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.

“It’s nice to be able to do a little of both. I wouldn’t ever just want to do one kind of thing. When I was starting out on my career, if I did a movie about say, slavery (Jefferson in Paris), I’d then get sent every slavery script going. But that doesn’t happen so much anymore. Hopefully, I’ve established that I can do lots of different things. And you know, the way I work and when I work is actually more to do with being a mum than ‘what do I want to do next?’ If I’ve worked on a big film, I don’t then want to go and do another big film because of the kids and school and that kind of thing. It’s a bit boring, but that determines the job more than anything else,” said Newton.

She literally finished her last scene in W, which was with Josh Brolin in a White House set, and two weeks later was on a different set for 2012, in Vancouver. Interestingly, both scenes placed her at the Oval Office.

“Obviously, the Oval Office really exists and the production designers are very careful and they match everything up to make it look as authentic as possible. The only thing I noticed was that the carpet was a slightly different shade in our Oval Office in Vancouver, but everything else was exactly the same. Very surreal!”

The concept of ‘First Family’ shouldn’t be too foreign to her. She is the daughter of an English father and a Zimbabwean mother (in fact, she was a princess of the Shona tribe). Regardless, she said it was the tough challenges in the role that appealed to her in the first place.

“I just read the script and made sure my accent was in good shape, because really, no matter who I was playing, the story is about a word in disarray,” said Newton.

“When something like this happens – and hopefully it never will – when everything is about to be destroyed, you can’t hold on to any idea of who you are or worry about your worldly goods, because it’s all going to be swept away. It’s very fundamental and you end up as a human being – skin, flesh and bones – fighting for your life. So what research can you do to play a character caught up in that? It was more about asking yourself, ‘hell, what would I do in that position?’.”

She was also a bit creeped out with the whole Mayan prophecy thing.

“I’m a bit of an old hippie and I feel like anything’s possible at any time. I think the film is about appreciating
the moment and the challenges we face – like, the economic crisis we’ve been going through – hopefully make us appreciate the simple things and the value of relationships and people that we love,” said Newton.

Newton said she only likes watching movies she has acted in, if they are good. The versatile actress has lent her talent in popular films like The Pursuit of Happyness, Mission Impossible II and Interview With The Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles.

Well, if the Mayans got it right, Newton has three years left to live with her husband, director Ol Parker and two kids – Nico and Ripley – in her native London.

Newton is also a self-confessed Jivamukti yoga freak, meaning if the world ends in 2012, at least she’ll go healthy.

“I knew that this movie was going to look incredibly cool. I really had a great time,” she added.

* Watch the beautiful and talented Thandie Newton in this year’s biggest epic blockbuster 2012, opening
in cinemas across Malaysia tomorrow.

From Malay Mail