Watchmen actress Malin Akerman: Im not going to be somebodys toy
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Malin Akerman’s looks have opened doors in Hollywood – taking her from romcom blonde in 27 Dresses to feisty heroine in the new blockbuster Watchmen. And she hopes they will bring her the ‘meaty’ roles she so desperately craves
With her stunning looks and kooky personality, Malin Akerman is on course for a glittering Hollywood career. The 30-year-old actress, born in Stockholm and raised in Toronto, starred as the younger sister of Katherine Heigl’s character in last year’s hit comedy 27 Dresses (‘I loved playing a bitch, a super-sexy airhead’) and as Ben Stiller’s sex-crazed wife in The Heartbreak Kid: ‘It was such fun. There’s a scene in which I am upside down with Ben on top of me. They call “cut” and you’re sitting there half naked. I just said, “Hi Ben, how’s your wife?”
'I don’t mind being goofy and silly. I love to make people laugh and I’m not self-conscious.’
Given her flair for broad, physical comedy, it’s not surprising that critics are calling Malin the new Cameron Diaz. ‘Cameron is a fantastic actress and I am so flattered,’ she says. ‘I do see a similarity between us and I hope that maybe one day we could play sisters.
‘I’m not embarrassed about taking off my clothes for a film. I don’t
know many women who have sex with a bra on. So let’s make it real
in the movies’
'But I definitely want a wide range of films, which I feel maybe she hasn’t had – she does mostly romantic comedies.’ Which is perhaps why Malin is now breaking her own mould by playing a Lycra-clad warrior in the superhero blockbuster Watchmen.
Meeting Malin over breakfast in Beverly Hills, you quickly realise that she has little in common with her contemporaries. She orders coffee along with a goat’s cheese and tomato omelette with potatoes – and actually eats it. This is not a woman who lives on lettuce leaves.
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With slanting, light blue eyes, high cheekbones and a wide forehead, Malin’s heritage (both parents are Swedish) has given her a more distinctive look than the standard Californian blonde. In fact, Malin is a brunette in her two most recent films – she wore a long dark wig for Watchmen, and she’s also dyed her hair for her role opposite Vince Vaughn in Couples Retreat, the romantic comedy she filmed at the end of last year.
‘I play a mother and housewife and didn’t want her to be a blonde bombshell – it wouldn’t be realistic,’ she laughs. ‘When I get dolled up to go out, men turn their heads and I’m used to it,’ she admits with a matter-of-fact grin. ‘But I think all women are sexy and should embrace that side of themselves.’
Her role models? ‘I think Cate Blanchett is fabulous – she just shines in everything she does – and I’m a big Susan Sarandon fan.’
Malin seems grounded and comfortable in her own skin, despite a slightly unsettled childhood. Her parents moved to Canada when she was a baby and divorced when she was just six, her father going back to live in Sweden. Both remarried, and she has a half-brother and two half-sisters.
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‘It was painful,’ says the actress. ‘I loved my father very much and I only got to see him during the school holidays. But I think it was an advantage that they split up when I was very young, so I could get used to it. My ties to Sweden have always been really strong [she speaks fluent Swedish] and I love having two cultures.’
As a child she had no thoughts of acting: she wanted to be an astronaut, then an Olympic skater. It was her mother, an aerobics teacher and part-time model, who introduced her to the modelling business when she was still at primary school.
With her winning looks and personality, Malin quickly landed big advertising campaigns, including My Little Pony – a cute little girl image distinctly at odds with her tomboy escapades after school (‘We would climb trees, and knock on apartment doors then run away before anyone answered’).
Bored with modelling, she decided to stop at 12 (‘I just wanted to be a teenager and have fun’), but four years later changed her mind when she was ‘discovered’ by Ford Models in a Toronto shopping mall and won several lucrative assignments, including a contract with the skincare company Noxzema.
At 18 she changed direction yet again, with plans to become a child psychologist (she spent a year at York University in Canada). Then, lured by the offer of film and TV roles, she dropped out and moved to Hollywood, appearing in Entourage and Lisa Kudrow’s short-lived series The Comeback before getting her big break with 27 Dresses.
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Malin isn’t afraid of expressing her views. Take her comments on nudity: ‘I’m not embarrassed about taking off my clothes for a film as long as it’s not gratuitous. I spent a lot of time as a child in Sweden; it’s natural there.
'I don’t know many women who go to bed with their husband at night and have sex with a bra on, do you? So let’s make it real in the movies.’
She describes herself as a feminist – ‘I think men and women should be equal’ – but also says, ‘We are different and I embrace those differences. I don’t mind it when my husband opens the door for me [she married Italian drummer Roberto Zincone 20 months ago]; I don’t mind it when a guy buys me a drink, but I’m not going to be somebody’s toy.’
It is hard to imagine her as anyone’s ‘toy’. She is happy to admit that sex appeal is one of her best assets but says,
‘I think that being beautiful is a blessing and a curse. I tend to get a lot of scripts in which people want me to play the trophy wife, which is frustrating because I want the interesting, meaty roles.’
