Anjelica Huston: ‘I find extreme characters irresistible’

Her father was scary. Vincent Gallo got vicious. And Jack Nicholson taught her never to give a brown present. Anjelica Huston tells John Patterson about a life among Hollywood royalty The last time I met Anjelica Huston was six or seven years ago in a luxury oceanfront hotel in Venice, California. It was windy and cold, Huston was still a smoker – we talked outside in the wind while she lit up like a naughty schoolgirl. Today, it’s a blisteringly hot day, she’s an enviably youthful 60, an ex-smoker now, sitting in the lounge of the luxury hotel next door, before a gigantic cinemascope window affording guests a million-dollar view of the Pacific, which looks seriously tempting in today’s heat. “I went in the ocean this year, the day after my birthday,” she tells me as we watch the breakers gently roll in, “and it was actually really nice. It’s like the Eiffel Tower is for Parisians, though, the beach in LA. It’s right there, but you barely even look at it most of the time.” Spoken like a true Angeleno. We’re here to talk about Horrid Henry: The Movie , a swivel-eyed comedy based on the children’s books by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross, in which she plays the screechy teacher, Miss Battle-Axe (we’re on the uglied-up Morticia Addams end of the Huston spectrum again). “It’s very British material to me, and I’ve always been strangely attracted to these extreme characters, like Miss Battle-Axe. I found her irresistible! I hadn’t seen the cartoon or the book, which I hear is second in popularity in Britain to Harry Potter. I guess you have to have a few seven-year-old children to really appreciate that.” How was it working with all those kids? “Most of my scenes were with Theo Stevenson [the titular bad boy], but English kids are so polite and enthusiastic, and not blase. I did that movie Daddy Day Care , with a bunch of five- and six-year-old American kids, and they were so sophisticated and scarily together compared with this group, who were sweet and happy and enthusiastic. The script was very charming, I liked the director, and it felt like a good idea to go and play in London for a while.” Huston arrives alone, no PR flak, no retinue, no muscle, just a slender, well-dressed and coiffed California woman of a certain age and, if you look closely enough, a striking, instantly familiar cast of feature. But today, in white pants, a simple blouse and open-toed sandals, she might as well be in disguise. She probably walked here today from her home nearby, unrecognised and unmolested. To be as unassuming and well-adjusted and as smart and, well, as normal as Anjelica Huston has turned out to be is, to say the least, unusual among the children of fathers as legendary – and notorious – as hers, the buccaneering, larger-than-life, genius-hero-monster John Huston , a maverick back when that word still meant

Posted by on July 21, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.