by SARAH ROWLAND

I pity the reporter who interviewed Maria Bello shortly before me. The misguided feminist apparently referred to the animalistic stairwell sex in A History of Violence as a “semi-rape” scene. Big mistake.

“I was so angry,” says Bello, the star of David Cronenberg’s most Hollywood effort to date. “I mean it’s unforgivable. If you look at the scene, we were fighting and fighting and then he starts pulling away ’cause he feels bad. So then I pull him to me because I want to fuck this person I’ve never met before, and I feel a desire and loss of control that I’ve never felt before. It’s a huge turning point for my character. So for someone to even allude to that as rape is just stupidity.”

It’s especially frustrating for Bello because of the efforts made with co-star Viggo Mortensen before shooting the scene to ensure that the choreography couldn’t be misconstrued.

“We knew that it had to be a mutuality and I had to be able to find in myself a base desire that comes out of that kind of rage,” says Bello. “And figuring out what that line was was tough for me. So for weeks I was saying, ‘We got to figure this scene out. What are the moves? How are we going to do it?’ I’m really controlling that way and finally, the night before, David said, ‘You’re not in control of this one, sorry.’”

Cruisin’ for a bruisin’

And with that she had to let go of her need to control. “The guys really helped me, though,” she says of Mortensen and Cronenberg. “I mean, I was working with two incredible men that are so kind and sensitive so they gave me a gentle place to land.”

Metaphorically speaking, that is. It turns out when it came time to film them writhing wildly on the stairs, all gentility went out the window.

“My entire back was covered with black and blue and purple marks for months,” she says. “The inside of his lip was bitten and his elbow was out to here. It was pretty bad.”

Playing the meaty role of an emotionally frayed wife whose saintly husband (Mortensen) is mistaken for an underground mobster is a long way from begging for a bigger part in Coyote Ugly. Legend has it that after pestering the crew about getting her turn to dance on the bar, she got word from studio execs that she was too old—too which she responded, “Oh yeah, I’m 30 for fuck sakes.”

“That was the first and last time anyone’s ever said something like that to me,” she says, referring to the ever-touchy subject of ageism. “I thought it was pretty funny at the time and I still do. I didn’t take it seriously. I just thought it was bizarre.”

From fan to friend

Bello says she became involved with A History of Violence after meeting Cronenberg through mutual friends.

“We ended up talking for like three hours without ever mentioning a single movie,” she recalls. “We just realized that we share a very similar satirical way of looking at the world and many of the same philosophies. So we just knew that we had to work together.”

A few months later he sent her the script for A History of Violence, a critical darling at both the Toronto film fest and Cannes. Unlike Cronenberg indie freak show Spider—for which one of Canada’s most respected directors and most of his cast voluntarily deferred their pay—this latest effort has got full studio backing. But according to Bello, monetary compensation was a non-issue for her.

“I would work with anything with his name on it for free,” she insists. “I’ve always been such a fan of his. He deals with such great themes of life, love, sex, death, identity in such specific and odd ways. With every movie of his, I’m left with an image so jarring that I can never forget it.”

Any image in particular?

“That’s easy: Crash—Rosanna Arquette in the car getting fucked in the leg.”

The History of Violence opens Friday, Sept. 23

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