British beauty Natalie Dormer is everywhere these days. She’s co-starring in the new film The Counselor, where she gets to flirt with a dangerous Brad Pitt, she’s the duplicitous Irene Adler (aka Moriarty) on CBS’ Elementary, she plays the scheming seductress Margaery Tyrell on Game of Thrones and she was on VH1’s own Big Morning Buzz Live this morning.
She may have fed some lies about Mockingjay on Big Morning Buzz Live, but she spilled to VH1.com what Hunger Games fans will most definitely have to look forward to when she appears as Cressida in the upcoming Mockingjay films.
Dormer has made a name for herself played sharp and savvy femme fatales in projects like The Tudors, Game of Thrones and Rush, but the actress is excited to expand her range when she plays the tough and intrepid documentarian Cressida in the Mockingjay films.
“I get to wear pants and flat shoes!” she laughed. “No, it’s just fun to be, you know, she’s a serious professional whose joined the rebellion cause. Cressida is meant to be an incredibly talented documentary film director who was following Katniss around. I’m just really excited about her professional skill; she’s joined the rebellion out of a place called conviction, which is very interesting to me.”
Another interesting thing about Cressida is her appearance. When Katniss first meets the filmmaker she’s described as having “a shaved head tattooed with green vines.”
Dormer might have showed up on Big Morning Buzz Live with flowing blonde locks, but we had to ask if she was pulling a “Karen Gillan” on us. At Comic-Con, Gillan stunned everyone when she revealed that her hair was a wig and that she had actually shaved her long red hair to play Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy.
Dormer revealed, “I haven’t shaved off all my head of hair off, no.” However, before fans get in a tizzy, she did remark that her look is “definitely an interesting interpretation of the reference in the book. I would like to think that people won’t be disappointed with the choices that we made.”
Natalie Dormer as Irene Adler on Elementary (L) & as Margaery Tyrell on Game of Thrones (R)
The first Mockingjay film won’t be out until 2014, but you can catch Dormer in The Counselor which opens this weekend. The film not only gave Dormer a chance to play opposite Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz, but also an opportunity to play a role written for the screen by Cormac McCarthy. The film is different from most crime thrillers because of the renowned author’s unique flair and unsettling dialogue.
The script’s uniqueness appealed to the stage-trained Dormer, who compared McCarthy’s linguistic flair to that of acclaimed playwright Harold Pinter.
“It’s the same kind of concept,” she said, “that the language or the syntax of the sentence jars slightly and it makes you feel as an audience member, slightly uncomfortable, and you can’t put your finger on it. And as an actor it’s very useful. You don’t really need to put to many layers of decoration on what you’re doing, you just need to speak the words, because the text is doing it for you already, so it’s a very interesting observation for you to make and it’s a testament to McCarthy’s writing.”
Dormer may not be planning on leaving her seductive roles on Elementary or Game of Thrones behind anytime soon, but she’s definitely looking ahead to different kinds of roles.
“I love Margaery and will continue to play Margaery, but something like The Hunger Games, to me, is hopefully a departure from just like the femme fatale sexy minx type character,” she explained. “I mean, I’ve I’ve enjoyed that [sexy] pigeonhole very much and the likes of working with Brad Pitt and Chris Hemsworth and so forth. I’ve enjoyed that very much, but it’s kind of time for me now to move on.”
The Counselor is in theaters now.
[Photo Credit: Getty Images, Scholastic, HBO & CBS]