http://www.menasuvarifan.com

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Naples Daily News - September 14 2001
http://www.naplesnews.com/01/09/showcase/d635691a.htm
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MENA SUVARI RIDES THE WAVE
Written by Luaine Lee

Mena Suvari, the teen-age temptress from "American Beauty," says she just stumbled into acting — a process that she calls "weird and surreal." She may have fallen into performing but, at 22, she knows where she's going and what she wants.

Though she underplays her part in her own good fortune, it's clear that Suvari has more going for her than a piquant face and blue eyes the size of Lake Michigan.

A bright and — as grandmother would say — "sensible girl," she's been married a year to cinematographer Robert Brinkmann, whom she met on the set of "Sugar and Spice." And though she insists she had no burning ambition to become an actress, it was clear with "American Beauty" that she was born to do it.

"I came out here when I was 15," she says, seated with her shoulders erect against the back of an upholstered chair, her hair caught in a haphazard bun at the back of her head. "I was going to high school out here and was doing acting on the side when I graduated. When I was 17, I just decided I was going to take it as my job, more seriously. Then I got 'American Pie,' so it all kind of just happened suddenly. Then 'American Beauty' happened so I'm still kind of riding this wave from it." She shakes her head and flutters one hand in front of her.

Dressed in black pants and a black leather over-jacket with pointed-flap sleeves and multitudes of silver buttons, Suvari looks fashionably chic.

"When I was younger I never said 'I'm going out to L.A. and be an actress.' I never thought of anything like that. It just kind of happened so suddenly, and it's very surreal."

Still, she admits she did bug her mother about permitting her to take a little modeling course back home in South Carolina. That course led to a few jobs and eventually her family moved to Los Angeles so she could pursue her modeling career. "When I moved here I was just doing that (acting) on the side almost like an after-school activity, a hobby," she says.

Her dad, who was a psychiatrist, was retired by the time family moved to Los Angeles. And Suvari began to realize that she was not only good at acting, but she really liked it.

You can see she likes it from her resume: pictures like "Kiss the Girls," "Slums of Beverly Hills," "The Rage: Carrie 2," "Loser," "Sugar and Spice," and her latest, a costume drama, "The Musketeer." She plays the beautiful chambermaid, Francesca, whom Musketeer D'Artagnan discovers when he stops at a rustic inn. Francesca joins D'Artagnan on a daring mission to save the Queen from the vicious hand of the arch-villain, Febre (played with relish by Tim Roth.)

"I just enjoy the business and enjoy working with people," she says, shrugging her small shoulders. "It's always been about the work for me and forming that relationship with people that's the most important thing," she says.

In spite of her intriguing film personas, Suvari describes herself as a bit of a loner and outsider when she was in high school. "I was very boring. I had one or two friends. It was all graduating and was about academics. I wasn't into school activities, wasn't into sports. I wasn't a cheerleader. I just didn't relate to anybody. I went two years to one high school, then I graduated from another. I switched in my junior year."

It was difficult relocating at that time in her life, though she and her family — she has three older brothers — had moved often. She was born in Rhode Island, but the family moved to St. John in the Virgin Islands for a year. "We moved to St. John because we wanted to go to a different climate. Rhode Island was colder and we had a very huge house to take care of, so my parents decided to go to St. John and we started building there. And we left there because the house didn't work out, there were problems with the contractor and all this different stuff. So then my parents were in love with the South, so we decided to live there in South Carolina. So we focused on living there and all of a sudden the modeling thing came up with me and they just gave it up and moved out here," she says.

Her career was escalating and Suvari was having fun, but it was meeting Brinkmann (who is 16 years her senior) that really changed her life. "I just loved the way he treated me because I'd never been treated the way he treated me," she smiles.

"After that, we saw each other every day after that. I could talk to him. . . He was a complete 180 from my ex that it was just amazing. I could talk with him and he let me be myself. I really told him a little while ago because I just realized, I realized I really would not be myself if it wasn't for him because he's allowed me to grow and be the person I want to be. It's really nice."