Interview: Maria Bello
She’s the action-loving, world-travelling adventuress in the latest Mummy movie, as comfortable with an automatic pistol and Samurai sword as she is with a bare-knuckle bust-up. While the thought of such an adrenalin-soaked role might have put off certain Hollywood leading ladies, not so the outgoing Maria Bello. The 41-year-old American claims that since meeting and falling in love with her 28-year-old boyfriend, Bryn Mooser, her world has been transformed.
“My life is a romantic adventure,” laughs the actress, who is best known for her role as ER’s Dr Anna Del Amico. “I think we chose each other because we really bonded on that. He is a man who has so much positive energy and he really creates a sense of fun in my life.”
Maria has a seven-year-old son, Jack, from her previous relationship with long-time boyfriend, TV exec Dan McDermott, which ended four years ago. She became engaged to Mooser last month. The couple have been together for a year-and-a-half after meeting at the restaurant where Bryn works as a part-time waiter.
“I certainly have been in love before, with Jack’s dad, but I don’t think I was emotionally or spiritually ready to really have that commitment in my life,” she says. “I was so cynical about monogamy and long-term relationships, but I’m really happy about my personal life right now.”
In The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor, Maria plays Evie, an adventure novelist married to archaeologist Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser). The new adventure is set some 13 years later, with the risk-loving couple living in comfort on an English country estate. The story packs them off to Shanghai, where they meet up with Evelyn’s brother (John Hannah) and their reckless son Alex (Luke Ford). Through a series of plot twists, the family unites and becomes embroiled in a series of wild exploits in the Far East. The role of Evie was played in the first two Mummy films by British actress Rachel Weisz, and Philadelphia-born Maria knew she would come in for criticism from some fans for replacing her.
“I knew some people would say, ‘How dare she take the place of Rachel Weisz?’” she says. “I don’t really read that stuff, but I knew I could never fill her shoes, so I had to create someone different – and I think it worked.
“It’s been such an adventure and I had to train very hard,” she recalls. “I learned Japanese sword fighting for two months, I worked on wires, I shot guns, I did all sorts of fight training and every day on the set I was like a 12-year-old because it was what I had dreamed about my whole life.”
Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor is by far the biggest movie Maria has ever made. She is currently filming The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee, which could not be more different. In it she plays a manic depressive housewife in the 1960s. She is also writing a novel and working on a book of short stories.
But, having finally made the breakthrough into action adventure films, she’s hungry for more.
“If The Mummy franchise continues,” says Maria, “and it will, I hope I’ll do more of them.”
The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor opens today.