually written for her by the film's director, Rod Lurie.

"That was so flattering," says Allen, "I was even more thrilled when I read the script. It was wonderful, it's a dream come true for an actor to have a role like this, but the whole script is so good and all the characters in it are terrific, not just mine."

In the film Allen plays Senator Laine Hanson, who is chosen to be vice-president. However, her high-flying career is suddenly brought crashing down to earth by shady events in her past.

The role is another in a growing list of strong women portrayed by Allen. She also starred as Richard Nixon's stoic wife, alongside Anthony Hopkins, in the biopic Nixon and last year appeared as murdered Irish journalist Veronica Guerin in When The Sky Falls. However, Allen says there's been no game plan to her choice of roles.

"I think the people who cast films tend to think of me in regard to strong women with integrity and a lot of it has been very good," she muses. "I do have integrity in my life but I don't think I'd be able to do what Laine Hanson did. I think I would have crumbled. I've just completed a television series called The Mists Of Avalon and in that I play a villain. That was a lot of fun. I am always looking to stretch myself."

Allen has developed something of a pattern too with her leading men as most of them have been British. As well as Anthony Hopkins she has also starred alongside Daniel Day Lewis in The Crucible and her co-star in The Contender is Gary Oldman.