On screen and off, Bob Hoskins can be an intimidating presence. He's a real British bulldog and it's not advisable to test the old adage about barks and bites. Consider his menacing performances in The Long Good Friday, Mona Lisa and The Cotton Club. Even when he's going for the laughs in such films as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Super Mario Bros. and Hook, there's always something tougher lurking beneath that jovial air. All the more reason to be amazed that Hoskins can be frightened at the prospect of meeting someone. Especially if that someone is Canada's premier independent director, Atom Egoyan. Last year, riding on the heels of his Oscar nominations for The Sweet Hereafter, Egoyan set up an appointment with Hoskins. He wanted to talk to Hoskins about appearing in Felicia's Journey. "We met in an L.A. hotel," says Hoskins. "Atom knew I expected to meet this intense Armenian. That's the reputation he's received through his films. "The moment we were introduced he came on like Bela Lugosi. He was babbling on about how he wanted me to find the soul of the character all the time riveting his eyes on me. He frightened the life out of me," recalls Hoskins. "Then he started to laugh. He was sending me up and he could see it had worked. At that moment I knew I had to work with him." Hoskins may not have known what to expect from Egoyan, but he knew what to expect from Felicia's Journey, a dark psychological thriller about a serial killer who preys on young prostitutes. The man changes his pattern when he meets Felicia, a pregnant Irish teen searching for her child's father in the industrial area of Birmingham. "I'd read the novel when it first came out. Felicia's Journey is every parent's worst nightmare, especially if you have daughters and I have two," says Hoskins, who has been married to schoolteacher Linda Banwell since 1982. He also has two grown children from his first marriage to Jane Livesey. Hoskins says the most terrifying aspect of a story like Felicia's Journey is that "monsters like Hilditch exist all over the place. "England has more than its fair share. I've met men like him. They're nice boring people who seem so noble, kind and caring. You just know there is some darker recess in their lives." The initial joking aside, Egoyan did want Hoskins to find the soul of Hilditch and the actor recalls it was "a bit like building a house of matches without any glue. It's so delicate that at any moment everything could fall apart." Hoskins says Egoyan ultimately supplied the glue. "He didn't treat the material simply as a thriller, which is what most directors would have done. "Instead, Atom wanted to show that both Hilditch and Felicia are victims. She is a victim to his kindness. He is a victim to her innocence." Hoskins says he never consider for a second taking Hilditch home with him. "My marriage wouldn't have lasted five minutes with him in the house and Linda simply wouldn't have stood for it. There is always a huge separation between my work and my life." Felicia's Journey premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last night and will open nationwide in December in order to qualify for Oscar consideration.
Copyright 1999 Sun Media Corporation
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