She grew up watching the Incredible Hulk television series, now Liv Tyler is playing Betty Ross - the angry green man's gal. She talks to Amy Longsdorf
KEY POINTS:
Let other actors worry about building and shaping a career; Liv Tyler makes movies to have fun.
"I'm an actress and I love to act," she says. "I don't care whether it's a big movie or a small movie. I just like the idea of having amazing, wild, wacky collaborations with a bunch of gypsies."
From her work in the tiny indie Heavy to her turn as Ben Affleck's gal pal in the gargantuan Armageddon, Tyler has survived in Hollywood by being the ultimate one-size-fits-all actress. Need a geeky video store clerk for Jersey Girl? Call Tyler. Personify an elf queen in The Lord of the Rings movies? She's got that covered too.
There were a lot of reasons why the actress flipped for her latest flick, The Incredible Hulk. She longed to work with Edward Norton, who plays the temper-tantruming superhero. And she was keen to do a contemporary action film.
But for Tyler, the biggest draw was making a movie about one of pop culture's biggest misfits.
"Before we started I went back and watched the television show, which was always one of my favourite things," says Tyler. "My mom and I used to watch it all the time. I would say that the essence of the series for me was the image of that lone figure of Bruce Banner walking down the street with his little backpack, hitchhiking."
As far as Tyler is concerned, the message of Hulk was a simple one: It's not easy being green.
"He was always the misunderstood hero having to move from one town to another," says the actress. "That's the feeling we capture in the movie. The story isn't the same as the TV series but we capture the overall feeling."
Directed by The Transporter's Louis Letterier, The Incredible Hulk revolves around Dr. Bruce Banner's mad rush to find a cure for his gamma radiation overdose. In addition to worrying about the safety of his gal pal Betty Ross (Tyler), he must stay one step ahead of Betty's father, General Thunderbolt Ross (William Hurt), who wants to exploit Banner's powers for evil.
As if that wasn't time-consuming enough, the not-so-jolly green giant also finds himself faced with Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), a solider who transforms into the Abomination.
When Tyler was offered the role of Betty Ross, she had to sign on the dotted line before seeing the final script.
"When I finally read the script, it was really well-written," she says. "Edward wrote a really great part for me. I'm a scientist, which I know is unbelievable. But I had a lot of good things to do. So it was exciting."
As superhero watchers know, Ol' Green Eyes caught Hollywood's attention almost as soon as he made his 1962 debut as a Marvel Comics character. A TV series, which starred Bill Bixby as Dr. Banner and Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk, ran from 1978 to 1982. Then there was the 2003 blockbuster-wannabe which starred Eric Bana as Banner/The Hulk. Directed by Ang Lee, the film was anything but incredible, flopping with critics and audiences alike.
It's no wonder Tyler didn't bother looking back at the earlier flick, which featured Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross. "The story is completely different," she insists. "There's nothing really similar about the plot, or the characters, in a lot of ways."
Strangely enough, the new edition of The Incredible Hulk has been beset with its own share of problems, which Tyler does her best to downplay.
In a nutshell, Norton (who co-wrote the movie with Zak Penn) had a beef with Marvel Comics over the length and feel of the film. He wanted it long and character-driven; they wanted it shorter and more action-packed. Marvel won the match, and is releasing the brisker version of the film.
"It's really not a big deal," insists Tyler, 30. "There really isn't much gossip about it. [The release version] is still the same movie we shot so there's nothing really crazily different about it."
Apparently, the disagreement between Norton and Marvel took place in the editing room, long after the film had wrapped production. The actual shooting of the movie was, according to Tyler, awash in good vibrations.
"This was a real collaboration for everyone" she says. "Edward wrote the screenplay and [Marvel] agreed to his story and he was very involved, as we all were. It was a real collaboration the whole time."
Last year, Tyler began a back-to-back-to-back work bender with The Strangers, a horror flick with Scott Speedman. Next came Smother, a comedy with Diane Keaton and Dax Shepard which has yet to find a distributor. Then Tyler shot The Incredible Hulk.
While Tyler's career is going great guns, her personal life has been topsy-turvy. She and her husband - English rocker Royston Langdon - recently split after five years of marriage. The couple, who have a four-year-old son, Milo, have remained pals.
A generous nature marked Tyler from a young age. The daughter of Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and model Bebe Buell, Tyler spent her growing-up years believing that Philly-based rocker Todd Rundgren was her father.
At age nine, she learned the truth after meeting Tyler backstage at an Aerosmith concert and noticing how much she resembled his teenage daughter, Mia. While such shenanigans might make lesser mortals a neurotic mess, Tyler seems to take it all in stride.
In conversation, she off-handedly calls Rundgren "Dad" and discusses his children as her brothers and sisters. She also remains close to Tyler.
Not unsurprisingly, the actress is a big music fan who recently dipped her toe into performing by recording a cover version of Leonard Cohen's Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye with former Lemonheads lead singer Evan Dando.
Tyler says she longs to take her music obsession a step further by singing and dancing on the big screen. "Making a musical is the dream of my whole life," she says. "I like the idea of old-time Hollywood musicals, where everyone is singing and dancing and it's all theatrical and fabulous."
If a musical doesn't materialise, though, Tyler will just go where she's needed most. "Hopefully, I'll just keep on finding projects I feel passionate about," she says. "That's really the most important thing."
LOWDOWN
Who: Liv Tyler
Born: 1 July 1977, New York
Key Roles: Heavy (1995), Stealing Beauty (1996), Armageddon (1998), Onegin (1999), The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003), Jersey Girl (2004)
Latest: The Incredible Hulk, opens today
