A decade and a half into her illustrious career, Maria Bello has finally caught up with the spirit of the Steven Spielberg adventure that inspired her to become an actress.
By Pam Grady, FilmStew.com
Maria Bello has two Golden Globe nominations to her name, a 2004 Best Supporting Actress nod for her role as the cocktail waitress who romances William H. Macy in The Cooler and a 2006 Best Actress nomination for her turn as the wife who discovers her husband is not who she thought he was in David Cronenberg's A History of Violence.
At this January's Sundance Film Festival, she further burnished her image as a sober and serious actress with deft, disparate characterizations in three films: Towelhead, in which she plays the self-absorbed mother of a troubled, sexually curious 13-year-old daughter; Yellow Handkerchief, which casts her as the spouse William Hurt left behind when he was sent to prison and whom he yearns to reunite with; and Downloading Nancy, a deeply disturbing drama featuring Bello as a self-mutilating, unhappily married woman who wants the lover she met on the Internet to kill her.
That last film, commercial and music video director Johan Renck's feature debut, was especially controversial, derided by many critics for its soul-crushing nihilism and ludicrous underpinnings. But even those who loathed the film expressed admiration for Bello's fearless, soul-baring performance.
"There's nothing that I won't do. I listen to my heart," she explains to FilmStew and the rest of the rapt Castro Theatre audience as she celebrated her latest career honor, the San Francisco International Film Festival's Peter J. Owens Award, prior to a screening of Yellow Handkerchief on Friday, May 2nd. "My mom always said when you get to the end of a cliff, you have two choices: you can turn around and run, or jump and trust you'll be caught."
Funny she should mention jumping off a cliff. While her resume has grown increasingly serious over the years, with movies such as Coyote Ugly and Duets giving way to more substantial fare like Auto Focus, Thank You for Smoking and World Trade Center, she is taking a walk on the light side and indulging her inner stunt girl with her upcoming appearance in Universal's The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.
Inheriting the role that Rachel Weisz played in the popular franchise's first two installment, Bello is Evelyn Carnahan O'Connell, wife and partner in adventure to Brendan Fraser's Rick O'Connell. Describing her characterization as "more acerbic" than Weisz's, Bello explains, "We've been together 20 years. I'm over him!"
The August 1st release is her first foray into the world of the summer blockbuster, but from the sound of it, it may well not be her last. One might expect an actor with a resume as sober as Bello's to be motivated to join The Mummy cast in hopes of making a movie that will entertain her seven-year-old son.
That is not even close, as she confesses that she began reading romance novels when she was her little boy's age, keen on the adventure she found in them. Then as a young teen, Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, and Bello's path was set.
"When I decided to act, that's what I wanted to do," she exclaims. "I wanted to be Indiana Jones! I wanted to be an action hero." Even though with The Mummy Bello appears to have had to settle for being Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen's firebrand character in Raiders), it's still a pretty empowering example of a young 13-year-old moviegoer's desires eventually coming to fruition.
In Theaters 
