Kate Beckinsale has one of the more eclectic filmographies around. She did her proper British period pieces and indie films early on. She then transitioned to rom-coms for a bit. After that was her “Underworld” era where she paraded around in black leather and killed werewolves. And now, she’s in gritty dramas such as 2018’s “Farming.” Needless to say, over the years, she’s crossed paths with all sorts of filmmakers, including the one and only Michael Bay, who directed her in the film “Pearl Harbor.”
And in a new interview with Vulture, Beckinsale discussed her film “Serendipity” in detail, but also shared a funny anecdote about her preparation for “Pearl Harbor” and why she thought the action epic was actually a “period piece” about the horrors of the WWII event.
She explained that before she landed “Serendipity,” a rom-com that co-starred John Cusack, she was knee-deep in “Pearl Harbor,” while also dealing with a newborn baby.
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“I was doing ‘Pearl Harbor,’ and that was a gigantic shock to the system, because I’d just had a baby,” she said. “I was living in New York at the time and I had to put myself on tape for this movie. I’m very, very parochially English — I had not heard of Michael Bay, I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought I was making a period piece about ‘Pearl Harbor.’ [Laughs.] It was a massive shock, because it was very much not that. And then the two movies overlapped.”
Of course, she quickly learned that her Michael Bay experience wouldn’t be the proper period piece she imagined, and Beckinsale was quickly shuffled off to prepare physically for the epic film starring Ben Affleck. She also shared a story about how she was close to landing a lead role in “High Fidelity” (the specific role isn’t named, but we can assume it’s the Laura character, played by Iben Hjejle in the film). But her pregnancy got in the way.
“I actually met John [in a meeting for] ‘High Fidelity,’” she explained. “I was enormously pregnant. And more enormously pregnant than most. I got a call and they said, ‘John really wants you to be in this movie,’ and I said, ‘There is a problem. I am the size of a fucking beluga whale.’ And they were like, ‘It’s fine! Lots of people work when they’re pregnant.’ And I was like, ‘I guarantee you, you’re not going to want me in the movie. I can barely fit through a door or sit in a normal seat.’”
Beckinsale continued, “So I went, and of course, that was the case. I think they thought I’d be sort of neatly pregnant, where I could stand behind a lamp, but I was Jabba the Hutt. They were kind about it, but I think he was keen to work together, and that was nice, and this was the next film that came out as soon as the baby was out of me.”
The Vulture interview goes a lot more into “Serendipity,” if that’s your thing. Otherwise, there are plenty of interesting stories, as Beckinsale is one of the more entertaining people working today (check out her Instagram for proof).
You can watch the trailer for Michael Bay’s period piece below: