Kate Beckinsale covers Allure Magazine August 2012 promoting Total Recall (seemingly taking over the bulk of the promotional trail while Jessica Biel is busy tanning).
The photo shoot is not flattering, but the interview is interesting. It’s smart, and relatable. Just like her other interviews. In which she always talks about ageing matter-of-factly and drops in an anecdote about her daughter.
On embarrasses her daughter: “I haven’t been embarrassing [to somebody] before,” the Total Recall star tells Allure magazine’s August issue about 13-year-old Lily (with ex Michael Sheen). “I can’t dance at a party where there are teenagers without [them] clearing the dance floor. Those are the things that make me go, ‘F**k, I’m old’ …you’re a parent [and] everyone leaves.”
On celebrating ageing: “What is it about a woman being in her late 30s that brings out the ‘Oh my gosh, are you worried?’ questions? Worried? What about? 38, 39, 40, 50! Great! Still alive!” What’s more, it’s not like she’s “experienced a full facial collapse, I haven’t suddenly gained 20 pounds that won’t go away, or [grown] a beard,” she shares, admitting the years have been kind to her so far. “That probably will happen, but it hasn’t yet.”
On not feeling pretty until she was 29: “I didn’t feel very attractive as a child, and actually I wasn’t. Feeling attractive didn’t come until I was 29 and with [my husband] Len [Wiseman]. At that time it was partly perceived as if I’d gone all Hollywood, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was just okay for me to walk around and feel feminine and attractive. I like feeling liberated like this. Maybe it has to do with not having had a dad. I’d never experienced a father saying, ‘Oh, you look good.’ If you have a good relationship with your dad, you have a chaperone in your own mind. I love my stepfather, but it’s different with a stepfather. I probably waited until I had that feeling with somebody who was so madly attracted to me that I could sort of relax and aim it at him. And then it kind of exploded, and all of a sudden I was the sexiest woman alive.”
On being the Sexiest Woman Alive: “I think the risk of being the sexiest woman alive is that you don’t want to ever have sex again. You don’t want to wear a bikini again. You want to wear some nice overalls and a trucker’s hat,” says the actress, who was named Sexiest Woman Alive by Esquire in 2009. “Anyway, you’re only that for a year, and then you’re done. You’re old news. I don’t know who it is right now, but it’s not me.”
On not seeing herself as an action hero: “It’s an odd trajectory, I’ll give you that,” she says. “If you’d asked me when I was at Oxford, ‘Do you think you’ll ever be running up and down holding a machine gun as a bad guy in a big American movie?’ I would have said, ‘God, no!’”
On how her daughter has shaped her career: “Well, I haven’t done an awful lot of nude scenes. And I’ve been somebody who has had a child for a very long time. Most of my peers don’t have a 13-year-old. And it’s embarrassing. My daughter said to me, ‘You know, I’d really love it if you never said the word ‘vagina’ in an interview again.’ Whoops. I’ve just done it.” - via Allure Magazine.
