It’s not just the phone connection for our interview — Kate Beckinsale speaks quite softly, perhaps a result of her prim-and-proper London upbringing, and study of literature at Oxford University. No matter. Beckinsale has two big-stick 2008 performances, the first in David Gordon Green’s Snow Angels, from earlier in the year, and the second in writer-director Rod Lurie’s Nothing But the Truth, in which she plays a reporter whose life — professional and personal alike — begins to fray after she’s imprisoned for refusing to reveal a source in an after-the-fact story about a drummed-up case for war. Just in advance of the release of the latter, ripped-from-the-headlines film, I spoke with Beckinsale about the challenges of not playing New York Times reporter Judith Miller, how Lurie is like Martin Scorese, and how black leather made her famous. For the Q&A feature, from New York Magazine‘s Vulture, click here. For more on the method behind her “schizophrenic” filmography and the insight she’s gained into the interview process after now having played a reporter, jump forward in time by clicking here.