So much for the bad girl rumors. When Brittany Murphy glides into the Regency Hotel in a gorgeous satin jacket - looking more like a renaissance princess than a Gen-Y wild child - she first worries about the welfare of the journalists (“Did you eat? Can we get you something?”) then raves about Karen Moncrieff’s “The Dead Girl,” which was inspired by the writer/director’s jury duty on a murder trial.
Murphy stars as the doomed title character, Krista, a prostitute trying to reconnect with her young daughter. The film, which is structured in vignettes, co-stars Kerry Washington as Krista’s roommate/lover. James Franco, Giovanni Ribisi, and Rose Byrne also play key roles.
CP: I heard you taught Kerry Washington how to smoke on set.
Brittany: I hope I did OK. Because of the short preparation time, Karen wanted Kerry and I to familiarize ourselves with each other. We met for dinner. And I had to be chain smoking for the role. She taught me how to curse, so…I’m kidding!!
CP: What attracted you to the role?
Brittany: Karen asked me to be a part of it, and I was a huge fan of hers from “Blue Car.” I loved the honesty and truth and rawness of that film. (“The Dead Girl”) started reading like a psychological thriller, and then I started to get completely engrossed in the lives of these really richly written characters with so much depth…(it’s) highly unusual to see so many of them in one script. I’m very visceral when it comes to choosing material. My job is strange- my job is to believe I’m someone else more hours of the day then I am myself. That’s a really weird job, OK? I like to make sure I’m part of a story that I think is imperative that it’s told. And the older I get the more particular I’ve become about that. When Karen told me (about) being a juror, I felt it was a responsibility to Krista’s life, because she was a real person.
CP: Did Karen tell you anything about the real Krista that informed your take her?
Brittany: I did ask Karen a lot of questions. I spoke with some counselors and had them break down exactly the types of drugs Karen told me Krista was on and break down what the chemical reaction would be. And these reactions are absolutely atrocious and that’s why she behaves so mercurially; just what it depletes one’s body of is so sad and tragic.
CP: She’s a bit reminiscent of the role you played in “Girl, Interrupted.”
Brittany: How we shot that was Daisy’s death completely backwards to the first scenes in the film. They blocked me in a certain period of time and shot me out in three weeks, and that helped me a lot in understanding who she was. Krista loved life so much. She was very much about, “live in the moment,” she was about the second or maybe the millisecond.
CP: Do you worry about this film glamorizing Krista’s lifestyle?
Brittany: I would hope the very opposite. If I’m a part of something like this it would be to help (impart) a very large message, much larger than any of us involved, which is that violence is wrong and atrocious. Every character’s life was changed by this violent act that occurred.
CP: What’s next for you?
Brittany: For me it’s extraordinarily important to be part of films that have messages that I find important. The next film I’m working on is “The White Hotel,” and I’m excited. That is a film that has a very large message behind it and hopefully it will make people extraordinarily aware of how wrong genocide is.
“The Dead Girl” opens in limited release on December 29th.