Hollywood
RINKO KIKUCHI may travel with an interpreter, but her English is Baccarat-clear when she’s thirsty. “I need Champagne, please!” she trilled on a recent night as she swept into the lobby of Le Montrose Suite Hotel to meet some friends.
But don’t get the wrong idea about this long-legged, blond Japanese actress. Ms. Kikuchi — with her doleful demeanor and wary gaze — is more Patti Smith than Paris Hilton. She loves punk music, painting moody pictures and writing angry songs. Bring up Hello Kitty and she may just scratch. “I’m not cutesy,” she said, though she was wearing a frilly white Chanel mini-dress. “I don’t know how to play the game.”
Her interpreter, Tamaka Takefushi, explained: “She is too honest and can’t hide her emotions with the press.”
Ms. Kikuchi, 26, has done plenty of interviews as a result of her breakthrough performance as a troubled deaf teen in the film “Babel.” In one scene, she exposes herself — à la Sharon Stone in “Basic Instinct”— to some boys in a Tokyo restaurant. She also racked up a Gotham Award (an East Coast version of the Spirit Awards) and a Golden Globe nomination. Next Sunday, she will vie for a Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a supporting role.
Pointing at Will Ferrell streaking across a nearby television screen in saggy white underwear in a commercial for “Talladega Nights,” Ms. Kikuchi pronounced: “He’s sexy,” as her three friends gagged. Ms. Kikuchi spoke rapidly to Ms. Takefushi.
“She likes older men and says that humor can be very sexy,” Ms. Takefushi said. The merits of funny over foxy, and different American dialects, were discussed.
“I want to get a New York accent,” said Ms. Kikuchi, who prefers the East Coast to the West. Before dashing off in a black S.U.V., she recalled one zippy phrase she had learned in Manhattan: “Fabulous!”
Next stop was a dinner party for Chanel’s new perfume line, Les Exclusifs, at the Chateau Marmont. The lobby was teeming with celebrities, socialites and producers. Kate Bosworth chatted with Cameron Diaz, while the dinner’s hostess, Sienna Miller, flitted like a pollinating honeybee among guests. It felt like a high school cafeteria, and clearly, Ms. Kikuchi was the new girl.
When someone offered to introduce Ms. Kikuchi to Ms. Miller, she politely demurred. “I have met her three times,” said Ms. Kikuchi, holding up three fingers. Her frank response was met with confusion. Ms. Kikuchi shrugged and did what any cool new girl would do: she headed outside for a Marlboro.
“I don’t like the red carpet,” she said, blowing smoke over her shoulder. “Too much pressure.” Ms. Kikuchi noted that most reporters ask about Brad Pitt, her “Babel” co-star, who has escorted her down the press line for premieres. “He pushes me along and makes me laugh because I get nervous,” she added, through Ms. Takefushi.
When it was time for dinner, Ms. Kikuchi had only 15 minutes to spare. She was due to join a panel for “Babel” at a nearby theater. Talk again turned to older men. Musically, she said, she adored Lou Reed, whom she met and described with a wicked smile as “grumpy, ” and Tom Waits.
“I liked his attitude,” she said, through Ms. Takefushi, in describing Mr. Reed. “It’s important that he hold on to his anger as an artist.”
Then it was time to go.
Ms. Kikuchi scanned the room and whispered to Ms. Takefushi. She wanted to meet Dustin Hoffman. The two approached the actor, shook hands quickly and made for the exit.
So? “He was short,” she said, with a giggle. “When I met Sean Penn, that was fabulous.”
