Stephanie Romanov

In the future, people have chips that record their entire life’s worth of memories. Williams plays an editor who cuts out the unfavorable parts. I got some phone time with Romanov one afternoon after she finished her lunch. I called the number given to me and there was a message asking me to call a different number. I appreciated the personal message.

What did you eat for lunch? I had pork chops, potatoes and gravy and green peas.

So, you can eat whatever you want? [LAUGHS] Pretty much, but I don’t overdo it most of the time.

Do you just have high metabolism? Yeah, I have lucky genetics.

So, for the obligatory Angel question, is Lilah coming back? I don’t know.

How could she? I don’t know. She’ll be dead, that’s for sure. It’s interesting speculating in what form they would bring her back and in what way. It would be also based on how the last season ended for sure.

Have you told Joss you’re available? Oh yeah. I definitely love working with the whole crew and I love playing Lilah. She’s a lot of fun.

What do you miss the most? I was working on the movie and I’ve worked so I’ve had other projects I’ve been developing, so I still feel things are moving.

Were you surprised the first time they called you back after she died? I was very surprised, especially after they cut my head off. I was like, "How do you justify that?" But I guess the contract extends after death.

Is there anything more you can still follow with her? I think there’s lots of fun stuff you could do with Lilah, and especially now that she’s in the other world. The fear of dying or wanting to move up or move ahead, now you’re in a way in a safe place, even though it’s hell. So I think it could open up a lot of different areas. You could toy a lot more and have a lot more fun with her. And there’s not really much of a threat Angel can make to her. It’s like look, I’m already dead.

So, what is your role in The Final Cut? In The Final Cut, my husband has died and he was the lawyer for the company that makes the chips. And it’s a lot of what the story is about, so I’ve hired him to clean up my husband’s life and present a memory about family, career and community, all good stuff.

Who keeps the chips when people die? Whoever it’s left to, so if you have in your will, whoever you will it to. The chips are basically a video of this person’s life through their eyes. So, once they die, everything in their life that they’ve looked at and they’ve done has been recorded onto this chip. Then the cutters cut together the different moments that these people [want], like when we were at the play of my daughter’s and when we first met and fell in love and when he did this or that. Cutting together key moments so basically when you see them probably cut from when they’re a kid looking in the mirror and as they grow up so you can see them as well.

Her role in The Final Cut

What is the controversy of your husband’s memories? The controversy in the film has to do also with the groups of people who are anti-chip. They’re complaint is your rights to privacy have been invaded. So then there’s this whole political movement that’s against it and it brings up all the feelings you could imagine.

Say if you don’t have a chip and the person you’re with does have a chip, everything this person watches you do is on film. What does your character want erased from her husband? There are things in the family, secrets that are hidden which I don’t want to divulge, but he definitely doesn’t want in there. And parts of his life that don’t represent his best side.

Is this more One Hour Photo Robin Williams? It’s not a comedy. It would be kind of a sci-fi thriller. Sci-fi in that it’s dealing with something that doesn’t exist. And then a thriller because it’s mostly about Robin’s character as the cutter, and he’s haunted by things in his past which he, when he’s editing other people’s lives, he’s known for cleaning them up. So he’ll take the bad stuff and just kind of erase it.

Is it similar to Paycheck, where Ben Affleck has to figure out why his memory’s been erased? Well, if they try to take it out while you’re alive, you’ll die. No matter what you do in your life, nobody can look at it until after you’re gone.

Who has the chips and who doesn’t? It’s something that can be purchased, like some people have video cameras and some people don’t. Some people have TVs, some people don’t. So it’s just you can choose to purchase this when you’re pregnant so your child can have this record. I guess it’s also a feeling like if you were to purchase it for your child, it’s your immortality because you’ll be in it. Most likely you’ll be dead before they’re dead so then their children, your grandchildren and great grandchildren will be able to see how the world was at this time.

Sounds like it’s got some great ethical issues. This script, when I first got it, I couldn’t put it down because it definitely brought up a lot of issues that we deal with today even though it’s talking about something that doesn’t exist. It infers things that do exist. Also I think it’s a metaphor for the eye in the sky like they have in Vegas where it films everything, or you’ve got those traffic lights that photograph you going through a yellow light. All these things that have taken away some of our privacy.

