Selma Blair has her own paparazzi posse these days. The raven-haired actress has had the odd paparazzi shot appear in a supermarket tabloid during her 10-year, 40-film career.
She has also had plenty of success. Her latest film, the action fantasy sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, has earned more than $US100 million ($A114.77 million) at the box office in limited release, with more territories, including Australia yet to open. Blair, 35, also starred in the original Hellboy film and in plenty of other hits, including the thriller Cruel Intentions and comedies Legally Blonde and The Sweetest Thing.
What has the paparazzi salivating and hiding in bushes and buildings these days is Blair’s new project, the US version of the Australian TV sitcom, Kath and Kim. Well, not really. It’s more specific than that. The paps are more interested in the skimpy outfits Blair is wearing for the show, set to air on NBC in the US in October. Photographers who once spent their days chasing Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, are taking up hidden positions outside Blair’s trailer on the Los Angeles set of Kath and Kim. “My clothes are tight,” Blair admits. “Very tight.”
Blair will play spoilt daughter Kim in the US series. The Michigan-born actress is stick thin, so although she will find it difficult to muster up a muffin top equivalent to Gina Riley’s Kim on the Australian show, Blair’s Kim has a similar “princess” personality. “She’s a bit of a juvenile,” Blair explains. “She’s in her 20s, but she acts like a 13-year-old.”
Whether the American version of Kath and Kim - which Riley and Australian co-creator and star Jane Turner are executive producing - is a success is up in the air. Some US TV analysts predict it will fail and will be quickly taken off air. Blair and former Saturday Night Live comedienne Molly Shannon, who will play Kath, just want American audiences and Australians critical of the re-make, to give the show a chance. “It’s a different show,” Blair said. “This one has a little more heart than the Australian one.”
The Hellboy films have also been praised by critics for having heart, despite being based on a popular comic book about a red-skinned, horned creature “born in the flames of hell”. In Hellboy II Blair reprises her role of Liz Sherman, a superhero with an ability to burn down a skyscraper with the click of her fingers. Ron Perlman returns as Hellboy, the cigar-smoking, beer-drinking reluctant saviour of the human race. In the sequel, Hellboy and Sherman are called on to save the world from a underworld prince set to release a formidable army of killing machines that have lied dormant for hundreds of years. The sequel also reveals more details about the dysfunctional romantic relationship Sherman and Hellboy share, although Blair said her character has matured since the first film.
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