'Scoundrels' Is Welcome Change For Jacinda Barrett

Anyone who's seen Jacinda Barrett at the movies over the past couple of years knows very well that the talented Australian actress has had a pretty rough run.

In 2004's "Ladder 49," her firefighter husband (Joaquin Phoenix) is wounded and trapped in a burning building and the clock is ticking fast; and in the recent "Poseidon," she's one of a handful of surviving passengers fighting for her life after a rogue wave capsizes a monolithic cruise liner.

But that's nothing compared to her character's plight in the new dramedy "The Last Kiss," where Barrett stars as a pregnant woman who flips when she discovers that her boyfriend (Zach Braff) has been cheating on her.

"It's way more drama and dire straits than 'Poseidon' because my character has such of an incredible, emotion arc," Barrett told me in a recent @ The Movies interview.

Needless to say, it was a relief and then some for Barrett to do "School for Scoundrels," a new comedy from "Old School" and "Starsky and Hutch" director Todd Phillips.

"I did "The Last Kiss" and (the upcoming Mira Nair drama) 'The Namesake' back-to-back and was working on 'Poseidon' when they approached me for 'School for Scoundrels,'" Barrett recalled. "I don't think that I could have done another movie if it weren't a comedy straight away because the movies before them were so emotionally taxing."

A great opportunity, true -- but Barrett didn't do a comedy for the sake of doing a comedy. She knew going into "School for Scoundrels" that she was not only in good hands with Phillips -- her fellow stars Billy Bob Thornton and "Napoleon Dynamite" himself, Jon Heder, were already on board, too.

"I knew that Todd was so talented at these kinds of comedies," Barrett said. "Plus, I read the story knowing Billy Bob and Jon were set for their roles. I went, 'Ahhh, I can't give this up. It's going to be so much fun.'"

In "School for Scoundrels" Heder plays Roger, a weary New York City meter reader whose life stuck in neutral. Looking to rid himself of his anxiety and low sense of self, he enrolls in a secretive confidence-building class taught by the shady Dr. P (Thornton).

But as soon as Roger unleashes his inner lion and even asks out his longtime-crush, Amanda (Barrett), he discovers that Dr. P's competitive batteries have been recharged has and nothing -- even Amanda -- is off-limits.

Also starring Ben Stiller, Michael Clarke Duncan, Horatio Sanz, Todd Louiso and Matt Walsh, the film opens Friday in theaters nationwide.

While the tone of "School for Scoundrels" is decidedly different from her previous dramas, Barrett said the approach to making the comedy was surprisingly the same.

"The most important thing -- and Todd was really adamant about this on set -- was that everyone approach all of the scenes from a place of realism," Barrett explained. "He would even direct the very broad comedic actors out of that approach. He really wanted it to feel realistic and that the comedy comes out of behavior and circumstance.

"So in that respect, the approach is really the same as a drama," Barrett added. "You approach it from the most realistic place you can -- a place of honesty. In addition to that, you have to allow yourself to be very free and allow yourself to go with whatever impulse to come up and not edit yourself."

Acting opposite such actors as Heder and Thornton, Barrett discovered that there were quite a few opportunities to be impulsive -- especially since both actors live at the opposite end of the comedic spectrum.

"Jon is such a lovely guy and so grounded with it all," Barrett enthused. "He comes from this really great, moral centeredness -- he doesn't work on Sunday and he will never swear in a movie -- ever -- then you got Billy on the other side. He's a total dirty bugger with such a wicked sense of humor. He's so filthy. He has such a filthy, irreverent sense of humor. It was cool to have those guys plays those characters because they each come from such a different place."

Reality Check
Most everywhere you look on the Web for information on Barrett, you'll likely find the usually glaring observation that, as a resident of MTV's "The Real World London" in 1995, Barrett is the only reality show participant to make a successful transition to the big screen.

It's a reference that continues to baffle Barrett, since it's often written in a way that brands a red letter on the chest of anyone who's ever participated in a reality show.

But as a writer whose path to the business has been anything but conventional, I observed for Barrett that people are simply making much ado about nothing: After all, actors have been known to come from a variety of different backgrounds, right?

"Can you be my spokesperson? That's what I'd like to tell people," Barrett said. "People always say to me, 'That's how you got your start.' That is not how I got my start. That's such of an important thing to clarify because I was on a documentary show."

She noted, for one, the concept of the show is very different from today's standards.

"At the time, there were no other reality shows on the air. It wasn't even a genre, like it is today," said Barrett, now 34. "It was merely a one-time, innovative idea -- a documentary about people living together. You didn't get known for it. At least not back then."

No matter how people look at it, Barrett clearly doesn't regret doing "The Real World London" for one minute. She just wants everyone to move on, like she has.

"It was a great time in my life that happened to be documented and I have a record of it," Barrett said. "But then I went back to school and I studied acting. Then I started auditioning and got jobs little by little -- but never as the person from that show -- just as an actress, like every other person in LA."