FILMOGRAPHY - THE AVIATOR

Release Year: 2004
Role: Ava Gardner
Director: Martin Scorsese
Writing Credits: John Logan
Tagline: Some men dream the future. He built it./Imagine a life without limits.
Co-Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio (Howard Hughes), Cate Blanchett (Katharine Hepburn), John C. Reilly (Noah Dietrich), Alec Baldwin (Juan Trippe), Gwen Stefani (Jean Harlow), Kelli Garner (Faith Domergue)
Genre: Biography/Drama
Country USA
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 170 min

Synopsis:
Phenomenal public success contrasts with private behaviors close to madness: Howard Hughes from the late 1920s to the late 1940s, from "Hells Angels" (spending a fortune on details) through the only flight of the Hercules, a huge, money-losing transport plane. Along the way, the public Hughes sees the big picture - in movies and in aviation, building TWA and leading it through a fight with Pan Am and the US Senate. In private, phobias and compulsions threaten him with self-imposed solitary confinement. How long can his imagination, drive, and the sympathies of Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, and the men who work for him stave off these internal disorders?

Kate about Ava Gardner:
"She was this very passionate, fiery, feisty woman, and she just had a lot of warmth and a lot of strength at the same time - a lot to play. She was like one of the guys."

Kate about her audition:
"It was one of the auditions I most dreaded because you think you don't want to be in front of people that you admire and think are really talented. It turned out to be one of the auditions I enjoyed most of my life. It was fun work, and after a while, I forgot about the audition side of it, and we had fun in the scenes."

Kate about the relationship between Hughes & Gardner:
"It was a cantankerous flirtation. They were good friends, and she was attracted to him and his largesse. But she was worried that something might be required in return."

Kate about what attracted her to the role:
"It was the whole project altogether. I didn’t hear about Ava Gardner without Marty and Leo already being attached to it. But she had a very unique spirit and I really found that appealing. It was a broad quality to her that I think these days we tend to no longer have. She was a very feisty, fiery, warm, deeply feminine, tough person, from what I can gather. I just thought that was a lot of interesting qualities all in one."

Kate about her role:
"It was a little bit intimidating. On every page of the script she (Ava Gardner) is described as the most beautiful woman in the world."

Kate about the traps and joys of playing a real person:
"It’s always unnerving because I think there will be, inevitably, and there are of course, a certain percentage of people who will be just offended by the fact that you’ve been cast at all, and you don’t evoke her in their heart as maybe somebody else might. I think that would happen with anybody. One of the things about all this Internet battling about what a disaster all of us were cast, is that nobody ever seems to be able to settle on one person who unanimously is the choice. I think it’s just that thing of if it’s a really person, you do feel there’s a right way to play it. And normally with an artistic endeavor, the way to play a part is a more organic thing that comes out as you’re going along. You’re the authority on the character’s emotional life. When it’s a real person, there is actually a blueprint that you're trying to hit without being able to actually speak to the person if they’ve passed away. So that does make it different. And I think once you’ve done all the research and you immerse yourself in all of that, at some point you do have to actually approach it in the same way as you approach anything else, in a sort of open-hearted creative actress playing a part."

Trivia:

For the role, Kate had to gain 20 pounds, something she did easily by consuming mainly chocolates. "It was quite fun," she says. "It was a shame to lose it, really."

She also had to acquire Gardner's distinctive voice. "I rented a bunch of movies of her," Beckinsale explains, "I locked myself in a small padded cell with that and the description. It was great. I love all that stuff - that's the fun part of my job."

First film by director 'Martin Scorcese' to gross over $100 million in the U.S.

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