Blonde bombshell

Bryce Dallas Howard won’t forget the year she made Spider-Man 3.

“It was the best year of my life without question,” the 26-year-old actress admits during an interview just four weeks after the February 16 birth of her first child, Theodore Norman, with husband Seth Gabel. “I made this huge movie, got married and got pregnant. It was a lot in a short amount of time!”

Relaxing in her Connecticut home with her newborn son, the down-to-earth daughter of famed filmmaker Ron Howard is excited about the release of Spider-Man 3. “I was in college when the first film came out and I thought it would be just another superhero movie until I saw it and then I was blown away that it was so irreverent and entertaining and emotional and moral,” she recalls. “When I saw the second one, I was even more in awe of the fact they’d made a better movie than the first, which had more depth and better special effects. To me it represented the fact that there were a group of people behind the franchise committed to telling the story in the best way they could and I wanted to join that group!”

So the determined Bryce, who had already starred in the films The Village, Lady in the Water and Manderlay, got to work. “I’d been going on the Internet constantly to check out the buzz to see if there was a role I would be right for. When I heard about Gwen Stacy I really went after it and was very intense about getting in for an audition,” she says. “Unlike Mary Jane, who comes from a background of abuse and neglect and heartbreak, Gwen is incredibly light and pure and has this supportive family,” she continues, “so she is an untainted character coming into this much darker place, which is fantastic for me to portray as an actress.”

Along with Bryce, Spider-Man 3 reunites director Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and James Franco with the film franchise that has grossed over US$1.5 billion worldwide. In the third chapter of the Spider-Man story, Peter Parker (Maguire) has finally managed to strike a balance between his devotion to Mary Jane (Dunst) and his duties as a superhero. But that changes when his suit is taken over by a mysterious black substance that enhances his powers and brings out his dark side. While Peter struggles with being compassionate or vengeful, he is also facing two of the most-feared villains yet: Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) and Venom (Topher Grace). In addition, a showdown is brewing with his former best friend Harry (James Franco), who blames Spider-Man for the death of his father, the Green Goblin.

“In the comic book initially the character (Gwen) came before Mary Jane so they’ve definitely taken a liberty introducing this character later on in the film franchise,” Bryce explains. “The best way to describe her is she’s a part of their world, in their social circle and she gets entangled in all of the drama of the entire Spider-Man world. She knows them through school and her father, Captain Stacy (James Cromwell), is involved in this as well and so when I say entangled it is through many different characters.”

While not wanting to give away too much, Bryce reveals her character is not part of a love triangle with Mary Jane and Peter. “They could have created something like that but I really didn’t want to do a character that was devious in any way and trying to steal the man,” she says. “There are so many wonderful qualities about Gwen Stacy that I didn’t want to demean them or degrade them by creating a character that was simply there to be a man-catcher. That’s what I think is so cool about this franchise. They know it’s important to stay true to the integrity of the comic book, but they also need to have some element of surprise. I think that’s what is exciting about what they are doing. They are always adding twists here and there.”

Bryce laughs at the fact that her trademark red locks were a bit of a liability when she first tried to envision herself in the role of the stunning blonde Gwen. “The first time I saw a picture of Gwen I started laughing hysterically because I thought there were so many women in Los Angeles better suited to play this role than me,” she chuckles. “But the film had a fantastic hair and makeup team and they did a lot of work!”

Part of that work included convincing Bryce to bleach her own hair blonde for the film instead of wearing a wig. “The Hair Supervisor, Emanuel Millar, intuitively knew that I needed to have that blonde experience to better understand this character because I have a tendency to be more frumpy than fabulous in my personal life,” she says with a smile. “The first time I left the house as a blonde and went to the grocery store, I was fascinated by the way people perceived me and how the reaction was so different! So I tried to bring that into the character, because Gwen’s lightness and the way she is so bubbly and approachable comes essentially from being this buxom blonde who gets a lot of attention!”

Attention is something very familiar to the Howard clan. Bryce’s grandfather, grandmother and uncle have had long careers in Hollywood. And of course her father, Ron Howard, was a successful child actor (The Andy Griffith Show, Happy Days, American Graffiti). Today he is a prolific director and producer (Splash, Cocoon, Backdraft, Apollo 13, Cinderella Man, The Da Vinci Code) and a two-time Academy Award winner (A Beautiful Mind). Yet despite these industry achievements, Ron and Cheryl Howard chose to raise their four children in Greenwich, Connecticut and far away from Hollywood. So Bryce attended schools close to home. She studied at the Stella Adler Conservatory and at the New York University Tisch School of Arts; graduating in 2003 with a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) degree in Drama.

Ironically both Bryce and her father found themselves together in Hollywood last year when shooting for Spider-Man 3 took place at the same Sony studio lot in Los Angeles where Ron was editing his film The Da Vinci Code. “We would take lunch breaks at the same time and he was visiting the set all the time,” she said proudly. “He’s not a big advice giver because he really lets me do my own thing, but he has always been very supportive so it was great to have him around at such an important time in my career.”

So much so, Bryce admits, that just days earlier when she had to drive into New York City with her newborn son to record some additional dialogue for the film, her father volunteered to accompany her. “He was going to drop me off and go to his office while I worked, but he wound up staying six hours so he could watch the cut-together footage with me,” she says. “While we were driving home, he was raving about how amazing it looked and how cool the digital effects were and I think it’s exciting for him as a fan of this kind of film to have someone on the inside to answer all his questions!”

Bryce had been engaged for eighteen months to actor Seth Gabel, who has appeared on episodes of CSI and Nip/Tuck, when she landed the role on Spider-Man 3. “We’d already planned our wedding date so part of the negotiations was to let me out for the wedding and a ten-day honeymoon,” she says. “The film kept moving closer to the wedding date but they jumped through hoops to help me finish two days before the wedding. And then I found out I was pregnant seven days after I got married, which was pretty shocking!” she adds. “So I’d finished this huge film, got married and found out we were having our first child. It was a lot in a short amount of time but it was also the best year of my life.”

Although Bryce is now taking a break to enjoy this bonding time with her new son, she hints that she may be considering another film later this year. She’s also excited about what Spider-Man 3 will mean to her son when he’s old enough to see his mother on-screen.

“Kirsten (Dunst) came over a few weeks before I gave birth and I was showing her the nursery and she said, ‘you’ve got to put Spider-Man stuff in his room because you’re going to be the coolest mom being in that movie”, and I realized she was right!” Bryce says, adding with a laugh, “if he even recognizes me with the blonde hair!”

June Barker

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Bryce Dallas Howard

Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man 3

Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Topher Grace, Thomas Haden Church
Release: 3 May, 2007
Rated: M

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