INTERVIEW WITH ALESSANDRO NIVOLA

Alessandro Nivola, starring in Mansfield Park has also had featured roles in Face Off and Inventing the Abbotts.

THC: What struck you about your character?

AN: Well, he's an unusual type of cad--not the Austen type, really. He genuinely loves [Fanny] and really reassesses his behavior. Nobility inspires him. It's harder to judge him because he's not really all that bad. His affair with Mariah is a typically human thing--how often do people break up and sleep with someone else?

THC: How do you feel about introducing actual sex into a Jane Austen movie?

AN: Well, once [Patricia Rozema] adapted the novel to have Henry be a viable match for Fanny Price, there was a dilemma after the Portsmouth scene [in that the relationship could still happen]. The sex scene seals the impossibility of their relationship--it's totally shocking.

THC: How do you feel about the modernization aspect of the film?

AN: What's powerful about the novel is what's unsaid, but it was an era that was ripe with sexuality and flirtation and full of innuendo. Everything was sex and sex and sex.

We're always facing the problem of how to convey the essence of the story--it's almost impossible to be completely faithful and retain the spirit of the story. But something about the film strikes at the essence of the novel.

THC: You've had a lot of really diverse roles--why the collage of characters?

AN: Actors are given too much credit for shaping their own careers. At no point do you have that much control. You feel like what are you going to do to just have a film be in the theaters? I've had good luck that the roles have been so different. Out of Yale, I'd played all these Romantic parts, not the really exciting character. Mansfield Park was perfect [Henry Crawford] is an epicurean who gets the most out of every situation.

THC: Who was your model for Henry Crawford.

AN: [Our research included] historical accounts and paintings. I went to the National Portrait gallery in London. We read this manners book, called What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew which was heaven. I realized that the thing about this period was that everything was sacrificed for the sake of appearance. [The costume man told me] one's trousers must be so tight they show one's mood.