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Jennifer Connelly, 34, has become one of Hollywood's leading ladies over the last few years through a combination of her Oscar- winning performance in A Beautiful Mind and her choice of gritty roles in films such as Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream.
She is currently in Britain to promote the release of Dark Water, a Hollywood adaptation of the original Hideo Nakata-directed film that follows other American remakes of Japanese horror films such The Ring and The Grudge. In Dark Water, Connelly plays Dahlia Williams, who has recently separated from her husband (played by Dougray Scott) and is embroiled in a custody battle over their five- year-old daughter Cecilia, played by the brilliant Ariel Grade.
In an attempt to escape her past, Dahlia moves, with her daughter, to a new flat in Manhattan. It is dark, damp, and cramped, with plumbing problems. As the fight for her daughter descends into a nasty legal battle, Dahlia's mental state becomes frail and things take a paranormal turn when she hears mysterious noises coming from the empty apartment upstairs, accompanied by a persistent leak of dark water from the ceiling.
'I think it's a different type of horror film than has existed before,' says Connelly. 'There are certain examples of it in the fact that it isn't a gory film, it isn't a slasher movie, and it doesn't have some aberration running around and coming to threaten the homeland.
'It's more subtle and more psychological, and could be seen as allegorical. There have been films like that in the past that people have really responded to, such as Rosemary's Baby and Don't Look Now, and I feel, at the moment, there's a renewed interest in that kind of film.'
Horror is not a genre that Connelly has featured in before, but it was the prospect of working with Walter Salles, the award- winning director of The Motorcycle Diaries, the film of the motorcycle road-trip that Che Guevara went on as a youth, that drew her to the project. 'Dark Water was one of my favourite films to shoot because of Walter. I had seen the previous films he had directed, Central Station and Motorcycle Diaries, and I thought they were great. I really trusted him. In...