Malin as action heroine Silk Spectre II in Watchmen
And now internet images of Malin as Silk Spectre II, the invincible warrior she transforms herself into in Watchmen, have set male pulses racing, giving her a colossal global fan base as ‘hottest chick on the planet’.
There is palpable excitement about the £87 million blockbuster, based on the acclaimed graphic novel.
‘My character is a feisty piece of fire,’ she says. ‘I wear a gorgeous black and yellow skintight costume. But she is also vulnerable and has a heart that gets broken easily.’
Set in ‘an alternative universe’ in 1985, the film centres on a dark and troubled America, in which superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society – vigilantes rather than superheroes in the usual comic-book sense.
Actor Billy Crudup’s Dr Manhattan is the only one with superhuman powers. ‘It’s very different from anything I’ve done before,’ says Malin. ‘It’s emotional and political, with psychological layers.
‘The vigilantes have been banned from society
because we were taking over the work of the police,’ she explains. 'When one of us is killed, we have to ask ourselves, “What are we doing with our lives?” We are at a turning point.’
What follows is a riveting action-packed adventure, with Malin’s character at the centre of a love triangle with Dr Manhattan and Patrick Wilson’s Nite Owl II. ‘She goes through a journey finding out who she is, and which man she wants to be with.’
One of the biggest challenges was the sheer intensity of the fight training required to give Silk Spectre II an authentic physical prowess. ‘She can be faced with 12 guys at one time and beat them all,’ grins Malin, kicking out a long, booted, leather-clad leg.
‘She fights with her hands – pure muscle, no weapons – so I had to do months of hardcore training. Every day, I would stop after half an hour and say, “I can’t do it,” and my trainer would say, “Take three breaths and get back to work.” At the end of the session I felt like an 80-year-old.’
Equally daunting was the strict diet. ‘When they told me I had to cut out carbs, I said, “No bread, no wine, no pasta and no sugar? That’s my life. I’m married to an Italian.” All I could eat was protein and veggies and salads and yoghurt.’
‘People do think you’re more intelligent if you’ve got dark hair. But my husband definitely prefers me as a blonde’
But the payoff, she says, made it all worthwhile. ‘I’ve never had such a toned body in my whole life. It was as hard as a rock.’
The transformation from blonde bombshell to action heroine was complete when Malin put on her long brown wig. ‘It made me feel more serious. I love the look, it’s really intense.
'And you get a bit more respect. People do think you’re more intelligent if you have dark hair. But my husband definitely prefers me as a blonde,’ she admits.
The couple met in Los Angeles (where they still live) six years ago, when they joined the same rock band, the Petalstones. ‘I actually can’t sing,’ says Malin, throwing her head back and laughing. ‘Get me into a karaoke bar and it’s a disaster! But I met these Italian musicians and they said they could train me.’
Nowadays, there are no rock-star aspirations for Malin: she is content with her acting career while Roberto works as a session musician. They married after she finished filming 27 Dresses.
While her character was planning the perfect wedding, the actress was organising her own elaborate affair at the Grand Hotel Moon Valley in Sorrento on the Amalfi coast. ‘It was so laid-back and relaxed. Everyone came for a week and stayed at the hotel. We had cocktails by the pool and a nine-course Italian dinner – so we spent five hours eating and drinking.’
Married life, says Malin, is ‘amazing – I should have been born married. I keep thinking, why didn’t we do it sooner?
'It was perfect timing,’ she adds, explaining that she was a rebellious teenager, but got the ‘wild partying’ out of her system by the time she had reached her 20s. ‘At 19 I was drinking and dancing every night. But after a year I was so tired – I thought, I can’t live like this, and started focusing on my acting and what I wanted to do with my life.
‘When I met my husband I was definitely ready to settle down,’ she says. ‘I don’t know how to explain it, but I know this is for life.’ Even in Hollywood, where there isn’t a great track record of successful marriages? ‘Listen, you meet tons of interesting men in this business and there’s always a little bit of flirtation, but it’s never more than that. Every time I come home and see my husband I’m so happy that I’m not living the single life.
‘Roberto is so supportive. If I call him from a different country on a film set, saying, “Oh my God, why am I here without you?” he says, “Because you’re a great actress and you deserve it.”’
Children, says Malin, are part of the long-term plan. ‘I always wanted about five, but now we’ve settled for two and will possibly adopt a third. But we’re talking about when I have a few more films under my belt.
'If I got pregnant now they would just give the movie to someone else, but at a certain point they’ll say, “We really want Malin Akerman for this part – oh, she’s pregnant? That’s OK, we’ll wait.”’
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So, for the foreseeable future, Malin will be focusing on her career – ‘becoming a household name, so that directors will hire me on a whim,’ she says. ‘I just love my job – coming to work when the adrenalin is rushing and I’m waiting for the director to call “action” and I don’t know if I can even do it!
'My dream is that one day I might get to make a movie like No Country for Old Men, something fabulous and Oscar-worthy – that’s what excites me.’
Is she worried about the prospect of fame? ‘The idea of the paparazzi following us around isn’t thrilling, but if it all gets too much we can move to the Italian countryside and get away from it all. That is a real possibility.’
- Watchmen will be in cinemas from Friday
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