After her all-singing, all-dancing Oscar win for Chicago, the Welsh actress has cemented her place on the Hollywood A-List. Now she's starring in the Coen Brothers' Intolerable Cruelty, a wicked screwball comedy set in the world of pre-nups and divorce lawyers. With Zeta-Jones one half of the most high-profile marriage in recent times, the role carries just a little ironic intrigue.
Divorce in Hollywood always creates a media frenzy, so it must have been fun to be able to play around with that...
In Hollywood everything is so documented. If you go for a drink with somebody, it's passed around the world so quickly. So, yes, divorce is talked about a lot, but it's so much more fun to be able to spin it with dark humour, rather than talk about real people's divorces.
Do you have a healthy relationship with your lawyer in real life?
I love my lawyer. I have to say that of course! Now, I think any lawyer in the world is going to think they're George Clooney after seeing this - "They based him on me!" But I'm very happy with my lawyers. Though I don't think I want to spend the rest of my life with any of them.
What's it like on-set with the Coens?
Well, working with the Coen brothers is just such an easy, relaxed experience.
And what did you bring to the role that wasn't in the script?
I didn't want Marilyn to be that deliciously bitchy, because I wanted people to like her. And I wanted George, and my other husband, to like me.
But she stirs up a lot of trouble through her materialist scheming. So she is a bitch...
Yes, but I think on a character level, the way I approached it was that she really has no idea how much chaos she can create. She is like the eye of the storm. The tornado - all this craziness that happens around her - she just waltzes through it. She's unaware of what she can create.
You and your husband were both in Traffic, but wouldn't you like to really go head-to-head in a film?
I love The War Of The Roses, especially as my husband is in it! I've often said to him it would be great to remake that with me and him in it, because then we could really get down to some serious business...
