ELLE celebrity: Jennifer Connelly

Jennifer Connelly settles into a chair for yet another interview and gently nods that she is ready to begin. Her demeanour is elegant, even regal, in its physical and emotional reserve. Light banter clearly isn’t her forte. Her husband, Paul Bettany, protectively hovers in the background while his wife chats about their latest film, Creation. The movie, which is the story of natural- ist Charles Darwin and his wife, Emma, had its world premiere at last fall’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). While the movie is ostensibly about the scientist’s groundbreaking magnum opus, On the Origin of Species, its emotional hook is its exploration of Darwin’s debilitat- ing grief following the death of his daughter Annie.

Emma (played by Connelly) is trying to cope with her husband’s mental breakdown and come to terms with his theory of evolution, which counters her God-fearing view of the world. The film carefully avoids antagonizing either side of the science/religion debate, as does Connelly. “My husband is comfortably vocal about his [atheist] beliefs,” she says. “I reserve the right to keep some things to myself. My role was to portray Emma as best I could. I love that within the framework of this remarkable and incredibly loving marriage, there was this opposition that they had to manage and negotiate.”

Creation — with its focus on love and loss — personally resonated with the 39-year-old actress because it was made shortly after the death of her father and opened at TIFF on the first anniversary of his passing. “We enjoyed ourselves as much as one can on a day like that,” says Bettany, who has now joined the conversa- tion. The pair took some heat for their in-and-out ap- pearance at the party for the film that night, but at the time no one knew the significance of the day for Connelly. “It was my decision to leave the party,” adds Bettany. “I thought it was enough smiling for her. It was a long day, and she’d had no time to think about her- self. First anniversaries are huge. I wanted her to have a little of that back.” Connelly exchanges a knowing glance with her husband and adds: “I went through a really hard time at the end of last year. The biggest thing for me is that my kids grow up safely and have happy lives. For me, that’s enough.”

Find out why family is so important to Jennifer (and what is was like working with Paul) on the next page ...