Mena Suvari Fan

Mena Suvari has played fictional characters who have turned heads — both young and old — in feature films from “American Beauty” to “American Pie.” None of those characters caused her as much concern as her role in the Lifetime movie “Sex and Lies in Sin City: The Ted Binion Scandal.” The actress and the filmmakers were cautious because the film is based on a true story.

“I was concerned at one point that … someone was going to come after me if they didn’t like my version of the story,” Suvari says. She accents the comment with a nervous laugh.

The role that gave Suvari so much concern was that of Sandy Murphy, a woman who becomes a stripper after losing all her money in Las Vegas. She catches the eye of Ted Binion (Matthew Modine), a Las Vegas mover and shaker with a checkered past. Their relationship and Binion’s drug addiction grow at the same rapid rate.

It wouldn’t be much of a television movie if the story ended there. Binion dies under suspicious circumstances, and Murphy becomes the primary suspect. Murphy is found guilty, but the conviction is overturned because of suspicious actions during the trial. The events took place in the late 1990s. The film, based on the Jeff German novel “Murder in Sin City,” tries to play it neutral when it comes to Murphy’s role in Binion’s death.

Several lawsuits about the trials were pending at the time of the filming. That meant the actress had to be careful with how she delivered every line of dialogue. Voice inflection or emphasis on certain words couldn’t hint at taking a point of view on guilt or innocence.

“There was one scene where, from an actor’s point of view, it was a stronger end to the scene if I said, ‘You’d better watch your back.’ It showed her dark, devious side. But we could not say that because it was too much of an implication of her,” Suvari says. “I wanted to do her justice. But I had this feeling of being caught in the middle.

“It was really important to try and recreate what happened, to stay as true to the story as possible. But as an actor you are always looking to make something better in a different way. There was a pressure there that I had not experienced in other films where you could do what you want to create the character.”

Different versions of the ending were shot to keep the film from coming down too heavily on one theory over others. As Suvari says, Murphy and her lover are the only ones who really know what happened.

To prepare for the role, Suvari watched videos of the actual trial. She opted not to try to talk to the real Sandy Murphy. Suvari laughs and says, “I was afraid to meet her.”

Suvari felt a similar pressure when filming another movie titled “Stuck.” That film cast her as the Texas woman who hit a homeless man with her car. The man became lodged in her windshield, but she did not tell anyone about the accident until he had died.

Mostly, though, the 29-year-old actress has done fictional roles. Her big-screen credits include movies from “The Garden of Eden” to “Day of the Dead.” On television, Suvari has worked on “Six Feet Under,” “ER” and “Boy Meets World.”

Her characters share a common threat — all have come across as strong and vulnerable at the same time.

“That’s just part of me. I have always felt like I have a certain exterior that comes across a certain way to audiences, directors. Then there is a spirit inside of me that feels stronger than that. I used to say I felt like my own walking contradiction. That was the way I viewed myself,” Suvari says.

She tends to end up in roles that make her the object of attention. She is not quite certain if those are the kind of roles she likes or those are the kind of roles directors prefer for her.

“What I have seen a lot of, especially at the beginning of my career, is that there are two kinds of roles. You are either the character role where you may not be not so attractive,” Suvari says. “For me, like with this role, I look for roles where there is a lot of personality.”

“I like roles that are more characters because they have layers to them. They have more depth and appeal to them. That’s the path I have tried to follow.”

From FresnoBee.com