Is it futuristic? No, the great thing about it is it’s ambiguous in the time references. You’ve got antique furniture and then modern things and the clothing is from all different eras, so it’s like it could be almost an alternate reality to today if science had gone that way. Or it’s something that could be tomorrow, that they’re just coming out. It’s ambiguous, it’s now, it’s yesterday, it’s tomorrow.

How many days did you work? I shot two weeks on the film. I’m probably in about six scenes. Mostly the film follows Robin, so there’s Robin and the next biggest role would probably be Mira Sorvino, then Jim Caviezel, the Canadian Actress Mimi Kuzyk who plays Thelma and me.

I think I have fourth billing. How did you land the role? I auditioned for it. I had read the script and then I had met with the director and talked about it and then they were up in Vancouver finishing up the casting. They had been trying to cast this role, so I went in after they’d been auditioning people for a while, and I guess they all felt I nailed it and I got the job.

Is it awkward having your husband as a producer? I’m sure it could be, but he’s not the type who would ever push something that isn’t right. Actually, it’s great. Being in the same business is fun. I get to see movies being made from an idea and then followed through and then the whole creative process and meet interesting writers and that’s a world I’m certainly interested in, where it creates something that we have in common and then also, always curious as to the inner workings of any type of world or business, and so I get to be privy to a lot of things which I find fascinating.

Did you have time to hang out together? He was there most of the time, so it was great because I had to go up two different times. My shooting was split, so it worked out great. I got to go there twice and work and be with him.

Will The Fountain get made? I hope so. I know that it’s still something that is in the works.

What was Tricks? Tricks is an independent film that they haven’t released yet that I did with Michael Murphy, Gail O’Grady and Erika Alexander. It’s about three women who are prostitutes. One is a high class hooker, one who’s kind of over the hill, and one who’s kind of like a street whore. It follows their emotional journey and you never see any sex. It’s more watching their lives and their journey and their hangups and their flashbacks to their childhood and what brought them there.

What opportunities did it allow for you as an actor? I was certainly exploring a darker side of life. And it was filmed in Las Vegas and Chicago. Just exploring the darker side of nature that people live by or are thrown into, and then the way that you cover that. It was really an emotional, cathartic role. It was certainly very challenging and again, it was a very similar atmosphere to the movie I just finished, where you had a lot of great people working on it behind the scenes and no one was really getting paid and everybody just loved the script so much. Very respectful.

Where is it right now? We just shot a little more because they’re re-editing it. In the editing room, you can almost make it another movie, so I know they were changing it around a bit and then we’re hoping to do the festivals.

Future projects - Ava Gardner

What do you do during down time? I do a lot of stuff. We just bought a ranch up in Malibu and we’re redoing the house there and we’re trying to fill the house here and working on another house in Vegas. Then I’ve got a few projects that I’m developing.

Interviewing people about Ava Gardner. I’ve interviewed people in London and New York and here, people who’ve known her. I’m trying to get that off the ground. Is that a role you’re trying to play? Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Do you have a script? No, I’ve been doing all the research on her to figure out exactly which part of her life and which parts of her would be most compelling to show and I think she was a very great role model for women even now. She was definitely ahead of her time and making her own choices and living her life the way she wanted to against public opinion, against Hollywood rules, against whatever. She just kind of did what she wanted to but still had a very strong work ethic and then also had a gypsy side of her. There’s just so many interesting parts to her life that I think would be compelling to watch, interesting to know and a great role model as I said.

Will you write it yourself? No, I have a couple of writers that I’ve been talking to about writing it. I’m finishing up on the research on it. The last person I wanted to talk to was Carmen who was her maid and was with her the last 10 years of her life. She now works for Gregory Peck and we were supposed to meet when Mr. Peck passed away, so I’m trying to give her some time. So that’ll fall into place, then finish that up and hopefully get this script written by the end of the year.

For a background question, what was your best modeling experience? I think just that in general would be how much I got to travel because I love going to new place and meeting new people and finding out about different cultures. I had a job in Morocco which was very significant for me. Just seeing that culture, it was beautiful. It was just amazing.