5.23.2012

BRIAN DE PALMA'S PASSION LEILA ROZARIO FILMS SCENE WITH NOOMI RAPACE IN ELEVATOR

Leila Rozario, the actress who filmed an elevator scene yesterday with Noomi Rapace for Passion, tells De Palma a la Mod she thinks that working on a Brian De Palma film is something she had on her bucket list as an actor. "Have you seen Scarface," she asks rhetorically. "Have you seen The Untouchables or Carlitos Way? I mean these are films that stick with you for life." Rozario has a role in the film as one of the people working at the corporation headed by the Rachel McAdams character.

I asked her how working with De Palma differs with some of the other projects she has worked on in the past. "The difference between working with someone like De Palma and say someone less experieced," Rozario says, "is that he knows and understands actors. That's something every director should, but a lot of them don't and that can make the work very difficult. Brian is a very calm man, the set is rather small, very unexpected. The way he directs is just perfect for an actor. He gives you the feeling of being totally relaxed, and if he needs adjustments you know you can trust him, so it works. The people he has closely working with him seem also very trusted, like a family, which is very Italian. I love that!"
For the elevator scene shot yesterday, Rozario had to speak German, "which is always a challenge for me because my native language is English," she says. "Even though I can speak German fluently, its still a whole different way of talking, thinking, body language." And she was very impressed with Rapace. "I loved watching Noomi work," says Rozario, "she always blew everyone on set away with her performance, each take got better and better, and you could really feel what she was putting across. Normally you can only have that when the movie is done."