Entertainment News

Jewel Kilcher to Star in Civil War Drama
 

Much has been made of this mulitfaceted performer and her meteoric rise from a simple life on an Alaskan farm to an 8x platinum recording artist. Now she is taking on a new challenge.  Filming has just been completed in the Kansas City area on a film that marks her debut into motion pictures.

Ride With the Devil is based on a book that has been recently out of print called  Woe to Live On, by Daniel Woodrell, which is being re-released next month as a paperback by Pocket Books.  ISBN: 0671001361 Price:  $14.00

The film is slated for release sometime in the spring of 1999.

Ang Lee, known for his work with The Ice Storm, is directing this film.  Jewel plays the love interest of two young men whose lives are dramatically affected by fierce guerilla warfare on the Kansas-Missouri border.

Robert Butler of the Kansas City Star offers an insightful view of Jewel's challenges in this new venture.

."Although she had little experience and no formal training, director Lee saw something in Jewel that his Civil War film needed. 'She had a period upbringing and a period look,' he said over a lunch in the production's mess tent. 'She's even got period teeth.'

"(Told of this remark about her orthodontically challenged smile, Jewel laughed and said, 'Whoever thought my teeth would get me work?')

 "Lee continued: 'Also, this is very much a boy's story, and I could see that Jewel had a sexual dominance that would let her hold her own with all these young men. I think people are going to be very happy with her work.'

"Not that it was easy. Jewel may give the impression of supreme self-confidence, but her baptism in movie acting was traumatic. 'I was the greenest,' she said. 'I showed up not knowing what it meant to hit my mark or to play to the camera. I had to relearn how to walk, to talk, to get rid of all my modern mannerisms. I had to realize that my face would be 20 feet tall on the screen and that a little would go a long way.'

"Panic dominated her first couple of days on the set. 'I knew I was in real trouble,' she said. 'I was in tears. But Ang knew how to calm me. He's a really quiet person, and I appreciated that. I don't work well with a tyrant. But Ang and the guys have all been patient.

"What I finally realized is that to perform music, I pitch myself up to a real high, then walk out on stage keeping that rocket-booster level up for two hours. Afterward I'm absolutely hollow; there's nothing left. But in the movies you have to deliver that intensity again and again over an entire day of filming. I had to learn to pace myself. But after the first couple of days, I started getting the hang of it.'

"Then there was the collaborative nature of film. Jewel said that when she tours, she usually travels alone, setting her own schedule. But a movie set is like an army on the move. There's a lot of hurry-up-and-wait while all the elements vital to a scene are put in place. 'I'm not used to team sports,' she said. 'But on this film there are so many young guys running around. It's like being in school again.'

"In retrospect, Jewel said, it might have been easier to do something lighter for her first movie -- perhaps a romantic comedy. 'This film is really dramatic, and it puts Sue Lee through the wringer. Lots of crying.'

 "Ride With the Devil opens with Sue Lee's marriage, attended by local boys Jake (Tobey Maguire) and Jack Bull (Skeet Ulrich). The newly married Sue Lee flirts with Jack Bull.

"When next we encounter Jewel's character, the Civil War has been raging for a year. Sue Lee is now a widow, living on a farm near Jack Bull and Jake's winter hideout. She initiates an affair with Jack Bull, by whom she has a baby. When that romance ends badly, the unwed mother finds herself being nudged into yet another relationship, this time with the naive Jake, who knows a lot about killing but nothing about women. 'Sue Lee is incredibly brazen for her time and place,' Jewel said. 'She's savvy to the politics of her circumstances. She understands her place as a woman and how she'll have to use her wiles to get what she needs.'"