British actress Rachel Weisz. Photo / AP
Rachel Weisz tells Stephen Jewell that being an evil witch is all about escaping into character
When it came to casting Wicked Witch Evanora in Oz: The Great and Powerful, director Sam Raimi required a special kind of actress. Created especially for the film, Evanora plays a vital function as the despicable older sister of Michelle Williams' Glinda the Good and Mila Kunis' naive Theadora, as
the plot unfolds in the prequel to
L. Frank Baum's much-loved children's classic, The Wizard of Oz. Fortunately after auditioning many other performers, Raimi, former Spider-man director, found what he needed in Rachel Weisz, who brought the necessary sense of gravitas and menace to the role.
"My whole job is becoming other people and escaping into different characters," says Weisz, who returned to her native London last week for Oz: The Great and Powerful's world premiere.
"The thing I'm probably least interested is what other people think, apart from my family.
I hope they don't think I'm a mean, evil witch, but I guess she has a kind of authority to her. I wanted to play her as somebody who is completely evil, manipulative, cruel, nasty, lying, cheating and without an ounce of goodness in her. The meaner she was, the more fun and more pleasure she had."
After more nuanced performances in more high-minded films such as The Deep Blue Sea and The Constant Gardener - for which she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2005 - the 42-year-old welcomed the opportunity to cut loose and play an almost cartoon-like villain in Evanora. "It's not like I'm not playing an evil dictator in a deep psychological drama, although she actually is an evil dictator, but it's in the Land of Oz," says Weisz wryly. "It's just fun. She's nasty but it's kind of campy.
