Emily Grace: a diamond-in-the-rough role turned her into an art-house Cinderella

Interview, Nov, 2003 by Scott Lyle Cohen

Though she's made only one film, next month's What Alice Found, actress Emily Grace is Hollywood-ready. Asked what she's been up to recently, she says, "I'm reading scripts and a book about yoga, and I started taking Pilates."

This 26-year-old Durham, New Hampshire, native graduated from NYU's theater program in 1999, but it wasn't until last year that her "luck-changing" moment came. Though it wasn't particularly flattering. "This woman who'd seen me in a showcase called," explains Grace. "She said, 'I think you're right for an independent I'm casting. The character is a plain, unattractive tomboy from New Hampshire.'"

Grace's nuanced performance in Alice is anything but plain. In this tender, troubling drama, her title character steals a few hundred dollars and hits the road in search of sun-soaked salvation in Miami. When her ear breaks down, an older couple invites her to ride in their RV, and teaches her a few roadside tricks. The film snared top honors at the Deauville Film Festival a few weeks ago and won a Special Jury Prize for Emotional Truth at Sundance last January. "Steve Buscemi presented us that award," recalls Grace. "When I saw him and all these actors I admire, like Philip Seymour Hoffman and Patricia Clarkson, looking at me, I was like 'Ahh!'"

Scott Lyle Cohen is Interview's senior editor.