The Lena Duchannes depicter, who is often compared with Kristen Stewart when she first starred in 'Twilight', says that she initially said 'no' when offered to star in the Southern Gothic film.
- Feb 15, 2013
AceShowbiz - "Beautiful Creatures" finally opens Stateside on this Valentine's Day. Having been dubbed the next big thing after the "Twilight Saga" film series, the supernatural romance flick brings its lead actress Alice Englert to steal public's attention. Playing Lena Duchannes, the up-and-coming starlet quickly gets compared to Kristen Stewart when she first starred in the now-successful vampire film franchise.
Though her starring role in the Richard LaGravenese-directed film became quite a hot topic, Englert revealed that she was initially not interested to star in the novel-adapted Southern Gothic film. "I was pitched that the movie was 'Twilight' meets 'Romeo and Juliet'," the brunette beauty said at the SLS Hotel in Los Angeles. "I din't want to make that movie."
However, Englert was still approached to take the part despite her reluctance. Admitting that she received three more e-mails after that, the Australian actress added, "I didn't read them either. For one, I thought they wouldn't end up casting me. (I thought) 'I'm nobody, it's a big film, they'll need a name'."
When she finally met director LaGravense, Englert confessed, "I told him what sort of film I thought he should be making, which is really inappropriate." She said, "He said that was the film I'm making. So it worked in that strange way, and from that moment, I was completely swayed."
"How great that you can have something that has still got its originality," she gushed. "It seems to say, 'Just have fun.' I just connected with that."
Adapted from the first of a five-novel series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, "Beautiful Creatures" follows high-school student Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich) who meets and becomes bewitched by Lena (Englert). The 16-year-old girl moves to a small South Carolina town where the boy lives. The couple later must confront a curse that has haunted Lena's family for generations as she comes to grip with her powers.
Before starring in the film, Englert started her acting stint when she was 14. A daughter of Oscar-winning writer/director Jane Campion, she "grew up on film sets but more around the process of making films." She said, "I saw a lot of the editing process and the writing process, which takes years. That really affected me growing up, that side of it."
She recalled, "I dropped out of school and I never took acting classes." Learning that she's now starring in a potentially successful movie, the starlet said that she still couldn't believe it. "This is alien to me, this is very different, this is very strange," she said. "This isn't how I imagined it in my head."
