IN THE past five years, Lee Pace has played a corrupt CIA agent, a cold-blooded killer and a transvestite whose lover is beaten to death.
So his latest role, as one of Amy Adams’ many admirers in the ’30s romantic confection Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day provided some welcome light relief.”All my character Michael really has to do is fall in love with Amy – and that’s an easy thing to do,” says the American actor of the strawberry blonde Enchanted star, and 2006 Oscar nominee, pictured with Pace.
“For a bit of a challenge, I decided to give myself a northern accent and model him on a rough, heart-on-your-sleeve, Albert Finney kind of character.”
Miss Pettigrew Lives for A Day tells the story of a down-on-her-luck governess Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand) who, in sheer desperation, tries to pass herself off as a social secretary when she learns of an available position.
Turning up on the doorstep unannounced, the sensible-shoed spinster’s quick thinking and iron resolve gets actress and singer Delysia Lafosse ( Adams) out of a particularly awkward situation, and she is hired on the spot (despite her threadbare apparel and obvious lack of qualifications.)
Pace is the penniless pianist who has nothing to offer Delysia but love, unlike her other boyfriends, the rich and handsome young producer who has promised her the lead in his next feature film and the slippery nightclub owner paying the rent on her lavish London apartment.
The actor is probably best known in the US for the successfully surreal TV series Pushing Daisies, which is coming soon to Channel 9.
“Suddenly my career has taken this funny left turn,” he says, observing that the ABC TV show about a man who can bring people back to life – just for a minute – is also adorably sweet. Pace has played a lot of baddies in his relatively short celluloid career, kickstarted in 2003 with the telemovie Soldier’s Girl, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe.
The actor lost 11kg for the role and gained a “really believable set of prosthetic breasts”.
Pace was so credible as a woman, he doubted whether he’d ever get the chance to play a leading man. “It was my first movie. I remember thinking, well that was fun. I guess I’ll never get to do another one.”
But he did. The role of a corrupt CIA agent in Robert De Niro’s under-rated thriller The Good Shepherd followed. He also played convicted killer Dick Hickock in Infamous, Douglas McGrath’s film based on Truman Capote’s life at the time he wrote In Cold Blood.
Pace plays a baddie, too, in his next film, Possession, a sexy romantic thriller starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and produced by the people who made The Ring and The Grudge.
“It’s good to go to different places as an actor,” he says, pleased not to be pigeonholed as a particular type.
“But I’ll tell you something, playing lighter characters, your life is better. When you play something dark, a character who is going through a hard time, you take it home with you.
“When you’re laughing and having a good time and falling in love, doing your job, you bring it home with you.”
Pace relished the chance to work with Adams and McDormand, too.
“They’re both so talented in different ways.”
The actors did, however, have to mind their p’s and q’s in terms of performance style.
“Miss Pettigrew has something of an old-fashioned quality about it, but there’s a way of acting within that kind of movie that doesn’t really work in modern films, that comes across as cheesy or corny,” Pace says. “There was a thin line we had to walk . If we went too theatrical it would have been obnoxious.
“What makes this story interesting is that it’s not too sweet. It’s actually quite sad in the middle of it, in terms of what Miss Pettigrew goes through.”
Pace believes McDormand is a big part of the film’s success, “because she’s so competent. She never gets sentimental”.
Nor is the character of Delysia, beautifully played by Adams, as sweet and gullible as she appears.
“You like her and you root for her and you want good things for her, but she’s a little bit naughty,” he laughs.
Miss Pettigrew opens today.
