Selma Blair gets all fired up in Hellboy II as Liz, the pyrotechnic long-time companion of the big, red, brewski-loving superhero. Bursting into flames to take out some fantastically ugly monsters is just one more example of the outrageous turns Blair has taken since her role opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions.
In person, there's nothing outrageous about Blair. The petite brunette is sweet and wickedly funny.
You'd never be attracted to a beer-drinking, blue-collar guy in real life would you?
"I have been many times—the guy that gets things done and then can relax with you and joke around but just doesn't put on airs. There's something nice about that, it's sort of the textbook definition of what a guy is. In the movie, I love how average Hellboy and Liz are. It's endearing that these people who have extraordinary powers are so busy killing monsters that they can't the find the time to talk about their own relationship."
You've been married [to Ahmet Zappa] and divorced. What's your take on love?
"I'm a romantic. I think I probably had my heart broken a few times, so maybe I am a little bit more jaded now. I don't think I could follow the '10 commandments of love' in those self-help books and articles because I think rules have to be adjusted for every person you meet. I don't think there's a real formula. And that's why I get a kick out of Hellboy and Liz; they're an odd couple who fight ferociously but still love each other."
Did you like being surrounded by monsters while you were filming?
"I did and I guess it goes back to my childhood. I loved fairy tales when I was growing up — Aesop’s Fables, Grimm's Fairytales. I was a big fan of The Little Matchstick Girl. I loved the ones that ended badly. I still have such a fascination with death. One of the first dreams I remember having as a child, I was saving my father from a burning house. I have a very morbid fascination with death and dead things. But I see the beauty in it."
If that's your dark side—what about your sense of humor?
"I was always the class clown, even in nursery school. I was always trying to make people laugh, and it was at my own expense as a kind of self-protection. In my darker days, I was really, really scared. I'm still intimidated by the stars I meet and wanting to be good as an actress."
Now you'll be going for weekly laughs in primetime on the upcoming sitcom Kath and Kim in which you co-star with Molly Shannon.
"Molly and I play a Florida mother and daughter. We think we're fabulous even though we're not. I wear rhinestones on my nails. And I kept them on in real life, which was a new thing for me. So I've been apologizing for my nails to people. Then I realize that some of them have decorations on their nails, so I'm always insulting people, which is embarrassing."
Kath and Kim is based on an Australian series. Did you watch it?
"I didn't want to watch too many episodes because I didn't want to start getting a weird Australian accent in my head as I said my lines. I'm a terrible mimic, and I was afraid that could happen and wouldn't translate very well. That would be Bizarro World."
Speaking of "bizarro," how does your mom feel about some of your outrageous big screen moments?
"She has a great sense of humor, which may be why I find it easy to be wildly inappropriate sometimes. She came to Budapest, where we filmed Hellboy, and stayed in my trailer for two weeks and didn't come to set once. That was bizarre. Ron Perlman in his Hellboy costume was making her martinis at cocktail hour. And then Doug Jones in his Abe Sapien get-up would bring some ice over from his trailer. It was just fabulous."
PAG
