Oscar Wilde once famously remarked that 'Life imitates art far more than art imitates life'; obviously, Mr. Wilde never had the pleasure of seeing a Hilary Duff film. In Raise Your Voice, for instance, there's a young singer trying to prove her talent, an older heartthrob trying to show his girl that he deserves to play a part in her life, and a rebellious middle-aged veteran determined to live life on his own terms. Then there are the characters those actors are playing.
Hilary Duff, sixteen-year-old sweetheart of 'tweens and parents alike, recently released her second CD to eager crowds as massive as those who file in to her movies each opening weekend. In Voice, the blonde pop tart melds her two careers together for the first time as Terri Fletcher, a student at a musical education summer program. Sitting in a Beverly Hills hotel while recovering from a nasty bout with the flu, Duff tells FilmStew that she embraced the opportunity to take her singing to the next level.
'Some of it was very tough for me,' she says of the scenes where she was required to hit complicated high notes a cappella. 'I can sing, but I don't think I have the greatest voice. I definitely don't have an opera voice. I have a great voice coach who helps me a little bit and has shown me how to do some arias and stuff like that. It was still a little scary, because it's a totally different style than the type of music I play.'
It wasn't just the singing, however, that made Voice the most difficult performance of Duff's young career. 'The biggest challenge was that Terry was a little introverted,' the actress says, fiddling with the new pink streaks in her hair. 'It's almost like a shield comes over her life and she can't feel any emotion. That was tough for me, you know? I'm a really bubbly person, and when I'm sad, I'm really sad. It was kind of hard to have that no-emotion shut off look in my eyes.'
Duff was allowed to let that look be replaced with googly-eyed bliss when the script called for her to gaze upon her love interest, played by Oliver James, last seen in a similar role opposite Amanda Bynes in What a Girl Wants. A good-natured actor who laughs at the thought of completing his teen queen trilogy with a Lindsay Lohan film ('It would be strange not to'), the 24-year-old James has made a career romancing younger girls.
This time around, however, he almost never got the chance. Director Sean McNamara was so intent on getting his leading man right that he made the unusual (and potentially disastrous) move of beginning filming without an actor cast as the guitar-playing hunk Jay. 'Oliver got cast a week into the shooting of the movie,' remembers the grey-haired helmer.
'One of the things I was looking for,' McNamara continues, 'was he could really play the guitar and really act, and that's a tough thing to get. I had seen him in the Amanda Bynes movie, and I knew he was a really good actor. I didn't know if he was available; in fact, I didn't even know if he was an American citizen or if we could use him.'
James, a British actor who recently relocated to Los Angeles, says it was a bit nerve-wracking to jump onto an already-moving train. He wanted to act opposite Duff badly, but wasn't even sure if it was legally possible on such a short notice. 'I was confirmed on the movie, sort of, then it was just a race to get the work permit. It was in the first week of filming so proceedings had sort of moved on...it was just a case of time.'
What Hilary Duff wants, however, Hilary Duff gets. 'Yeah, he's cute,' she says when James is brought up.
Don't confuse the young star with your average hired thespian - she has input into everything in her films, including her clothes, dialogue, and leading men. 'There were actually a ton of people that we were looking at, and we came in, you know we had already started filming before they even hired him. It was like this big stressful thing and I came in, and they just had names of people. He was in England and it was this big ordeal. He came in and auditioned, and I wanted him for the part so badly. Yeah, totally. And then they didn't want him to keep the accent. He's really good at hiding the accent, at doing an American one, but I wanted him to keep it so bad.'
And so James did, and he was in. But, while that young leading man was envisioning Raise Your Voice as a vehicle to a bigger career, another saw it as a good way to make an exit. John Corbett, a twenty-year film and TV veteran best known for playing affable hunk Aidan on Sex and the City, found an appropriate role in Duff's rebellious musical teacher, Mr. Torvald.
Strolling into the room wearing a black leather vest and a matching cowboy hat, Corbett has a big announcement to make. 'I'm bored. I've been doing this for so long - I'm serious - and I can't do this any more.'
Corbett, while making sure he gets across his point that he enjoyed making Raise Your Voice and working with Hilary, insists that he's reached the end of the line. The actor has fallen in love, both with actress Bo Derek and with Nashville, and says he wants to spend his time with them.
'I'm definitely branching into music and I'm getting out of acting. I've got one more movie to promote after this one and then it's 'thank you, Jesus, I don't have to do this anymore.'
Corbett, who recently signed a deal with country label Broken Bow Records, compares his music to that of Travis Tritt. He claims that his debut album, due in the spring, is the beginning of a new career. 'I'm 43,' he says, tilting back the rim of his hat. 'I've been doing this for twenty years. I can't be in a hotel in Toronto for seven weeks any more, staring at the ceiling, and then leaving the hotel room to be on a set for like fifteen hours.'
'The six weeks that I work,' he continues, 'I would have to work nine or ten years to make what I can in seven weeks at a regular job. Now I've saved up enough of that cash, not to brag, but I've saved up enough that I don't have to do this any more. So I'm going to do something I really enjoy now.'
Corbett seems to be a rare man, one at peace with his place in the universe and wise enough to push himself away from the table while he still has plenty of poker chips. Like his character in Raise Your Voice, Corbett's determined to devote his life to music, and play it on his own terms. Hilary Duff and Oliver James will no doubt continue to build their careers, but they would be wise to look at their older co-star for a valuable lesson from an unconventional teacher.
Would Oscar Wilde have enjoyed a Hollywood 'tween film? It seems unlikely. But maybe, just maybe, it would have made him look at things just a little differently. 'Wow,' the Irish poet and playwright might have uttered aloud. 'That is, like, sooo fetch.'
