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Actress finds inspiration in life of slain reporter

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

“[Guerin] just wouldn’t stop,” Bruckheimer said, noting that several of the Ireland’s top criminals were jailed and numerous laws changed after the young woman was shot to death at a traffic light on the outskirts of Dublin.
“She went after the drug dealers and exposed them and she lost her life because of it. She was very well-liked, even by many of the criminals.”
When it came time to hire someone to play the title character in the recently released film “Veronica Guerin,” the American producer immediately thought of Australian actress Cate Blanchett, the Oscar-nominated star of “Elizabeth,” “Bandits,” “The Gift,” “Heaven,” “An Ideal Husband,” “Pushing Tin” and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
“She can do anything,” Bruckheimer said in a recent telephone interview, noting how easily Blanchett seems to morph from 16th century English queen to Long Island housewife to bald vigilante.
“She is chameleon like, constantly trying something different. She is one of the greatest actresses of our time — or ever.”
Sitting in a suite at Manhattan’s Four Seasons Hotel after a hectic morning of TV interviews and photo shoots recently, the luminous 34-year-old actress talked about what made her want to play a woman slain by assassins hired by the powerful Irish drug dealers she routinely exposed in the Dublin Sunday Independent.
“Usually, it’s not just the character that draws me into a project, it’s the circumstances in which that character is set,” she explained. “And there are a lot of extraordinary women who have lived recently, historical figures, but unless you can find the point of drama to set them in, then their extraordinary lives don’t become films.”
Blanchett said she had not heard of Guerin until director Joel Schumacher (“Tigerland,” “Phone Booth”) sent her a “60 Minutes” piece about the tenacious reporter.
“I instantly found her fascinating,” Blanchett recalled. “[The segment] was done after she was shot the first time. So, I was really taken by her and then Joel described how he wanted to make this a dance of death between her and [drug lord] Gilligan, so that everything is heading toward that point. Suddenly, I saw the focus for the drama.”
The actress described the film’s script, based on Mike Sager’s GQ article “Chasing the Dragon,” as a “very fluid thing,” noting how it evolved as the filmmakers dove deeper into their research and met with people who knew the real Guerin.
“Although Guerin is not the first real-life character Blanchett has portrayed on screen, she’s the woman who lived most recently. Asked if she felt more responsibility to the heroine’s family, friends and colleagues knowing they would probably see the film, the actress replied: “On an empathetic, compassionate human level, of course you do.
“I didn’t feel any sense of entitlement to access to them because I was playing her,” she emphasized. “So, I was really surprised and very grateful that they were prepared to speak with me. Because the details they told me, just little anecdotes that don’t necessarily appear in the film, but just to give me such a wealth of background material to draw on, which was very generous of them. I think that her memory, since she died in ’96, has become so public. They were sort of used to people being curious, in a way. But there was a sense from her friends and family that they felt the need to participate because they wanted it to be done as accurately as possible.”
Pointing out that the real Guerin didn’t have a desk in her newspaper’s office and operated primarily out of her car, Blanchett said she still went to the Irish Independent as part of her research, in hopes of talking to those who worked with her and knew her best.
“But, of course, we walked in and it was like, ‘We’ll give you information, but we want an interview,’ ” she said.
Bruckheimer said he understands the woman’s family is particularly pleased with the film, although he was not present when they actually saw it for the first time.
“Joel had a relationship with [Guerin’s] mother,” the producer said. “She liked him a lot and he spent a lot of time with her and I’m sure it was very hard to show the picture to the mother of the young woman who was killed. ”

Authentic locations
Bruckheimer, Schumacher and Blanchett have all described filming in Ireland as a memorable experience. In fact, the producer enjoyed making movies there so much he has since returned to film his epic “King Arthur.”
“Obviously, it couldn’t have been filmed anywhere else because Dublin is such a character, and that was what she was writing about,” Blanchett said. “There are a lot of impoverished neighborhoods. Some of the places we were filming, I thought apartment blocks were abandoned, but they weren’t at all. There were a lot of great people there. It’s a very ebullient place to be.”
Said Bruckheimer: “Everybody in the cast is Irish except for Cate. So, it’s all local actors, all local extras, shot in the locations that Veronica used to haunt. We used the car that she was killed in. Not the exact car, but the make and model. We tried to keep it as authentic as possible.”
Since Guerin is such a beloved figure, Blanchett admitted the film’s cast and crew felt “a certain level of trepidation” about showing the movie to an Irish audience.
“I think, obviously, from the response, the critical response, the response at the premiere it was really positive, which is great,” she said.
According to Bruckheimer, however, Blanchett was too modest about the group’s collective achievement.
“They gave her a 10-minute standing ovation at the premiere [in Ireland],” he said.
The $17 million film has already earned nearly

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