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ELLE Interview: Carrie-Anne Moss
Carrie Anne-Moss has a thing for the strong, silent type in her new "zomedy" thriller, Fido.
By Adam Nayman
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Carrie-Anne Moss in Fido. Image courtesy of Michael Courtney/TVA Films
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There's no gentle way to put this, so here goes: in Fido, Carrie-Anne Moss spends most of her scenes crushing on a dead guy. The eponymous zombie (played by British comedian Billy Connolly) is a towering, blue-hued fellow who's sweet in a low-key, shuffling kind of way -- the very strong, very silent type. He may be decomposing, but Fido stirs up something in Moss' deeply undersexed Helen Robinson; his devotion to her lonely preteen son, Timmy (K'Sun Ray), only sweetens the deal.
So, yes, Fido is a strange little film: a Canadian-produced "zomedy" set in a vivid retro-sitcom realm where the recently deceased (resurrected and turned cannibalistic by radiation à la Night of the Living Dead) have been wrangled into working as servants to the living. "For me," says Moss over the phone from her home in Los Angeles, "the appeal wasn't in the zombie stuff; it was in the story, the writing and the characters. There are underlying messages about control and domination. As for the zombie elements…I was kind of like 'What?' I'm not a big horror-movie fan."
A strange film
Fido isn't quite a horror film, of course. As Moss implies, it's a social satire that features the occasional disembowelling. The blend of gore and giggles works primarily because the performers -- particularly Moss -- are game: Helen's transformation from an uptight June Cleaver clone to a sexy free spirit -- which slyly references the soapy housewife-unbound romances of the '50s -- is the 39-year-old actress' funniest and most tender turn to date. "I saw Helen having an awakening in her spirit," says Moss of trying to create a threedimensional character within the film's carefully stylized cartoon world. "My character is stuck in a way of living, and she liberates herself by softening her heart."
Vulnerability isn't exactly Moss' stock in trade: the Vancouver native had her breakthrough in perhaps the decade's definitive tough-chick part, karate-kicking her way to stardom as Trinity in The Matrix trilogy. "I don't believe in being typecast," says Moss when asked if she has ever felt trapped by that iconic role. "If I believed it, it probably would have happened to me. You attract what you make." Besides, she has nothing but affection for her leather-clad, parkour-pioneering alter ego. "It has been a long time since I played her, and so much has happened in my life since then, but I feel that experience deep in my heart," she says. "It was the role and movie of a lifetime. I'm very grateful for it -- it's part of my history." While we may be familiar with her film work, Moss' personal history is less well known. Aside from a few choice, well-travelled morsels -- she harboured dreams of stardom as a child, was named after a hit 1967 song by The Hollies, began modelling at the age of 20 and appeared on several middling television series -- Moss has always managed to maintain a certain mystique. Of course, coming out of nowhere (or, at least, from the cast of Models Inc.) to star in a trendsetting sci-fi blockbuster does wonders for one's allure. Like her good friend Maria Bello, Moss has made a conscious effort to keep her public and private personas separate, leading some to describe her as guarded.
Holding personal life close
Certainly, the decision she made with her husband, actor Steven
Roy, to not publicly disclose the name of their second child (their first son, Owen, is three-and-a-half) suggests a strong desire to hold her personal life close to the vest. Yet Moss rejects the idea that she is creating any sort of mystery.
"Where it gets clear for me about the privacy issue is with my kids because they didn't choose this kind of life," she says firmly. "I'm an incredibly open person, though -- I'll tell anyone anything. My husband jokes that I'll invite people over for dinner and he won't know who they are or where I met them. But in my work world, I've never really been tempted to tell too much of my story." That said, she seems perfectly happy to discuss her globe-trotting modelling days and the difficult transition into acting that followed.
Fido will be released on March 16.
Check out ELLE Canada's interview with songstress Norah Jones!
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