Stanley Tucci Interview
Written by Sue Denim
Actor Interview
When Stanley Tucci was offered the role of George Harvey in ‘The Lovely Bones’, it presented him with a deeply troubling dilemma. On the one hand, there was the welcome chance to work with Peter Jackson, an Oscar-winning director he admires, and on the other, he was to play a killer who rapes and murders a young girl.
“It wasn't an easy decision”, says Tucci, and even though he is delighted that he took on the challenge, there were times when he found it very upsetting. “It was really hard and I didn't want to do it at first,” he says. “I told Peter that I was so flattered that they came to me because, a role like this is like the actor’s dream and the actor’s nightmare. You get to transform yourself and go to this very dark, horrible place and both the exciting part and the scary part is going to that dark, horrible place.”
He was convinced, finally, by the persuasive powers of Jackson and his creative partners, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote and produced the film from their base in New Zealand, where much of ‘The Lovely Bones’ was shot.
“I talked to my wife about it and she had read the book - which is, by the way, a fantastic book - and she said to me ‘do you really want to do this?’, and I was like 'I really don't know'. But I talked on the phone with Fran and Phil for a long time and then we had a video conference with everyone in New Zealand. I was actually trying to get other actors the job. I kept saying 'have you thought about this guy or that guy?' I remember asking 'why me?' and Peter was very complimentary and he said 'look you can do it and we really want you to do it’.”
‘The Lovely Bones’ is based on the highly acclaimed, best-selling novel by Alice Sebold and tells the story of a young girl, Susie Salmon, who is waylaid by a neighbour as she is on her way home. George Harvey persuades the youngster to take a look inside his hideaway, built, he claims, so that the local kids will have somewhere to hang out. After Susie is murdered, she looks down on her shattered family - and keeps track of her killer - from 'heaven’.
Stanley Tucci has just been nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in ‘The Lovely Bones’, which is in cinemas now.
