Mischa Barton enjoys the ride at SundanceWho knew it would be possible to cruise through the streets of Park City with the Wasatch Mountains looming, the moon in the sky and Mischa Barton in the back seat of a black Cadillac Escalade, her multi-million-dollar face illuminated by a multi-colored instrument panel big enough to fly a 767?
Barton slipped out the back of the Eccles Auditorium, where her new film, The Assassination of a High School President, by first-time director Brett Simon, had its premiere. She plays Francesca Piazza, the coolest girl at St. Donovan's Catholic High School, which is being roiled by a scandal.
The completed SATs have been stolen from Principal Kirkpatrick's (Bruce Willis) office — and all signs point to the culprit being Paul Moore (Patrick Taylor) — her boyfriend, the president of the student council, star athlete and the coolest guy in the school.
Especially when cub investigative reporter Reece Thompson ("I'm Bobby Funke, and I write for the paper") yanks open Moore's locker and the stack of SATs spill out for all to see.
But this is film noir-come-to-high school in a script by Tim Calpin and Kevin Jakubowski, who live and breathe Chinatown by Roman Polanski, so things aren't what they seem — as the thin voice of the dweeb reporter keeps telling us in voiceover as he peels back the tawdry layers of the microsociety that is high school.
It's not exactly method acting for Barton, either. She went to the Professional Children's School of Manhattan, where they breed the next generation of show-horse actors, not typical kids lighting Bunsen burners when the teacher isn't looking.
"My school was nothing like the one in the movie," Barton recalls as the Caddy slouches up the boulevard. "It was an arts school." Barton took the PSATs, but life got in the way of going on with the SATs and college. The O.C. came along when she was 17 with that juicy part of Marissa Cooper, and "I never finished," Mischa says. "It was an opportunity to learn my craft you couldn't beat."
Her mom, Nuala, who looks a little like British actress Imelda Staunton dressed in wools for the cold, is in the car, silently nodding approval as Mischa says she's considering going to Yale Drama School some day.
Barton has had a fairly fast-lane career with kid parts in Notting Hill, The Sixth Sense and two films that started at Sundance, Lawn Dogs and Lost and Delirious. She now has three high-profile films in various stages of being finished: You and I (Finding tATu) by Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields); Walled In, a French-produced horror film in English; and Homecoming, by Morgan J. Freeman (American Psycho II).
She got nabbed not in the fast lane but the wrong lane in West Hollywood in December — she was charged with DUI, failing to use a turn signal and possession of some marijuana.
How does Nuala help Mischa stay balanced and out of that fast lane? "I'm just a regular mom, doing the best I can," Nuala says. "The press has been trumping up things more than they should."
"If people only know how much I work, " Mischa adds. "When I'm in my work, I don't go out, I only work. Nine months out of the year, I really work, I have a normal group of friends. The TV show is enormously popular, but there's a downside to that. If things get out of whack in the press, you learn to deal with it."
The Caddy glides to a stop.
"One picture doesn't tell a whole story," Barton says, referring to her mug shot, which lit up the Internet just after Christmas. Kind of a cute mug shot, actually, as these things go. It's nothing like Nick Nolte's mug shot. More like the cops busted a puppy for scampering off the leash. (She is an actress, after all.)
"It's strange that a picture gets as much weight as it does," Mischa shrugs.
Thursday is Mischa's birthday, and she turns 22. She's going skiing at Deer Valley. "Something I've wanted to do the whole time," she says, "and have dinner before I have to do another Q&A at 1 a.m."
And with that, the car purrs off like a hovercraft.
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Mischa Barton enjoys the ride at Sundance - USATODAY.com Mischa: Life has changed since OCHaving completed three films set to be released this year, Mischa Barton's life has certainly transformed since she starred in The OC.
"My life has changed a lot," she said at the premiere of her new movie Assassination Of A High School President at the Sundance Film Festival.
"I've been busy and working and rediscovering everything about making all these films in a row," added the actress, who's also filmed the movies Walled In and You And I (Finding tATu) in recent months.
"It's nice now to take a break and kind of look at what I've done. We didn't have long to shoot this movie but it was fine. I think almost the pressure helped because we joked around a bit, but there was always this time thing hanging over our heads, so maybe it was good for us."
Mischa stars alongside Bruce Willis in the dark comedy about a student who teams up with a newspaper reporter to investigate a case of stolen SAT exams, only to uncover a darker conspiracy.
"I thought it was really smartly written for a teen movie," she said.
"It's got great dialogue and really great characters, and even though they're kind of stereotypical, they're not cliche and I really like that. It's kind of dark, not to say that my sense of humour is dark but I really like where it's at. The characters are hopefully really believable and not over the top."
Source: Mischa: Life has changed since OC | Metro.co.ukcredit: marie