Some things are more interesting when they don’t speak… Harrison Ford, for instance. Marcel Marceau. The Dutch. Even astronauts: those fearless, god-like adventurers… who then appear in interviews and make the awe-inspiring majesty of space travel sound like setting the timer on a boiler.
On the other hand, there are some things that ratchet up the interest-o-meter by muttering a few words. A pigeon, for instance. Coma patients. Major deities. And now with her smart brain, lack of Hollywood diplomacy and penchant for conversational hand grenades, we can add one more to the latter category: Amber Heard.
During FHM’s bewildering interview she explains the cost benefit of doing nude scenes. She confesses to enjoying drugs, classic cars and older men – while bemoaning other girls, stupidity, and television. Oh… and God. It’s a wonderful thing. “It’ll be a sad day,” says the 22-year-old actress, “when I care what a stranger thinks of me and I curb my thoughts to get further with my career. Some day all I’m going to have is my opinions and my loud mouth.”
And another thing: the girl from Austin, Texas is smart. Not just because she sat reading The Portable Atheist, written by thirsty intellectual Christopher Hitchens, during breaks in FHM’s photoshoot. But easily smart enough to avoid being embarrassed by some of the crap she’s had to do on the way to the top. Perhaps there’s a future 100 Sexiest winner in our midst? She’s certainly got the figure and the face. She looks a lot like Scarlett Johansson, but sharper, like she’s at the start of a boozy night out and Johansson’s at the end. And she’s easily got the sex appeal of Angelina Jolie, but this side of sanity.
Luckily, it also looks like she deftly swerved past the ‘dappy rom-com’ career hole. She’s played screwed-up teen temptress Greta in Sky One’s weird Hidden Palms, and been in similarly odd cinema – from slasher movie All The Boys Love Mandy Lane to the forthcoming film adaptation of The Informers, written by the man behind American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis. Which means, of course, that she plays a “bad girl, who does drugs and is very promiscuous”.
But right now? She’s about to be on UK cinema screens in Pineapple Express, a stoner film from the Superbad and Knocked Up team, in which she plays Seth Rogen’s prissy girlfriend. And let there be no doubt, you’ve got to do something right to get in with that crowd – it’s currently Hollywood’s hippest hit machine.
So FHM’s got to ask, why do all the boys love Amber Heard?