Actress Vera Farmiga: reaching for stardom (10/15/06)

Actress Vera Farmiga: reaching for stardom

by Helen Smindak
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

NEW YORK - Actress Vera Farmiga has been playing diverse roles in a variety of films and television series for over 10 years. Until 2004, she was not well-known to the public or to movie critics.

Last weekend opened an important phase in her acting career - her ambition to make a studio film has come to fruition. She has the leading female role in the Martin Scorsese-directed film "The Departed," which opened in theaters nationwide on October 6.

Like many other gifted actresses looking for demanding roles, she has concentrated on work in independent films, where she can find the original character roles she likes to portray. Unfortunately, independent films usually run for a week or two in one theater and do not draw large audiences.

Last year, Ms. Farmiga's achievement in the movie "Down to the Bone," a film that created a sensation at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, brought her the L.A. Film Critics Association Best Actress Award. In addition, for her portrayal of a working-class mother of two who is a drug addict, she won the Special Jury Prize awarded at the festival, was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award (Best Actress) and named runner-up for the Best Actress award presented by the National Society of Film Critics.

Her performance in "Down to the Bone," described as "extraordinarily complex" and considered to be her best work so far, caught the attention of Mr. Scorsese and led him to choose her for "The Departed."

The Warner Brothers film, a crime drama starring big box-office stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg and co-starring Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin, has Ms. Farmiga playing a police psychiatrist named Madolyn who is romantically linked to two of the men (DiCaprio and Damon).

Set in the South Boston organized crime scene, the movie spotlights police force attempts to rein in the increasingly powerful Irish mafia. Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a young cop looking to make a name for himself in law enforcement, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) is a street-smart criminal who has infiltrated the police department, and Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) is the ruthless syndicate head to whom Sullivan reports.

Also being released this fall is the film "Breaking and Entering," by Academy Award-winning director Anthony Minghella, in which Ms. Farmiga has a supporting role as a Romanian prostitute.

A career-making role

Ms. Farmiga's performance in "The Departed" may prove to be the career-making role she's been hoping for.

Evidence of her increasing presence in the film world is the recent New York Times Magazine story, "A Film of Her Own," featuring her film work, work methods and way of life. Penned by Lynn Hirschberg, editor at large for the magazine who writes regularly about Hollywood and film, the feature article appeared in the Sunday magazine on September 3. The lengthy story gives a sympathetic portrayal of Ms. Farmiga, her career and her ambition to work in a studio production.

Ms. Hirschberg reveals that Mr. Minghella believes Ms. Farmiga is "of the quality of Meryl Streep - her characters have the same sense of depth and commitment."

In her article, Ms. Hirschberg explores the complexities of today's film industry and the difficulties faced by many talented actresses in finding demanding roles in studio productions. She says Hollywood has stopped creating big, dramatic roles for ambitious actresses, since major studios prefer to select well-known actresses for their films, aiming specifically to "entertain a vast global audience that prefers action and broad comedy to dialogue and drama."

Reached by phone at her home in upstate New York, not far from Soyuzivka, the Ukrainian National Association estate in Kerhonkson, N.Y., Ms. Farmiga concurred with Ms. Hirschberg's findings. She feels that inconsistencies do indeed exist in the film industry.

Although she had not read Ms. Hirschberg's story (she avoids reviews and stories about herself), she said Ms. Hirschberg has written about her before. "I'm extremely grateful to Lynn for her unprecedented article; she sheds light on problems in the film industry in a way you can't believe," Ms. Farmiga commented.

Ms. Farmiga said she was "absolutely thrilled to work with Marty; working with him is really invigorating. Every actor's dream is to work in a Martin Scorsese film; he's a very passionate, direct and generous man."

"My partners in the film were fantastic, and I truly enjoyed working with these stars. All the actors were warm and giving, and I felt very close to them," she added, in the exuberant, eager voice that echoes her off-camera personality.

She said she had just completed her sixth film in one year, mostly independent films, leaving her quite exhausted. But, she pointed out, each film was different, with radically different characters, and each filmmaker was a first-time experience. "And my hair was a different color each time, all the colors of the rainbow," laughed the 5-foot-6-inch actress. "My natural hair color is light brown," she added.

A country girl

Ms. Farmiga shuns the glamour and glitter of city life, preferring country life in rural Ulster County, where she lives in a small colonial house with her boyfriend, Renn Hawkey. In between film assignments, she raises two pet goats, mows the lawn with a tractor, and pores through scripts sent to her by her manager, Jon Rubenstein.

Once she's found a role that intrigues her, she makes an audition video of herself acting out the character. Dressed in costume, wig and make-up appropriate to the character, she acts the role as Mr. Hawkey films a scene or two, reading lines opposite to hers.

According to Ms. Hirschberg, Ms. Farmiga prefers this method of acquainting directors with her ability to fill a role rather than a live audition; she feels that the home video provides her with "comfortable space and a suitable environment" for her own artistic vision. (After seeing the actress in "Down to the Bone" and watching her home video for "The Departed," Mr. Scorsese was sold - he wanted Ms. Farmiga for the role of Madolyn in his movie.)

In the 15 or so films Ms. Farmiga has made, she has appeared alongside such stars as Adrien Brody and Milla Jovovich ("Dummy,") John Heard and the late Alan King ("Mind the Gap"), Richard Gere and Robert De Niro ("15 Minutes"), Christopher Walken ("The Opportunists"), and Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep and Liev Schreiber ("The Manchurian Candidate").

She has been on location in Australia, Canada, France and Germany, and recently spent several weeks in St. Petersburg, Russia, filming an independent film, "In Tranzit," which takes place after World War II. Starring in the lead role, she plays a doctor who is overseeing a Russian prison camp housing German prisoners of war.

Because of her fluency in Ukrainian - she did not speak English until she was 5 - she is particularly well-suited to portray Eastern European characters and their mannerisms, speech and accents, as in "15 Minutes" and "In Tranzit." She also speaks some French and Spanish, all of which is helpful in her acting endeavors.

Ms. Farmiga comes from a Ukrainian family of seven children (the offspring of Luba and Michael Farmiga), attended St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic School in Newark, N.J., was a member of Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization, and attended dance camps and workshops directed by the late Roma Pryma Bohachevsky. The family lived in the New Jersey town of Irvington and later in Passaic.

Speaking of Ms. Farmiga back in 2000, Ms. Pryma Bohachevsky recalled her student's talent and diligence, noting that "she was always acting and was very expressive."

Ms. Farmiga, on her part, said: "Ms. Bohachevsky gave me help, and encouraged me to take up acting, to follow my heart - I'm very grateful to her."

The actress got her start in theater work in a high school melodrama, "The Vampire," after being benched from soccer, and went on to study acting at Syracuse University.

She appeared in several stage productions as a member of the Barrow Group theater company in New York, then embarked on TV work - as a Celtic warrior in the TV series "Roar," a star in the NBC series "UC: Undercover" and Snow White's mother in ABC's "Snow White." She guest-starred in "Law and Order" and other television series. Her film work began in 1998 with the movie "Return to Paradise."

At 33, Vera Farmiga is on her way to stardom. The blue-eyed Ukrainian American actress is striving hard to reach her goal: major roles in studio productions that will test her acting skills and virtuosity. If innate artistry, intensity and vitality are requisites for success in the film world, she will surely reach her objective.

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