Alan Simmons writes for Live for Films.
It would be very, very easy to dismiss ex-Page 3 stunner and glossy lad’s mag favourite Keeley Hazell’s burgeoning acting career. A glamour model who’s made her career from her boobs has decided she wants to be a film star? Yeah, jog on love. HOWEVER, after having the pleasure of her company for fifteen minutes, I genuinely hope that she makes it.
It’s a cold, but exceedingly bright Monday afternoon as I cross Regent’s Street, dodging gaggles of over enthusiastic tourists descending upon Hamley’s. I manage to accidentally stumble across the production offices and my contact and I’m shown downstairs into a waiting room to, well, wait for Miss. Hazell.
The previously allotted interviewer comes out of a room on my left, with a willowy and well spoken young lady, tripping over himself thanking her for her time – ah, so that’s Keeley and, obviously, rather a big fan. She’s not what I was expecting at all. Demurely dressed, bar some little leather shorts over her leggings and kitten heels, she looks like she is in “I’m-a-serious-actress-now-mode”. I should have guessed we’d be all business, after being pre-warned that we were not to talk about her past and to stick to the film and her fledgling acting career.
The film in question is a short called Venus & the Sun. In it, Keeley plays a version of herself who, to hide away from the pestering of a lecherous public, takes sanctuary in a library, where she can quietly translate the Greek myth of Venus and Adonis and polish up on her Latin. There she meets two men, one of which is previously unaware of her charms but becomes quickly besotted and another who seems completely immune to her attempted seductions.
After a brief introduction, we head to a small room, Keeley leading the way and holding the door open for me. I’m the last interview for the day and there’s clearly been a lot of filming going on as we have to pick our way through a tangle of leads before perching on a pair of stools between some large lights.
Between sips from a large Starbucks cups she tells me that she grew up “on a council estate in South East London”, but now resides in Los Angeles. Her folks actually still live not far from my place.
Though she wants to leave the glamour modelling behind her, having “made a conscious decision two or three years ago” she doesn’t take the success and money that it has provided for granted. She admits finding the whole thing very unfulfilling, simply “going through the motions and not getting anything from it. Apart from “a huge pay check, which is great!”. She says that money is not her “main purpose in life” and that she “needed to leave the modelling behind and move on”.
But was this the game plan all along? Was the modelling merely a pre-meditated means to an end? She says not intentionally, it’s been “all over the place! I’ve wanted to act since I was really young, but it was something that was never going to happen. As soon as I started modelling at eighteen I thought maybe I could use this as a launchpad into it”.
Playing “a small part, in a film called Cashback, a non-speaking role” gave her her first taste of a film set and seemed to make a big impression. “Just being in that environment made me think that this was what I wanted to do”.
The acting bug had been planted and after carrying on modelling for another couple of years, she fortuitously happened to run into the producer of Venus & the Sun at “a British Film Institute screening of a film called The Interview” and, though she can’t remember what she said, “it must have been good!”. Indeed it must, as he contacted her a few weeks later to talk about the project, telling her the part had been written specifically for her. She found this, understandably “amazing”, “loved the script” and was instantly attracted to how the story coincided with her life, while also being “thought provoking”.
In the film, she is pestered by builders and such, and while she admits to “rarely being recognised in normal life”, she doesn’t deny getting any catcalls day to day, but is keen to make clear that the version of events in the film is “exaggerated” and “heightened”.
Keeley is also fully aware of the stigma involved in her career transference and “was surrounded by insecurities about not being any good”, but decided it was what she wanted to do “and just had to go full steam ahead and jump in the deep end”. Mixed metaphors aside, she enrolled as a drama student “full-time for a year, but now just dropping in and out of classes”. She says that watching Venus & the Sun now that her studies over she wishes she’d “done this or done that, but overall, it was very exciting to be a part of”.
I found it genuinely pleasing to know that she wasn’t just cashing in her topless chips and having a pop at acting for kicks, but instead, is very determined to “start from the bottom and work her way up” and to pay her dues and prove her worth. Another thing I really liked was that the end game for her is not blockbuster stardom, she “loves British, independent films” and “would love to do something at the theatre”. Though “blockbusters would be great to do” she really wants “to just focus on the craft of it”.
Apparently she’s got a line on something gritty and dark at the moment, but was reluctant to spill too many beans for fear of jinxing it. She does tell me that it’s English, she’d be playing a girl from Peckham, implies it’s a gangster film and also dropped the names Guy Ritchie, Nick Love and Shane Meadows earlier on…
In terms of current actresses who she aspires to be like, Keeley again forgoes an obvious answer, like Jolie, Bullock or Aniston, instead plumping for Glenn Close, “I love the parts she’s been able to play and would love to be like her”, Meryl Streep, who she describes as “just a goddess of film”, Claire Danes and Emily Blunt who is “cool and different”. Again, commendable. And again, showing there’s a lot more to her than you would assume.
Time was running short by now and it was time to get to the good stuff: the three patented Live for Films questions. So just what is the first film she remembers seeing? What movie monster would she liked to be killed by and what would her last words be? And, most importantly, what does she prefer? Salted or sweet popcorn?
Hook (BANGARANG!!!) is the first film she remembers seeing and apparently she was completely obsessed – watching it every day. I rib her over this a little but she honestly seems to love it, so feeling mean I swiftly move on.
She takes a long time pondering over a movie monster to be killed by, briefly mulling over how Hulk could dispatch her, before finally settling on the Joker. She opts for “God save me!” as her final line.
Baulking at the mention of popcorn, which she hates, she says “if I’m here then Mint Aero Bubbles or Minstrels”. I tell her she should try, my personal favourite, Junior Mints but she doesn’t need telling – them and Sour Patch are her cine-snacks of choice while stateside. We agree on the relative lameness of American chocolate and I tell her about Cyber Candy – a shop in Covent Garden that stocks both Junior Mints and Sour Patch, so she can get her fix while in the UK.
Keeley Hazell was surprisingly lovely to talk to and I really hope she carries on her hard work and gets where she wants to be. I must admit to having pre-judged how she would be and her responses before being a little taken aback, in a good way, to find her just as clever and determined as she is easy on the eyes.
I am also fully aware that having said all this, she’ll probably get cast in Transformers 5 next week.
Venus & the Sun is due for release on the 10th of March as the first ever film iPhone app. You can download a free lite version now at http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/venus-thesun-lite/id419190043?mt=8 and the full version (paid for) will receive an automatic update with the film on the day. I had a go on the lite version this afternoon and it’s worth a download – there’s a Keeley version of a Magic 8 Ball and a saucy version of Spin the Bottle.
On the same day the film will also be made available to download from the official site www.venusandthesun.com and on DVD too.
If that’s not enough, there’s also a making of featurette below.
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