Rebecca Hall found it "thrilling" to be the lead in Transcendence.
The 31-year-old actress stars in the upcoming sci-fi movie as academic Evelyn Caster, whose husband Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) has his consciousness uploaded onto a computer after he's shot with a radioactive bullet.
Recalling the first time she read the script, Rebecca remembers how pleased she was to have a big role.
"It’s thrilling because, and I hate to say this, but it’s not very often you get something billed as a sci-fi action thriller that has at its centre a female character who makes morally questionable choices and is emotionally driven, and has a whole journey," she explained to screenrant.com. "It’s just so rare. I was a bit 'Really, is this happening' I should pinch myself.'"
As the film goes on, Will begins to become unstoppable with all the knowledge his brain acquires from technology. Rebecca noticed a distinct difference in her alter ego as her husband became more powerful, which was also reflected through her costumes and surroundings.
"There’s pre the two years and post the two years (that the AI builds its base) and it was an evolution where the wardrobe helped me as well, as the building became more slick with the white corridors I got this idea that she should become more businesslike and less soft and hippy looking like she does in the beginning," Rebecca explained. "She gets colder and colder as she’s retreating because her primary relationship in her life has become a computer. She’s losing her mind, basically."
It was her role as Sarah Borden in 2006 movie The Prestige which catapulted Rebecca into the limelight. She was passionate about acting from a young age and remembers what inspired her.
"For me it was movies, I grew up with theatre and opera, my mum’s an opera singer and my dad’s a theatre director, so it was that world, which is actually very different, not when it comes to the craft of it, it’s all acting; it’s all show business, I guess," she added. "But it is very different and I carved out my own niche for myself by becoming a movie fan, a real movie buff as a kid, that was my escape and that was the stuff that I loved."
