Alice Englert Almost Turned Down Starring Role

Kiwi actress Alice Englert almost turned down her role as ‘caster’ Lena Duchannes in Beautiful Creatures. Speaking to Eric Eisenberg, from Cinema Blend.com, Englert said that initially she ‘wasn’t interested. I heard…that it was trying to rip off the genre thing.’ But after meeting Director Richard LaGravenese, who wanted her precisely because she wasn’t interested, she was won over.  ‘The film … was something really, really interesting [that] wasn’t bound by the genre. That wasn’t bound by clichés. It had enough objectivity…It could talk about religion and the south and teenagers without trying to be cool, which I think is a real weakness in teen-age films’. She also found the film funny. ‘And not trying to be cool funny. It’s witty and that’s a credit to Richard [LaGravenese], who knows how to write dialogue. He understands that rhythm that’s kind of old school.’ The movie delivers strong messages about self-definition according to Englert. ‘I think you manifest what you believe, and that when you have no choice you lose choice…I’m really happy with that message,’ she said.  In the interview, Englert also reveals that she is ‘very attracted’ to directing. ‘I did spend a lot of time in editing rooms when I was young pretending to be sick’. Both her parents, New Zealander Jane Campion and Australian Colin Englert, are film directors. Elsewhere, Englert is picked by Forbes as one of its ‘top 10 to make it big’ in 2013. Beautiful Creatures ‘producers are hoping they have the next Hunger Games on their hands, which could make New Zealand native Englert the next Jennifer Lawrence, ‘says Dorothy Pomerantz of Forbes.