Bryce Dallas Howard is the daughter of esteemed actor-director Ron Howard.… (Hagen/News )
BY ADAM CAPARELL
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Sunday, October 17, 2010
As soon as Bryce Dallas Howard got the script for Clint Eastwood's latest drama, "Hereafter," she was hooked.
And it wasn't just because Eastwood was directing and Matt Damon was playing the leading role. It was because the flick's central character - a man with the ability to speak to the dead - hit close to home.
"It's personal for me because a lot of my family members actually have that ability," says the 29-year-old. "It's kind of wild."
In "Hereafter," which hit screens Friday, Damon stars as a reclusive psychic who can carry on conversations with the deceased. Howard insists that her family, which includes her famous father, director Ron Howard, possesses a similar sixth sense.
"It's seeing things, hearing things, getting senses from people. Knowing what has happened to them, knowing what they're facing, even if they're strangers. It's really, really crazy," she says.
Howard plays a burgeoning love interest of Damon's character, but she is driven away from the psychic after she receives a haunting reading from beyond. That's something she has "totally done" a number of times in real life, she says.
In her latest film, the Clint Eastwood thriller 'Hereafter,' Howard plays Matt Damon's love interest. (Photo: Warner Bros.)
Did her premonitions tell her she was going to get the role? Not quite.
"After putting myself on tape, I didn't necessarily expect to hear anything back from [Eastwood]," she admits. "And actually, I didn't for a long time. Then I heard that I'd gotten the part."
Soon after, Howard learned much about what it takes to be in a Clint Eastwood movie and about Eastwood himself.
"It was a really great and distinctive experience," she says. "He's very friendly and incredibly warm and he put me right at ease.
"He shoots so quickly," the actress says of the director's quirky directing techniques, such as using scenes from rehearsals in the final cut. "If he's gotten what he needs he moves on, even if that's in the rehearsal. Seeing the final film, most of the things he put in the film weren't even my first take."
So how do Eastwood and her dear old dad, both Oscar-winning directors, compare? Don't ask Howard; the beauty has yet to work with her father.
"I really want to work with him. I want that experience, says the NYU grad. "But I don't think that's a goal for him, it's a goal for me. I think I have further to go."
Howard went blond as one of Tobey Maguire's lady loves, Gwen Stacy, in 'Spider-Man 3.' (Photo: Everett Collection)
Probably not much further, considering Howard - who remembers being 18 and working as a dresser at Greenwich Village cabaret The Duplex, waiting to catch her big break - has racked up movie credits such as "Spider-Man 3," "Terminator Salvation" and "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse." Not to mention her Golden Globe nomination in 2008 for her role in HBO's adaptation of Shakespeare's "As You Like It."
And it seems like she might be ready to follow in Dad's footsteps as an actor-turned-director any day now.
"Directing is the thing I'm least familiar with," she admits. "But it's something I would really, really love to educate myself on so I can look forward to it in the future."
Until then, she has teamed up with her father to produce Gus Van Sant's next film, "Restless."
"I follow my fascinations," Howard says of not limiting herself to being in front of the camera. "I don't follow any kind of strategy."
