godsend

What attracted you to Godsend?
Rebecca Romijn: Because I hadn't gotten to do something so under-stylised and normal as playing a mom. I had come directly form X2 in this set - our last couple of weeks of production overlapped with Godsend - and there were a couple of days that I came in with blue paint under my fingernails, and I was like, "Okay, how do we get rid of this? This makes no sense for this mom to have blue paint uon her ears."

Any anxieties about working with Robert De Niro?

Godsend seems to be straight out of a Stephen King novel, as it tells the story of parents (Romijn and Greg Kinnear) dealing with the untimely death of their eight-year old son. A doctor (Robert De Niro) clones the son, who becomes a menacing young boy. "It's scary and there are a lot of thrilling moments," says Romijn. It also deals with the very current issue of cloning: "When we started the movie we were like, Are we really going to address the ethical question of cloning? We kind of do, but in the end it's just a movie.

"Rebecca's an intelligent woman who understood where she was when she walked onto this movie," says Godsend director Nick Hamm, who has served as resident director of England's Royal Shakespeare Company. "She's a very beautiful woman in an industry that punishes that and oftentimes doesn't credit the abilities that go along with it. You can name several models-turned-actresses-Charlize Theron is one-whose career line has been progressively more interesting as people have gotten used to the fact that these girls can really act."

Cast: Greg Kinnear (Paul Duncan), Rebecca Romijn (Jessie Duncan), Robert De Niro (Dr. Richard Wells), Cameron Bright (Adam Duncan), Jenny Levine (Sandra Shaw), Deborah Odell (Tanya), Janet Bailey (Cora)

Costumes: Suzanne McCabe
Director: Nick Hamm
Director Photography: Kramer Morgenthau
Editor: Niven Howie
Producers: Mark Butan, Michael Paseornek, Cathy Schulman
Prod. Designer: Doug Kraner
Screenwriter: Mark Bomback

Rating: PG-13
Relase date: April 30, 2004