Radha Mitchell’s mid-afternoon plans have been waylaid, but you wouldn’t know it from her sunny disposition, and a laugh that can split the air. Traffic hampered our respective arrivals at the coastal hotel that serves as our meeting spot, and now — because this is Los Angeles, after all — there’s a deejayed potable water benefit raging at the pool. “I had this whole plan where we’d chat outdoors, and afterward I’d go sit in a patch of sun, read the rest of this thing,” she says, indicating a script in her bag, “and then take a swim.”
No worries. Repairing to a quieter spot indoors for drinks, we swap stories about the somewhat abstruse, themed billboards that have just gone up all over the city for her new film, a couple of which look an awful lot like Angelina Jolie and David Beckham. “That’s [popular] according to Disney marketing, which must be based on some reliable statistics,” she says. A chattering, water-supporting socialite wanders by, and conversation amiably turns to social networking, text-messaging and Mitchell’s iPhone, only the latter of which she loves. “I do love accessing the web on the phone,” she says. “It’s changed conversation. There are no questions. And it’s not really about the facts anymore, it’s about how you use the facts spontaneously. You don’t have to know anything, which I love.”
She’s kidding, of course. Mitchell must know plenty, because in her decade-plus in Los Angeles, the Australian native has effortlessly straddled the fence between art and commerce, deftly juggling popular studio fare (Man on Fire, Silent Hill, Pitch Black) with equally well received independent films (Melinda and Melinda, Finding Neverland, Henry Poole Is Here). Even her two forthcoming projects perfectly illustrate this split.
The Waiting City, which details a young couple’s journey to India to collect their new adopted baby, has just had its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival announced. Then there’s Jonathan Mostow’s brawny Surrogates, in which Mitchell plays an FBI agent alongside Bruce Willis, investigating the mysterious murder of a college student linked to the man who helped create a phenomenally popular technology that allows people to purchase robotic versions of themselves — fit, good-looking, remotely controlled machines that enable users to experience life vicariously from the comfort of their homes.
“It’s a comment on the state of culture now, and not that far from the way a lot of people live their lives, I guess,” says Mitchell of Surrogates. “It’s a pristine, manicured reality where you get to feel everything, because the sensory stimulation goes into your body, but it filters the pain out, and can modulate your experiences, if there are smells you don’t like or whatever.”
“At times my character is operated by other people, though I can’t tell you who, or why,” Mitchell continues. “You meet her as a real person briefly, which is interesting. It’s funny, because all the real people in this movie are fat, I guess because they’re sitting in their chairs. So I’ve got this really fat bum. I don’t know if it’s featured in the movie, but it took a while to make. And I have fake teeth. It’s quite a good look. There’s a different look with the surrogate — she had a padded bra and long hair. But what I discovered is that if there’s no other preference, the fat ass was a bit more comfortable.”
Sagging asses give way to talk about mortality, and before long we’ve tripped headlong into a heady discussion of the possibility of virtually freezing time. At what point would one want to stop aging, though? “In the 30s,” Mitchell says, point-blank, then pauses. “But then I think there’s something interesting about being in your 60s or 70s. I’m sure it’s not great, going through that process of decay. But it must be interesting, and there’s something quite important about that cycle of taking care of your parents and then being taken care of — the reversal of that situation.” When I point out Americans typically aren’t as hands on in elder-care as other cultures, Mitchell has a one-word rejoinder prepped: “Florida.”