|
Fan Forum Star
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 114,198
|
Mischa News and Appearances #14: Covers, covers, everywhere!
Mischa is on a number of new covers, with a few new photoshoots! New interviews are included with most of the covers, revealing a bunch of updated stuff about what she's up to.
You magazine:
Mischa-B.com || The Mischa Barton Experience
Interview that goes along with this:
Quote:
Beneath a palm tree on a beach, Mischa Barton is trying to shield her beautiful face from the sun.
Effortlessly slim in a tiny bikini (she has just eaten a huge breakfast) she appears to be exactly the kind of Californian beach babe that she played in The OC, the television series that made her famous.
Except that this isn’t Orange County, we are in Miami and Mischa is not here for fun or even for some new acting role; she is here to deliver a serious message.
In fact, she reveals with a long low rumble of laughter, if this weren’t a cause close to her heart she wouldn’t be on the beach at all.
But as the ‘face’ of this year’s SAFE (Skin Awareness for Everyone) @Superdrug campaign - run in conjunction with the Institute of Cancer Research - the beach was the obvious choice of location for pictures that will publicise 21-year-old Mischa’s involvement.
'It’s just such an important message to get across to people - especially young people who tend not to be that sun aware,' she says.
'Skin cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the UK affecting over 70,000 people each year.
It was such an honour to be invited to do this. So here I am back on a beach covered in sunscreen,' she says, pushing a wisp of her hair out of her eyes.
Mischa’s aversion to beaches started, she admits, when she was 15 and had been newly cast as Marissa Cooper in the series that would propel her to fame and turn her into a teen icon.
Her memories of working on the beach during her three seasons on the cult show (she died in a car crash in the finale of season three) still, despite the heat, send a shiver down her spine 'Because I am so fair skinned it used to take hours in make-up to achieve that Californian bronzed look.
I think it was worst for myself and Adam Brody - who played Seth - because we were both so pale and it was just a constant thing for us, being pursued by the make-up team with their fake tan,' she says with another self-deprecating laugh (she laughs a lot).
Mischa’s presence on the beach today is noble not just because of her aversion to the uncomfortable mix of sun, sand and fake tan but also because escaping from the image of the Californian beach babe has been something of a mission for her in the 18 months since the untimely death of her character.
Mischa was, in fact, a serious actress long before she joined The OC and she is anxious to remind the world that she has an acting range that goes well beyond the spoilt girl she played in the series.
Born in London, the second of three daughters of financier Paul Barton (who hailed from Manchester) and photographer Nuala Quinn (of Irish descent), Mischa spent the first four years of her life in Hammersmith.
The family moved to New York when her father’s job was relocated to the city and by the time Mischa was eight she knew she wanted to be an actress.
Nuala (who is with us in Miami) recalls being rather surprised that her second daughter was so determined to act (her eldest daughter Zoe, 28, is a barrister in London and her younger daughter Hania,18, is about to go to university).
Mischa’s first major role came in Tony Kushner’s Broadway play Slavs! in which the eight-year old starred alongside Marisa Tomei.
'She was quite a shy little girl in one sense but when she got on that stage - and I was sitting paranoid in the front row - it was as if she was born to it,' says Nuala.
'I am anything but a stage mum - academic achievement was always the first priority in our family - and I was terrified for her because she had to do a Russian accent and it was a big role, so I said to her, "If you are not having fun you don’t have to do this."
But she was very happy and I saw this different side of her. She is very determined, very stoic.' (Mischa affectionately rolls her eyes as her mother recounts this story).
In the years between her eight-year-old debut and her 15-year-old entrance to The OC Mischa appeared in 15 films.
In addition to her critically acclaimed role (at 11) in Lawn Dogs she took small roles in The Sixth Sense and Notting Hill and the fall-out of her success was a rather divided family life.
Nuala would accompany Mischa as she worked on location while Hania stayed in New York with her father.
After she was cast in The OC the family relocated to Beverly Hills, where Mischa had her own self-contained apartment in the garden of the family home.
Since leaving the show she has carefully chosen roles in independent films rather than in big-budget movies.
There is little doubt that later this year - when those films are released - Mischa will re-emerge as one of the most exciting actresses of her generation (she is also in discussion to star in a west end theatre production of Arthur Miller’s A View from a Bridge).
Sir Richard Attenborough, who directed her in the much anticipated World War 2 saga Closing the Ring, likens Mischa to a young Vivien Leigh and last year encouraged her to attend a summer Shakespeare course at RADA.
'Sir Richard is one of my favourite people, he is a blessing to all actors. He is very calm, very considerate and he really gets on your wavelength.
I play a young Shirley MacLaine [who plays a character called Ethel Ann] which was very daunting,' she says as we sit down in her trailer to talk.
Mischa also has a role in Virgin Territory - a reworking of Boccaccio’s 14th-century The Decamaron - which will be released in September.
It does slightly worry her that, while she waits for her work to hit the screens, she has acquired a reputation as an It-girl.
