Actress Michelle Rodriguez insists that she is not as tough as the characters she has played in a string of action movies, from “The Fast and the Furious” and “S.W.A.T” to “Avatar” and the new “Battle: Los Angeles,” which opens Friday.
Still, she can’t help sizing me up when I sit next to her on a sofa in a sun-bathed hotel suite in Santa Monica.
“I can probably take you,” she says with a laugh after I suggest that I might not be the toughest person in the room. “I see a little softness in the middle there.”
See photos of Michelle Rodriguez in action roles
Rodriguez, 32, has been Hollywood’s resident tough-girl since the 2000 release of the film “Girlfight,” in which she played a boxer. With few exceptions, she has played one rough-and-tumble character after another, in both movies and television (“Lost”).
In her latest role, she plays an Air Force tech sergeant assigned to a Marine unit from Camp Pendleton that has been sent to Santa Monica to rebuff an alien invasion. We never said this was “Jane Eyre.”
“Battle: Los Angeles” is less like “Independence Day,” and more like “Black Hawk Down” in that it focuses on the gritty, close-up combat between this group of Marines, led by Aaron Eckhart, and a mysterious alien force. There is no heroic pilot named Will Smith, no soft-spoken president Morgan Freeman and certainly no adorable little creature trying to phone home.
The actress tells us whether she believes in alien life, explains how comfortable she is playing these tough characters and reveals the name of the well-known filmmaker who came to her rescue and saved her career after a highly publicized DUI arrest landed her in jail. Rodriguez spent 18 days in jail in 2007 for violating her probation stemming from a DUI arrest in 2005. She also was arrested on a similar charge in 2003.
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER: Do you think you could beat me up?
MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ: I don’t know about that, but I definitely see a couple of weak spots (laughs).
Q. Do you get a lot of that from male reporters?
A. Yeah, I do.
Q. So how tough are you?
A. I’m a teddy bear.
Q. Has it been a constant struggle to overcome that tough-girl image since you played a boxer in “Girlfight?”
A. I’m not trying to overcoming anything. I think I have embraced it, and it has served its purpose. I am ready to evolve from that place at this point, but it was a very conscious choice of mine to emphasize female strength.
Q. There haven’t been any moments of frustration in what you have been offered?
A. It’s not like I’m looking for serious dramas, but the frustration does come in the lack of creativity when it comes to the expression of feminine strength. It’s almost like dudes don’t know what to do with strong women so they just turn them into dudes. It’s the writers’ fault.
Q. But you obviously like playing these roles?
A. I naturally gravitate toward these roles because I find it more appealing to project this image to young girls, as opposed to female characters who whine about their boyfriends all day.
Q. If I understand you correctly, you like these tough-girl roles, but would like to try some different kinds of roles?
A. Listen, I do so many of these roles because I don’t find many appealing options. The downside is that I’m always playing this girl who’s emphasizing her masculinity. It’s a mixed message that I’m sending out to kids. I don’t want little girls to think that in order to embody strength, they have to be some butch girl. Hopefully, I can expand my roles, and take those fans with me.
Q. What will it take for you to get out of this narrow range of roles?
A. It will take someone to take a chance on me in some other genre, like a comedy or a drama. If you look at Angelina Jolie, you see someone who is masculine and feminine at the same time. The same can be said for Johnny Depp. It intrigues me to explore that type of career.
Q. Regardless, this tough-girl image has been good to you?
A. Yes, and no. I haven’t been the lead in a feature film since “Girlfight” 10 years ago. Isn’t that sad?
Q. Is it any kind of a breakthrough that you play an Air Force tech sergeant in “Battle: Los Angeles,” instead of one of the Marines?
A. That was the director’s choice, and I hope it is a breakthrough.
Q. Tell me about the three-week boot camp that the director forced you to go through?
A. The worst was running two miles a day for three weeks. That was gnarly, man.
Q. What else?
A. Push-ups, sit-ups, taking apart guns with a pen, infiltrating buildings in 110-degree heat. It gets real humid in Louisiana.
Q. The director never heard that acting is about pretending to do all those things?
A. He knows how to push your buttons. He wants you to step up to the plate like he does. He’s a hard worker.
Q. You must like doing this stuff?
A. Actually, I love it. I love action stuff. I love playing with guns, and getting dirty with the boys.
Q. This is why you keep getting cast in these roles.
A. I know. I really enjoy it. It’s awesome. But psychologically, I look at it and wonder about the message I’m sending out there. That’s why I don’t do nudity, or play the weak girl. I want young girls to feel empowered by me. That’s what I wanted to see when I was a kid.
Q. Who did you admire?
A. Linda Hamilton and Sigourney Weaver. There were some dope women back then. I guess a lot of them were Jim Cameron’s chicks (laughs).
Q. Are things getting better or worse for women in movies?
A. I think this is the most amazing time in history for women because geeks are being celebrated on the male side, which leaves women to be as free and strong as they want to be. There are no men to overpower them, like they did in the ’80s and 90s. There is a massive window to do some real powerful stuff, and I hope women take advantage of it. Kathryn Bigelow winning a best directing Oscar was just the start.
Q. And this is important to you?
A. I may seem like a woman who just likes to kick butt, but at the end of the day, I am very aware of what I do, and why I do it.
Q. Did you ever feel that your legal problems might prevent you from pursuing your career goals?
A. I didn’t care about that. When you’re in the middle of growth and evolution, you’re absorbed by the lessons you’ve learned. You make the same mistake enough times, you learn not to do that anymore.
Q. Do you feel you came out of those problems stronger?
A. Of course. I always come out stronger. I’m good now. I don’t know what the future will hold. Maybe I’ll go through a mid-life crisis, but for now, I’m doing OK.
Q. How cool was it to be the biggest-grossing movie of all time?
A. I have always loved Jim (James Cameron, director of “Avatar”). I love his movies, his vision and his mind. To be working with him for six months was a dream come true. On top of that, to have someone believe in me again meant everything to me.
Q. Was this after the DUI arrest and jail?
A. Right after that. He looked at me and said, “People think you’re crazy, but I know you’re not.”
Q. He really said that?
A. He did, and I asked him why he wanted to work with me. I said, “Look at all the problems I’ve got.” I literally asked him why he would want to work with me. I didn’t want the hype from my personal life to affect his movie. It was so cool of him.
Q. He really took a shot with you?
A. He did, but I tend to attract a lot of rebels.
Q. Did the huge box-office numbers mean anything to you?
A. Not really. The sense of pride I feel was being a part of what he accomplished in making a love connection between technology and movie-making. His ability to tell a story of love in such a universal way was so amazing, and the fact that so many people got it was wonderful. It taught me that people want to love more than they want to hate.
Q. Do you believe in UFOs?
A. I do.
Q. To what degree?
A. I believe they operate at such a high frequency that we’re either too stupid to see them, or we’re operating at such a low frequency that we can’t acknowledge their existence.
Q. Are they good aliens or bad aliens?
A. If they are so highly developed that they could travel here, they would have to be good. I don’t picture them being violent.
Q. That’s a Steven Spielberg vision of alien life. However, your aliens in “Battle: Los Angeles” are not so nice.
A. How can you make an action movie about nice aliens?
Contact the writer: 714-796-5051, ext. 1110, or bkoltnow@ocregister.com
