There are horror stories of rude and self-important celebrities better kept afar, I think as I am led to Stuart Townsend's suite in the posh Fairmont Hotel in Foggy Bottom. I know that I am not the only person to ever feel as if I know an actor or actress based on his or her work, and I am putting it all on the line with Townsend, actor in "Queen of the Damned," "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and "Trapped."
Sitting in the suite looking out on the courtyard, I become aware of the fact that I am being ridiculous. Townsend is, after all, just a man - albeit a rather attractive, talented and famous man, but a man nonetheless. Finally, in he walks. He is dressed casually - T-shirt and jeans, with a blazer, just in case - and carries a cup of coffee and a pack of cigarettes.
He graciously offers to open the patio doors to allow for a breeze as he lights a cigarette. I begin with casual conversation. He seems nice enough, so I decide it's about time to start the actual interview.
"So, you're a boxer," I say.
Stuart, mid-sip, sets down his coffee cup.
"No, that's a myth," he corrects, smiling.
Although fault lies with the press packet, which clearly stated that he made his living as a boxer before becoming an actor, I start the interview off seeming ignorant.
"Really? A myth?"
He smiles, understandingly.
"I did box when I was a kid, but I was never a professional boxer," Townsend says. "So, I don't know where it came from. I kind of like it. But ... it's just one of those things that someone said, and it stuck." He laughs.
"So, you did become interested in acting through a girlfriend?" I ask, praying that this, at least, is true.
Townsend smiles and tells me about taking a two-week acting class with a girlfriend in Dublin and realizing how much could actually be done in that field, which led to his enrollment in a two-year acting school after what he thought was a "terrible audition."
"[The acting course] kind of changed my life. It was something very different from what I'd done before," Townsend says. "Well, I hadn't done anything in my life - just messing around and getting into trouble, you know. And, this was something that I loved; this was the first time that I think I found something that I really loved doing."
So, what interests him about acting and what drew him in?
"One of my favorite classes was improvisation, where you just get up and you'd have to do something spontaneous," Townsend says. "There were certain aspects I hated; we had to do mime, which I was like fucking, you know, Marcel Marceau bullshit," he adds, pantomiming being in a box.
As well as acting in film, Townsend is also a stage actor, having starred in numerous plays in London. He said that he enjoys acting in front of an audience.
"Acting really encompasses everything," Townsend says. "You're telling a story, you know. I kind of believed in story, the power it had over me. ... Then you're actually there, and an audience is watching. It's kind of amazing, because when you do a show, you think, 'This is never gonna work; no one is going to buy this, and then suddenly ... what's enjoyable is to see the audience's suspension of belief. They want to hear a good story, and when you tell them it, they'll believe anything, you know. It's lovely to have that feeling."
Townsend became involved with "Head in the Clouds" because he knew director John Duigan through a mutual agent. He said he was originally going to star opposite Natalie Portman before she fell out of the project. Portman was replaced by Charlize Theron, Stuart's real-life girlfriend.
"It's kind of mad," Townsend said, still sipping his coffee. "[Charlize and I] had been offered a couple of things to do together, but we wanted to find something good, and [we] both thought this was a really great story."
Townsend's character, Guy, the Irish schoolteacher, is a lot different than characters Townsend has played in the past, like Lestat from "Queen of the Damned" and Dorian from "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." Did he approach Guy differently?
"Well, it's almost like Lestat and Dorian are very different characters from me, whereas Guy is more like me," Townsend explains. "Some jobs are like, 'Okay I've really got to create a character here,' and this one wasn't about really creating a character. This one was about just staying true to the story. The story was really powerful. It was just trying to get every scene and try and tell it emotionally as truly as you could."
"Head in the Clouds" is also a big change for Townsend from big-budget movies like "LXG" to smaller films.
"[Doing 'Head in the Clouds'] is much more enjoyable than doing the wire stuff. This was an acting job; every day you go to act. [I] got to do the stuff that made me want to be an actor in the first place. [In] a lot of films there is no acting required anymore, and this is one where you'd go in, and you had a big scene to do and it was emotional. I loved it, and I wish more films that were out there were like that, that came to me. It's something I long for"
