Her life as a hardware junkie
Brenda Bouw
Life as a House star Kristin Scott Thomas knows a thing or two about building
She played the elegant beauty Katharine Clifton in The English Patient and the uptight Annie MacLean in The Horse Whisperer, but in real life, Kristin Scott Thomas says she is more Black & Decker than Barneys.
"I love hardware. There is nothing better in life than a hardware store," says the petite 41-year-old British actress during an interview in Toronto yesterday. In fact, Scott Thomas is so into nuts and bolts that when travelling she seeks out hardware stores the way most women of her age and status go on the hunt for high-fashion boutiques.
"The best thing in the world is exploring foreign hardware stores," Scott Thomas says in all seriousness. "Italian hardware stores are great. They have weird metal things that you have no idea what they are for and have something to do with the chimney. In Paris, they have this hardware store where the whole of the basement is devoted to nuts and bolts and bits of wire. And I love it. If it were Barneys or the hardware store first, I think I'd go to the hardware store, but it depends on what I was needing."
Her love for home improvement came in handy for her role in Life as a House, where she plays Robin, the former wife of George (Kevin Kline), an architect who, after learning he only has weeks to live, sets out to build his dream home. While Kline and his on-screen son Sam (played by Vancouver-born actor Hayden Christensen) took a few lessons in construction before filming, Scott Thomas came to the set already qualified. She and her obstetrician husband renovated one of their first homes in Paris a few years back.
"I did plumb and wire a house," says Scott Thomas, seated daintily on a hotel-room sofa wearing strappy beige sandals, an ivory lace-trimmed skirt and a baby-blue blouse. "I am very good at carrying out bags of rubble, good at knocking walls down, and good at fiddling with pieces of electric wire and fixing plugs and that kind of thing."
In the film, directed by Irwin Winkler (At First Sight), Scott Thomas pitches in to help her former husband and their rebellious son build the house, set on a stunning ocean cliff. Her character, who is remarried and has two other children, falls back in love with her ex-husband while helping with the construction.
The film explores the themes of failed marriages and how parents cope with out-of-control adolescent children. Scott Thomas says she took the role because she liked how it addresses "un-idealized" parenthood.
"Most of the time you haven't a clue what you are doing, and there is that fear of doing the wrong thing," says Scott Thomas, who has two children, aged 13 and 10. "It is quite frightening sometimes bringing up children. When you see behaviour that needs remedying, you have to provide for that child an answer and it is incredibly difficult. I think most parents can identify with that."
She says that while, as far as she knows, her children are not as troubled as Sam in the film, she can still relate to the stresses of parenting. However, the broken-marriage role was a bit more unrealistic for her and her co-star Kline -- who is wed to actress Phoebe Cates and has two children, aged seven and nine -- since they both have the rare Hollywood distinction of still being in their first marriages.
"Even if I did [have marriage problems] I don't think I'd tell you," Scott Thomas says, running her fingers through her bobbed brown hair. She adds she finds it depressing and soul-destroying to hear of marriage breakups, particularly the longer-term couples such as actors Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, or Bruce Willis and Demi Moore.
In Life as a House, she says the marriage breakup was due in part to her character expecting too much out of life, and missing the simple things. "George and Robin are the perfect example of had they set their minds to it, they would have stayed married."
Kline says he believes the breakup in the film was the fault of his character, who was too self-loathing and unambitious. When told of Scott Thomas's answer that it was her character's fault, Kline leans back in his chair and smiles. "I think that's your answer right there," says the 53-year-old actor, dressed casually in a plaid shirt and grey cotton pants.
When it comes to his marriage to Cates (The Anniversary Party, Bodies, Rest & Motion) Kline believes it works because the two do not treat it like a Hollywood love story.
"It takes work, commitment," he says. "I guess that's kind of like building a house."
