Excerpts from: The Sunday Times Magazine - 11 April 1999

Title: Guilding the Leelee by Georgina Howell

..... But it is not because of this role (Joan of Arc) that Leelee is being called the hottest new movie property in the world. That distinction has been conferred by the notice of the remarkable, reclusive late film director Stanley Kubrick, who chose her for his last opus, Eyes Wide Shut. At the time she was only 14, but he had been polishing and readying his film for more than two years.

......As usual with Kubrick, it is the most eagerly awaited movie of the year. As usual with Kubrick, no information is being released, but the word on the street is that the story concerns sexual jealousies between married psychologists, played by Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Sobieski plays one of Cruise's patients, and all her scenes are with him.

.......A more inhibited father might have found it awkward to rehearse his 14 year old daughter for the Kubrick audition, for which Quentin Tarantino's writer scripted a schoolgirl's abortion, complete with gynaecological instruments and intrusive camera work. Leelee was videotaped twice, and played the scene two ways: bewildered, and then angry. Kubrick told Jean (Leelee's father) she was the only actress he could see thinking.

(Leelee says)....."When I began in the movies, I wanted the autographs of famous actors. But then I thought, what does the autograph show about the person? I started to wonder what you could take from someone that wouldn't be painful and would be willingly given. That's how I started collecting locks of hair."

..... Did she ask Stanley Kubrick? " He smiled and walked away. I thought, ' Oh my God, I have offended him.' But later, his assistant gave me a sealed envelope. I haven't opened it yet." What does she do with her hair collection? "One day, of course, I shall be able to clone everyone from their DNA."

 

 

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