Her ravishing looks have won her many advertising endorsements (she has appeared in campaigns for Monsoon, Accessorize, Neutrogena and Keds shoes) and put her in the forefront of the clutch of young women (alongside Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan) who dominate world of young celebrity.
'I think these days working in this industry as a young actress brings with it a healthy dose of miscellaneous press attention.
I don’t think I have let it distract me from my main goal - which is to be a serious actress - but it’s very easy to get caught up in that process of being followed by the paparazzi and somehow becoming more interested in your image than in your real career. There is definitely a dichotomy between the two.
'Whenever I get upset by press coverage I remind myself that the great thing about coming off a show like The OC, which generated so much publicity, is that it gives you the power to be able to do things like the SAFE campaign,' she says, although in between eating and playing with her little dog Ziggy - who goes everywhere with her - she has been avidly studying half a dozen American celebrity magazines.
Mischa does not, she says, resent the press interest in everything she does (on the day we meet there have been newspaper pictures purporting to show cellulite on the back of her perfect thighs) because she understands that it is an inevitable part of contemporary life.
'Nowadays people have a voracious appetite for information on actors which comes, I think, from the explosion of reality television.
In some ways I think its kind of nice that fans relate to actors as people because it brings you into contact with the real world - otherwise you could get very caught up in an artificial Hollywood existence.'
Nonetheless, Mischa is reluctant to talk too much about her private life.
She will not comment, for instance, on her recent break-up with her boyfriend, musician and ex of Paris Hilton, Cisco Adler (they split up after naked pictures of him appeared on the internet) and nor will she talk about any of the other possible suitors in her life (she stars opposite Hayden Christensen in Virgin Territory).
These days Mischa’s most constant companions are Ziggy and her other dog Charlie (a nervous rescue hound back home in California).
Is she, I suggest, more interested in dogs than boys?
'Yes,' she says, with a peal of laughter. 'My dog is always my boyfriend. Charlie is the best - I got him when I broke up with Brandon Davis [actor and member of the Hilton/Richie/Lohan crowd] and he will always be my number one man and he knows that.
The dogs are a huge part of my downtime. Actually, it’s shocking how much you can become consumed by them.'
The other subject - apart from boys - that Mischa would like to avoid is the ‘size zero’ issue.
She resents the fact that she is sometimes portrayed as having an unhealthy relationship with food (from what we see she clearly eats very, very well) and the way she is often twinned with Nicole Richie (more of an ‘aquaintance’ than a friend, interjects Nuala).
'I am a normal weight. I understand the responsibility that comes with a role in a TV show that is watched by millions of teenagers.
I am not surprised that kids go, "Wow, Marissa wears these clothes and I want to look like her," but the thing is that I am naturally this shape.
I have a very fast metabolism and it is sometimes annoying when you are compared to people who are clearly not naturally that way.
I am sensitive to people like Nicole who have body issues but I am always pretty much the same weight.
I am active but I don’t exercise apart from walking the dogs and I eat pretty healthily and pretty much what I want,' she says.
Mischa insists that ‘99 per cent’ of the time she leads a ‘surprisingly average’ life with her family and still lives in the apartment in their home.
How does she see her life developing as she moves forward into her mid-twenties? Does she foresee marriage and a family?
'Who knows what will happen in the next few years but for now, work is just so consuming.
It has to come first for a while,' she says, as she slathers yet more sunscreen on her porcelain skin and braces herself for another costume change (a yellow bikini this time) and yet more posing beneath a palm tree.
'Oh, sometimes it’s difficult to believe I have put Orange County - and the beach - behind me.' she says with a giggle as she leaves the trailer and takes her place, once more, on a stretch of pale, sun-drenched sand.
A percentage of profits from sales of Solait, Superdrug’s suncare range, is being donated to SAFE. For more information on SAFE@Superdrug tel: 0208 684 7000 (www.superdrug.com), or the Institute of Cancer Research, tel 0800 731 9468 (SAFE - Skin Awareness For Everyone)
MISCHA'S BEAUTY SECRETS
What is your best beauty tip? Make sunscreen part of your daily beauty routine.
What is your worst beauty habit? Playing with my hair. I play with my split ends all the time.
Who is the most beautiful woman you have ever met? Kate Moss, she is really hot.
Who gave you the best beauty advice? My mum. She has always been an inspiration and always covered me in sunblock as a child.
What is your favourite beauty treatment? I love massages.
How do you keep your skin looking flawless? I drink a lot of water and I find that my skin is better when I am paying attention to my diet. I don’t eat a lot of dairy and I juice a lot. I drink spinach-based juice to get my five vegetables a day.
What is your favourite make-up? I love YSL mascara, Rachel Perry lip balm and Shu Uemura foundation.
What is your perfect pick-me-up? Sleep. I will go to bed at 10pm just for the pleasure of sleeping and not wake up till 10am the following day.
|
Young:
Mischa-B.com || The Mischa Barton Experience
Dare:
Mischa-B.com || The Mischa Barton Experience
__________________
What do you know of my heart, priestess?
What do you know of my sister?icon: simply_ali
|
Another campaign!!! 
