Film prankster Thandie Newton is known for her practical jokes on movie sets. While shooting Run Fatboy Run, she switched Simon Pegg’s water bottle for vodka and sewed up the neck and sleeves of his T-shirts. However, Thandie had to put aside the joking on the set of her latest movie, the disaster blockbuster 2012, because she was just too tired.

“This movie required a lot of stamina,” says the 37-year-old, London-born actress. “There were huge sets, lots of cameras and it was kind of exhausting. Also, because there were so many people involved, there was less of a family feel to it.

“When I was working on Run Fatboy Run, it was really a tiny crew. We were all hanging out together and much more in each other’s pockets. On 2012, when I’d finished a scene I’d go back to my trailer and just collapse.”

The new $200m extravaganza from director Roland Emmerich uses spectacular computer-generated special effects to depict a global cataclysm that brings the world to an end. Cities crumble and millions die in a series of eye-popping natural disasters while a few survivors struggle to stay alive.

Thandie plays the US President’s daughter who begins a relationship with a geologist, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, while they are fighting for survival.

“Some of the cast are in the thick of the action, like John Cusack and Amanda Peet who are fighting for their lives,” says Thandie.

“But because I play the president’s daughter I’m kept very safe throughout the movie.

“The only really big action scenes I was involved in were two water sequences – one where I’m in a corridor and this huge tidal wave comes bursting down towards us. It was amazing but I forgot to act because gallons of water were rushing down from floor to ceiling towards me. The director had to shout “cut” and all the water went down. I don’t even know where it drained to. Then 10 minutes later we did it again and the water comes rushing round the corner, blasting down the set.”

As we chat, Thandie looks cool and relaxed in her white minidress in a beachfront suite at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Cancun, Mexico, where many of the 2012 cast had been flown for a party and promotional interviews.

Married for 10 years to English writer-director Oliver Parker, they have two children – nine-year-old Ripley, named after Sigourney Weaver’s character in Alien, and Nico, four, named after the Velvet Underground singer.

Despite her success in films – including Mission Impossible: 2, The Pursuit Of Happyness and W – Thandie maintains she never had any special ambitions to be an actress.

Her parents, a Zambian nurse mother and a laboratory technician father, lived in the African country, but Thandie was born during a trip back to England. The family then returned to Zambia, but moved to Penzance in Cornwall when she was three years old.

“There were very few black people in the town and we were almost a novelty,” Thandie recalls. “I always saw being black as a mysterious element I could use to enrich my personality. Then I went into the arts where difference is celebrated so I’ve never really experienced racial hassle.”

In between her film commitments, the actress has returned to Africa on several occasions and she taught at Oprah Winfrey’s school in South Africa for 10 days in July. But for now she has high hopes that filmgoers will appreciate the ingenuity that has gone into making 2012.

“It’s just extraordinary to be able to create an illusion that takes you on a journey like this,” Thandie smiles. “To have been able to push the boundaries like this is a real achievement.”

2012 is out today.

From the Mirror

British actress Thandie Newton lets on about what it’s like on the set of the apocalyptic thriller 2012.

IN the upcoming anticipated disaster flick 2012, British screen beauty Thandie Newton plays Laura Wilson, whose daddy Thomas (Danny Glover) happens to be the 45th President of the United States. It seemed that the celluloid US administration loves her.

Just last year, Newton was in cinematic White House to play (former) US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in Oliver Stone’s controversial bio-pic W.

Known for balancing her roles between that of a big-budgeted commercial mainstream and the more independent British fares, Newton has starred in a string of big films (Mission Impossible 2, The Chronicles of Riddick) and not-so-big ones (Beloved, Run, Fatboy Run, The Truth About Charlie).

A story about the world’s destruction, humanity and survival, 2012, directed by Roland Emmerich also stars John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oliver Platt and Woody Harrelson.

Here’s an interview with Newton courtesy of Sony Pictures Releasing International. The movie 2012 opens in cinemas here tomorrow.

Question: 2012 is a blockbuster event movie. Do you have to be careful that the effects don’t swamp the story with a film like this?

Newton: Yes, you do, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen when I read the script. Roland really cares about the story and he cares about the characters — it’s actually a very human story. I’m the president’s daughter.

I’m part of the president’s family and suddenly none of that matters. And for all the characters in the film, it’s the same — whatever you thought was important before doesn’t matter anymore.

When the floods and earthquakes start, it’s all about trying to save your life and the lives of other people. It comes down to the fundamentals of being human and it asks what that means and what really matters.

It’s an amazing arc for all the characters and certainly mine. Some, the lucky few, will survive but it’s also about the moral guidelines that the survivors will have.

Because, even with all the panic that ensues there is still this grappling for power — even when everything is being destroyed — and it’s like “look, if we are going to be the survivors of the human race we have to establish moral guidelines.” And that’s really interesting stuff to explore in a big film like this.

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THANDIE Newton knew she would be facing challenges when she signed up to be part of the epic end-of-the-world adventure 2012 but never thought she would long for a new set of clothes and a good night’s sleep.

“I spent a lot of time incredibly wet, absolutely soaking wet – trousers, sweater, my shoes, everything. It was miserable and I’m such a little girl about that sort of thing. I didn’t complain about it but inside I was thinking ‘oh no, not again!’” revealed Newton in an interview recently.

One of the hardest sequences for her in Roland Emmerich’s disaster epic involved the aftermath of heavy flooding, which in the film, has left much of the world submerged under water. For Newton and some of her co-stars, it meant several days filming in deep water.

“There’s one sequence where the waves are coming in and I have to scoop up this little girl and save her. Which is all great, but inside I was thinking ‘****** hell. I hoped that this would be it!” she revealed. “And the little girl was having a great time. In between scenes I’d wrap myself in a towel and she was swimming around and loving it.

“Bless the crew, because they’d even made the water warm for us, which is amazing, but after a long day doing that you really look forward to some dry clothes and a good night’s sleep.”

The 37-year-old actress plays Laura Wilson, the First Daughter in 2012. The movie is an epic adventure
about global cataclysm that brings the end to the world and the heroic struggles endured by its survivors.

The film is based on the Mayan calendar that is set to reach the end of its 13th cycle on Dec 21, 2012 and nothing after that. This “action movie role” follows her portrayal of Condoleeza Rice in Oliver Stone’s W. It a bit of a jump. W was a bio-pic (a Stone specialty) of sorts, while 2012 is a full-blown action blockbuster.

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Coming to the cinemas soon is the mega disaster film, 2012. This apocalyptic thriller starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet and Thadie Newton is being tipped as one of the year’s biggest visual spectacles along with James Cameron’s Avatar. Here is an excerpt from Rajeev Masand’s interview with Thandie Newton who has also starred in popular films such as Mission Impossible and Crash.

The world will end. It’s going to happen in 2012, which is actually November 13, 2009. So good luck trying to set your calendars or bothering to live each day to the fullest.

Here’s interviews from the quality cast (Woody Harrelson, John Cusack, Amanda Peet and Thandie Newton) … even though the film will most likely choose special effects over substance every chance it gets. And no, it doesn’t always have to be that way, as Star Trek proved.