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Ormond carries the action in 'Smilla's Sense of Snow'
In this story: February 29, 1997
Web posted at: 12:00 a.m. EST From Correspondent Lauren HunterNEW YORK (CNN) -- It's been a harsh winter for many parts of the country, but "Smilla's Sense of Snow" may prove itself to be a movie even the most winter-jaded can get into.
The movie, filmed in Denmark and Greenland, begins with an improbable friendship between a mathematician named Smilla Jasperson (Julia Ormond) and a 6-year-old boy. The boy's mysterious death triggers a harrowing search for the truth, and marks the beginning of a thriller in which the lead actress carries the film.
The film's veteran cast also includes Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Harris and Gabriel Byrne. But Ormond fights, pursues danger, and generally runs the show, a role she saw as out of the ordinary.
"It's quite unusual to see a woman on screen who is as complex as Smilla," Ormond said, "Somebody who was uncompromising, who was intelligent, and who was tough and aggressive at different moments, but also deeply vulnerable underneath."
Smilla's emotional connection with her environment gives the film its title. Byrne plays a shadowy, enigmatic loner who appears to support Smilla.
Screen romance crosses over to real life
"This man has no name, he has no back story, he comes from seemingly nowhere," Byrne said. "And yet, he is in a strange way the kind of deus ex machina of the whole thing, that he's the one pulling the strings that makes the action progress."
Byrne and Ormond are reportedly romantically involved, a relationship that began in the office of Smilla's director, Bille August. "I went up and said hello, and gave him a big hug, and he kind of looked at me like, uh, what's going on here," she said.
"He hadn't actually recognized me, because he'd seen me with long hair, and I had shorter hair, and he thought I was some assistant of Bille's who was overly friendly."
It didn't take Byrne long to catch on. "There was definitely a bond between myself and Julia, and a connection and a chemistry," he said.
Both Byrne and Ormond have moved behind the cameras, producing other projects.
Ormond produces documentary about Bosnia
Ormond produced "Calling the Ghosts," an upcoming HBO documentary about Bosnia. "It's about the individual realizing that there is a power in speaking out," Ormond said.
And Byrne has produced a number of films about his native Ireland, the most prominent of them the 1993 film "In the Name of the Father," for which he was executive producer.
"That's where I'm from, and that's the culture I understand," he said. "You tell it from the inside and you tell it from the heart."
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