Friday, April 1, 2016

Eve Making Her Mark




November 7, 2015

ARRIVING into the Waldorf Astoria in New York, Eve Hewson looks every inch the girl next door. The 24-year-old is dressed in a classy cream and black striped top and matching trousers from Misha Nonoo, and as we settle in for a chat, she's friendly, funny and very likeable.

Onlookers would struggle to believe that her dad is one of the most famous people in the world. But while Bono continues to wow the music world fronting U2's massive Innocence + Experience tour, Eve is happily working away on building an impressive acting portfolio.

Her dad has been pictured with everyone from Nelson Mandela to the Pope - and was even snapped in the painful aftermath of a bike crash in New York this time last year - which may be why Eve's family are keen to shelter her from that level of scrutiny.

After so many years in the glare of the media, neither Bono nor Ali wanted their daughter exposed to the criticism and rejection that comes with being an actress - and did their level best to talk Eve out of a life on screen.

In fact, Eve's mother Ali was so against her eldest daughter becoming an actress that when she was younger and needed to be driven to auditions, she would often deliberately make sure Eve turned up late.

'When I was about 16 and started doing meetings, my mom would make me late for them on purpose because she just didn't want me to go,' Eve reveals.

'My parents absolutely weren't keen on me going into the business, probably because of all they've been through. I think my dad started out when he was 18 and probably wasn't aware of all the pitfalls and all you have to do to get there.

'There are some amazing things about the business and some difficult things, but they just wanted to make sure I was aware of what I was going into.

'I think that's smart that they were very honest with me. They wanted to make sure I was ready to work hard and that it wasn't going to be easy and I'm glad they did that.' Just like her father, Eve was determined and persistent and now her parents are among her biggest fans.

'They watch the show The Knick and they are always texting me and calling me about my auditions and they're very excited for me. Except when I don't get a part, then they're like, "we told you not to do it, we warned you!" 'They are always saying to directors, "oh you're a director, you should put my daughter in your movie." And I'm like "oh my God, stop! Please don't do that."' Growing up in Killiney, the Hewsons were always visited by hugely accomplished creative friends of her parents, and Eve became keen on acting when very young.

'I had been acting since I was a child and in the drama group after school at St Andrew's College,' she recalls.

'I had a tutor called Erica Dunton, who went away with us on [a school] tour when I was 13. She was a film director who tutored on the side.

'She introduced me to film when we were away from school, and we would do things on the weekend like go to a restaurant and if she knew the chef there, we would have a cooking lesson. We would do little projects - we shot a film in Central Park and I was in it.

'She wrote a movie called The 27 Club with a part for me in it, so when I was 15, I was allowed to go away for two weeks [to shoot it]. It was supposed to be for a month, but my mom was like, "you're not taking my baby away for that long!" 'We shot it in North Carolina and that was when I fell in love with the way they make movies and the whole process of it. So that was when I came home and asked if I could get an agent - they said absolutely not!' Fast-forward two years and Eve is studying acting at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University during the daytime and going to Broadway plays to see her idols at night.

She graduated early and landed a leading role as Nurse Lucy Elkins on the TV show The Knick, opposite Clive Owen. The second series is currently showing in the US with critics still giving it very favourable reviews.

With a big TV show on a major US network now in its second season and a couple of substantial Hollywood roles already under her belt, Eve Hewson has arrived and is very, very serious. First on the set each morning and late to leave, she is adamant about making her way through graft and a willingness to learn.

'My tutor that I did that first movie with was on the phone to me recently and she was saying, "I remember you being up at four in the morning, showered and dressed and ready to go because we were shooting a movie. If it was school, you would have been still in bed!"' Eve insists she is usually rejected or accepted for parts on her own merit, and says some people know who her dad is and some don't.

'The directors I've worked with have seemed not to care because they are already of such a high calibre, they don't need to cast a rock star's kid in their movie to get press or anything like that,' she says.

'They have never really seemed to care, which is lucky.

'I have said no to things where I felt there was just that sort of interest. It's been about choosing the right people to work with and saying no to a few things that might be dodgy and just trying to make it on my own.' She's not totally alone in New York, however, as her older sister Jordan lives close to her in Brooklyn - though they are pursuing very different paths.

'She got the activist side of my dad's brain and I got the artistic,' Eve laughs.

Seeing as she's inherited that particular gene, it might be expected that Eve will also follow her father onto the stage.

But she reveals that there is one crucial skill she hasn't been blessed with.

'I'm a terrible singer, so if I did a musical they would have to have a singer stand behind me on the stage,' she says, laughing.

'I'd love to do more film, but I would really, really like to do theatre - Broadway, off-Broadway, offoff Broadway...

'It's hard because I don't have a visa where I can work in theatre - you have to get a certain one, so right now I can only work in film. But I can dance a bit, like I can do the moves like Step Up… Oh my God, I would love to do Step Up with Channing Tatum. We should send out a rumour that I'm going to be in Step Up 6, the Irish edition, set in Dublin, in a pub!' she says, squealing with mischievous laughter.

She is currently contemplating revisiting the dance classes of her youth to help her in her bid to get more roles.

'I did ballet when I was five and I thought it was really stupid - basically we ran from one end of the stage and picked a cherry and put it in our basket and then we ran all the way back to the other end. I was a big Justin Timberlake fan and I did a workshop with his choreographer when he came to Ireland. I picked ballet again at 15 but it's hard, because if even if you're a good dancer, you're expected to sing too. I should just get a teacher, I suppose.' There are other reasons she would like to do theatre instead of film - not least because she believes that the reviews are less harsh.

'One of the things about theatre is you aren't as exposed to all the scrutiny and criticism that film actors are.

'You could be 40 and playing a 16-year-old and no one comments. It's very unfair all the commenting about what you're wearing and how you look.

'It's definitely not something I appreciate about the film business, but I get it and I understand it and I hope it's something that changes. I think it is [changing] a little bit - people are starting to embrace more individuality, which is cool, but we'll see.' Her most recent movie role was in Bridge Of Spies, directed by Steven Spielberg, which was released in the US this week but which won't be seen on Irish screens until the end of November. In it she plays the daughter of Tom Hanks's character - and she reveals the two Hollywood heavyweights are hugely passionate about Ireland.

'They shot Saving Private Ryan there and when I met Spielberg, he told me he'd been to Ireland many times and he loved it. He loves the Irish.

'When I met him he says, "have you heard of this game, hurling? Oh my God, this game is amazing and me and Tom [Hanks] became obsessed with it when we were shooting Private Ryan." He showed me these clips of these games he'd been at in Ireland - he's very, very into Irish culture.' She may be rubbing shoulders with A-listers outside her family circle now, but Eve is still very much a home bird and is touchingly protective of Bono, especially for all the ribbing he gets in the media.

'He's really, really great and has a great community of people who work with him and are just his friends, so I haven't seen him deal with too much of the bad side of the business,' she says. 'A lot of the stuff he has to deal with is people abusing him. People can be mean for no reason. He didn't want that to happen to me.'

Her parents are now her biggest fans

'I got dad's artistic gene but can't sing'

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