Elisha Cuthbert has endeared herself into the hearts of action fans as the long suffering daughter, Kim Bauer, on TV’s 24. Though she always finds herself in peculiar situations – from kidnappings to abusive fathers to mountain lions – she perseveres as often as her father. It was only a matter of time before she broke into movies, and after some memorable supporting roles, her first starring vehicle is a doozy.
The only action in The Girl Next Door is the action our heroes hope to get from Cuthbert’s character. She plays a porn star who opens the eyes of a nerdy high schooler, but he must win her back from the lifestyle she feels she belongs to. Can Cuthbert go from weekly catastrophes to movie comedies?
Do you hope to follow in the porn star footsteps of Heather Graham? No, no, I think I have my own little path going. We’re trying to pick projects that I feel somewhat connected to and I didn’t feel like I was anything like this character but I think I read the script going, I know what I want to do with this scene, I know what I want to do with that scene.
Did you research the porn industry? Not really. What I did was I had spoken to a few of the girls from Wicked Pictures and Vivid and kind of got a take of what they were like, and was surprised that I had this stereotype in my mind that these girls were like the two girls that were my friends in the film. And they’re not. They’re really into fashion, normal girls, and so I was pretty impressed. It was pretty wild.
Isn’t the porno industry more businesslike than erotic? That’s what I mean. I mean, these girls are entrepreneurs. The capitalize on what- I don’t really think it’s cool per se- there is somewhat of a cutthroat to this business. I mean, there’s a lot of girls, and there’s a lot of producers, and it’s pretty wild.
Did you attend any porno conventions? Yeah, we went to a convention. The convention in the film is actually the real convention that takes place in Las Vegas, and we got them to pack up and set up in L.A. so all the real girls were there. The only people that weren’t real were the characters in the film.
How do you play sexy to teens? Is there a line you can’t cross? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I didn’t feel the pressure of having to do it for the public. I think just personally for myself, I had a place where I felt like I had to stop, which was full nudity. I push it to a certain point, obviously, in the opening, but [director] Luke [Greenfield] and I kind of talked about it, and you know, I had a strong opinion on the fact that we could make a teen comedy and not have to do full nudity.
Is nudity something you won’t ever do? Just right now in my career, I don’t feel the need to go there. Maybe down the line I will, I really don’t know. But at this point in time in my career I don’t feel like it’s necessary.
24 TalkWhat’s the future of 24? It’s ending in May, this season, and I hope it will go on for a fourth. I think so, I don’t know though.
How hard is it to maintain that? It is very difficult to maintain a show that has such a hype off the top. It’s got a following and people respect the show a lot, and that’s the writers’ jobs, to maintain that quality. I think when you’re writing something that’s quality, people expect it to stay that way, obviously.
Did you ask the producers after the first two seasons to give you a more active role in CTU? I did. We had a conversation with Joel Surnow and Bob Cochran who are the creators of 24 and I basically just said, “I have an idea about the CTU,” and they said, “Well, that’s funny
, because we’ve already started writing it that way.” And I went, “well, that was easy.”
Did you feel like some of the situations Kim was put in were kind of silly? I never really blamed the writers, nor did I feel like it was a problem. I mean, television is television, and I love the show so much as it is, but I was willing to do whatever they wanted and we had already kind of gotten in the middle of the season and it was like, they gotta keep doing what they gotta do. So I just tried to do the best I could with the scenes.
Is it true the lion bit you? Yeah. I have a scar. It went through my hand. I just went up to it and they said, you’ve gotta meet the animal before you work with it, and I said okay, and I went up and it attacked me.
Did Kiefer Sutherland ever give you advice? His family’s very much a part of this business. Yeah, we did talk a lot about that, and I think we have a very mutual respect for each other. We have a really special relationship, not that he doesn’t have relationships with all the other actors but we have our own little special relationship and it’s almost like father and daughter in a way, but a little less, obviously. But yeah, even shooting this movie, you know, talking about how far I was going to go with the nudity stuff, and just kind of going, "Should I be afraid to voice my opinion?" And he said, "Hell no!" So he gives me a some really good advice. He’s a good guy.
I thought it would have been cooler if Jack really was a bad guy, he worked for the Salazars, and you were his mole. We actually had come up with a couple of cool things for the ending, but obviously we’re not the writers, but if we were the show would be upside down. We have too much time on our hands. We sit in the trailer and go, "Well, what if you were the mole, and I come after you, but you find out next year, and I come back, and then Nina comes back, blah blah blah." It’s ridiculous.
