Marley Shelton: I See You Grindin'
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Staring at these pages, you may be thinking to yourself, "Man, this blond chick looks really familiar?" Well, she should. Over the past 10 years, MARLEY SHELTON has appeared in nearly 40 films, including this month's Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez double feature Grindhouse. Though Shelton plays a gun-toting badass in the feature, when AP phoned the 32-year-old actress at her home in Los Angeles, she was surprisingly sweet as she discussed her family, her career and, at last, her rather complicated relationship with karaoke. INTERVIEW: Trevor Kelley You were raised in a very musical family. Your mom was a singer and, along with being an actor, your sister sings, too. Was there ever a point where you thought you might pursue a career in music instead of film? Never. I have such a huge appreciation for music. I love it. I even feel like it's a part of my acting-you know, rhythm and physicality. But for some reason, I chose not to express myself as an artist through music. I don't know. [Laughs.] Maybe that was a reaction to being constantly inundated with it in the house? But I do love to sing. I actually just read somewhere that you're really into doing karaoke. Ugh... No. [Laughs.] God no. I actually loathe karaoke. I know what you read. I said [in an interview] that I like [the video game] Karaoke Revolution. But that's only after I've had a couple cocktails and we're sitting in my living room, and we try and out-bad each other. You've been in a ton of films, obviously, and a couple years ago you starred in a movie called Sugar And Spice, in which you played a popular high school cheerleader who also robbed banks. [Laughs.] And was pregnant. Right. Minus all the guns and E.P.T. kits, was that what high school was like for you? Yeah, it was. I went to Eagle Rock High, which is a public high school. People associate Los Angeles with Hollywood and Beverly Hills and the entertainment industry, but my upbringing was very different. There was a really amazing Latin culture. In my neighborhood, there were a lot of Filipinos. It was really this cultural melting pot in the public school system, and I loved that. So I did the whole cheerleading thing. [Laughs.] But I was pretty much the only white girl on the squad. You've done nearly 40 films. When people stop you on the street, what do they recognize you from? You never know. It sort of depends on what they're running on cable at the time. [Laughs.] But the one that has stuck, which really cracks me up, is The Sandlot. For whatever reason, there's a cult following for this movie. I still get recognized for that. Wait, didn't that movie come out in, like, 1993? I thought you played a teenager in it. I was a teenager. [Laughs.] I was 18 when I made that film. Considering all the different films you've done, you've had the opportunity to work with a lot of great actors. But now you've reached a point that nearly all modern thespians aspire toward: You've finally stared in a film with Fergie. [Laughs.] Really, I have to congratulate you on that. Yeah, not only [did I get to work with her in Grindhouse], but we have a very interesting relationship in the film. I'll just leave it there. So you got to spend a lot of time around her, then? I did, yeah. She was such a team player. When you see how we tortured her in this film, a diva wouldn't have lasted more than 30 seconds. But she was such a trooper. Quentin Tarantino is not only one of the writers of Grindhouse, but he is also one of the film's stars. When you look up his character on IMDB.com, he's listed as "the Rapist." Now, I may be wrong, but it seems like this film is going to be... Really severe. [Laughs.] Well, there's an interesting tone. [Tarantino and Rodriguez] are definitely paying homage to this exploitation era, and what happens in the movie is so outrageous and so over-the-top that they're purposefully breaking all the rules of conventional filmmaking. You'll be shocked and horrified, but the tone is really funny throughout. When they gave you the script for the film, was there anything that immediately jumped off the page? Anything where you were like, "There's no way they can get away with this?" Oh, yeah. It was like nothing I had ever read before. It was completely unique and bizarre and outrageous. I think audiences will be completely fulfilled. Man, it's so tempting for me to give away plot points. But I will say that with my character, just when you think that one more awful thing couldn't happen, another does. But it's always in a really odd and dark way. ALT CHEAT SHEET As a fresh-faced teen, Marley Shelton broke out as the much-adored, super-hot lifeguard in The Sandlot; several years later she turned up in Sugar And Spice, Bubble Boy and Sin City; this month she re-teams with director Robert Rodriguez for Grindhouse. THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE When asked to tell us about what she's been listening to lately, Shelton immediately warns AP that her tastes are "all over the place." "I am definitely a product of the iPod generation," she says with a laugh. "Right now, [my favorite bands] range from Radiohead to U2 to Gnarls Barkley to LCD Soundsystem to the Strokes to Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday." Another one of Shelton's favorite artists at the moment is the If All The Stars Were Pretty Babies, a band that features Marley's sister Samantha, as well as former Elf star Zooey Deschanel. "They do old jazz standards from the '40s in a very cabaret style," Marley says of the band. "It's really fun. They haven't recorded at all, but they play out all the time here in Los Angeles." Shelton is also a regular in the SoCal concert scene. Every year, she and some friends make the trek to the Coachella Arts And Music Festival in Indio, where this year she's looking forward to catching sets by Interpol, the Roots and Björk, among others. "It's always a great way to see [different bands]," she says of the famously heat-scorched fest. "I have such eclectic tastes and their line up is always so eclectic, too." [TK] |
