SANAA LATHAN BATTLES PRECONCEPTIONS AS WELL AS DEADLY XENOMORPHS IN ALIEN VS. PREDATOR
        BY SEAN PLUMMER

It took a visit to the Czech Republic to educate Alien Vs. Predator co-star Sanaa Lathan's mother as to the differences between Hollywood's most profitable xenomorphs.

        "We were on the set [in Prague] and the Predator walked on," the New York-born actress recalls over the phone from LA. "She said, 'That's the Alien?' I was like, 'Yeah, he's an alien but that's the Predator'. And she's like, 'What do you mean?'"

        Eleanor McCoy, a veteran stage actress, can be forgiven if she can't tell her acid-blooded killing machines from her dreadlocked intergalactic hunters. Even her daughter, an accomplished theatre actress and respected film star, admits that she "wasn't really a big fan of that genre" before she accepted the role of Alexa 'Lex' Woods, the guide who leads a group of scientists and soldiers to a mysterious pyramid buried 2000 feet under the Antarctic ice. There they find an ancient battleground where young Predators hunt captive Aliens, with the humans caught in the middle.

        Her description of Lex as "kind of a loner" and "tough" rings bells with this Alien franchise fan. Is Lex at all based on Sigourney Weaver's Alien-bashing Lt. Ellen Ripley?

        "I don't approach it at all that way," she says. "I just approached it by literally developing the character that was written. Ripley was not in my consciousness at all."

        Not that Lathan, 33, had much time to form mental comparisons. She was cast just a week prior to the start of filming so had to familiarize herself with the four Alien and two Predator films on set in between 15-hour days spent in dark, unheated Prague studios. The shoot was, she says, "physically, emotionally [and] mentally gruelling.

        "The nature of the role is that [Alexa] is terrified and fighting for her life," Lathan says. "To sustain that emotion over four months - over and over and over again all day - is very taxing. If you do 20 takes of something, the first ten you really feel it. After that it's like 'I just hope you get the take where it feels real!'"

        During the shoot, she called her agent and asked to be set up with a play upon AVP 's completion. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, Lathan has performed on stages on both coasts, including productions of Shakespeare's "Measure For Measure" at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park and playwright Susan Flakes' "To Take Arms" in Los Angeles (that earned her a nomination for Best Actress by the NAACP Theatrical Award Committee). Post- AVP , the agent set her up with the role of Beneatha in a SRO Broadway revival of Lorraine Hansberry's classic play "A Raisin in the Sun." It would earn her a Tony nomination and see her acting alongside co-star Sean Combs, a.k.a. P. Diddy.

        "The best thing about doing a play is you get to live the character's journey from beginning to end every night," she says, "whereas, in a movie, on Day One you may start in the middle of the picture, Day Two you may go to the beginning. So that feeling of going through the character's journey in order is actually fulfilling to the actor. It's like a high.

        "The great thing about film," she acknowledges, "is it's forever and it reaches so many more people. The play is over now. I have friends say 'oh, I want to come see the play', [and] I'm like 'it's too late!' You can't say 'well, it will be on DVD next month'."

        Alien Vs. Predator was only a modest box office hit upon release, but there has been gossip about a sequel, and it was arguably Lathan's biggest film yet. The evolution from respected stage and film actress into movie star is something she can deal with but is not entirely looking forward to.

        "I'm just the actor who got into this because I really love acting and not because I need the attention," she insists. "I have to really somehow make peace with that part of my career."

SANAA LATHAN
A PARTIAL FILMOGRAPHY

Alien Vs. Predator (2004)

Out Of Time (2003)

Brown Sugar (2002)

Love & Basketball (2000)

The Best Man (1999)

Blade (1998)

ALIEN VS PREDATOR

Starring: Sanaa Lathan, Raoul Bova, Lance Henriksen, Ewen Bremmer

Release date: January 25, 2005

Extras:

· Audio commentary by director Paul W.S. Anderson

· Alternate opening version of the film

· AVP making-of featurette

· Deleted scenes

· A Darkhorse AVP Comic Covers Galley containing 65 stills

COVER: Simple Plan
.: Montreal pop-punks are Still Not Getting Any

2004: The Year That Was
.: Top things we'll remember – or wish we could forget!

Colin Farrell
.: Hollywood's bad boy does good work in Alexander

Teen Spirit Remembered
.: Why is pop culture dead?

Good Charlotte
.: Nice punks make nasty noise

Shock and Saw
.: Serial killer thriller rewrites the genre's rules... in blood!

DVD: George Romero
.: The horror master talks zombies

Buffy The Vampire Slayer
.: Everyone’s fave slayer puts the bite on summer reruns

Tech E3 04
.: Behind-the-scenes at E3