Who is she?
A French model-turned-actor who scuttles about on all fours looking creepily like Gollum's hot cousin in a new sci-fi horror film, Splice. Exec produced by Guillermo del Toro, it arrives here next month.
How does a model end up looking like Gollum?
First you shave her head, then give her a tail, retractable wings, a forked tongue, kangaroo legs and ET eyes.
You're losing me. What is the film about?
Synthetic life. Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley play hotshot genetic engineers who splice together animal genes in a lab to make hybrid creatures. In their spare time they knock out a human/beast, which they call Dren (it's nerd backwards).
Topical. So Chanéac is Dren?
Right. And she gives an impressive performance, childlike one moment, predatory the next. As a karate expert, she did most of her own stunts as well as the clicks and purrs of Dren's speech. The director, Vincenzo Natali, says they only used CGI for what was anatomically impossible.
Let me guess, it goes all Frankensteinish?
Yep. Polley and Brody's characters are a couple, so there are lots of parenthood metaphors, too. He wants kids, she's ambivalent, they make Dren ...
Isn't that when most people get a cat?
Genetic engineers have more options, it would seem. To be fair, the emotional stuff plays second fiddle to the freaky science, which gets very freaky indeed.
Cath Clarke