Kate Beckinsale: I stayed serious for new role

Kate Beckinsale says there wasn’t time for a “ton of hijinks” while shooting The Face of an Angel.

The movie is based on the real-life case of Amanda Knox, who was accused of killing her roommate Meredith Kercher in 2007.

Kate portrays a journalist called Simone in the film, which she explains focuses more on the media portrayal of what happened than the actual case. Sometimes, when shooting such serious matter, actors try to lighten the mood by having fun on set, but that wasn’t really the case here.

“The thing is [director] Michael Winterbottom works very differently to most other directors you come across and so he works quite short days, which is quite nice, but there are no breaks. So there’s no lunch breaks, there’s no sitting down, nobody’s got a chair, nobody’s got a trailer, nothing like that,” she told UK TV show Lorraine. “And you turn up and you put a microphone on the minute you get there and that’s on all day, and that’s turned on all day. It’s not so much that we had a ton of hijinks because you’re sort of encouraged to be in character as much as you possibly can.”

Portraying a journalist got Kate thinking about the way media functions at the moment. She is mother to teenage daughter Lily and has likened her child’s experience with social media to her own as an actress.

“I have to say that being a teenager in this sort of era with social media is about the closest thing to being a celebrity that it’s possible to be, so she gets a sort of double whammy,” she said. “I think being commented on and sort of deconstructed and objectified is a horrible experience. All actors and actresses are insane because it shouldn’t happen to people, but it does happen to teenagers like mad.”