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"   Mena Suvari in Hemingway&amp;#039;s Garden of Eden. Photo: Devonshire Productions  After winning our hearts as a teenage femme fatale in American Beauty, Mena Suvari managed a seamless cinematic transition out of adolescence with roles in films such as Factory Girl, Stuck and Mysteries of Pittsburgh. In The Garden of Eden, an adaptation of Hemingway&amp;#039;s posthumously published novel, Suvari plays Catherine, a cheeky newlywed in 1920&amp;#039;s Europe. Shot along the coast of Spain, the film follows Catherine on her eventful honeymoon with husband David, played by the dashing Jack Huston, and their troublemaking guest Martia, the sultry Caterina Murino. We caught up with Suvari in New York, where we talked to her her about the joys of the Spanish coast and less joyous wig-wearing that was such a huge part of playing Catherine. ELLE: I&amp;#039;m curious about your first thoughts on your character Catherine?MS: It was very important to me that a lot of the language that Catherine chose carried over to the film. I worked very hard to incorporate the dialogue because I felt that Catherine&amp;#039;s a very smart woman and chooses her words wisely. Catherine was a woman who was struggling with her own identity and figuring out who she was. I identified with that. I can identify with the sense of Catherine feeling there were limits and expectations for her life that she felt [separated] from. ELLE: She&amp;#039;s a very modern woman in a time where she&amp;#039;s sort of stuck.MS: It&amp;#039;s the mid 1920&amp;#039;s and there were a lot of limitations put on women. There were things that women just didn&amp;#039;t do. Even to be in Paris by herself and be an independent woman and in her outfits\u2014they were things that were taboo at the time. ELLE: Catherine has to go through a lot of transformations, was that difficult?MS: I was lucky to work with John Irving, our director, because I feel like he supported me 110% in this role and telling this story. We would take it moment by moment. We&amp;#039;d always find our place. I needed [that] emotionally and mentally. There were three different wigs I wore in the film and putting myself into all of that with the hair and make-up and setting really influenced where I was with the character. ELLE: Well you not only had fabulous clothes in the film but also I saw you got to go to the premiere with designer Christian Siriano?MS: I wore his design! He&amp;#039;s a dear friend of mine and I wanted something that was very classic \u2014 wide leg pants and a bustier. I love the look of masculinity, especially when women wear something masculine. ELLE: The scenery of the film is fantastic, where you all over Spain?MS:  We were on the east side of Spain. It was stunning, we couldn&amp;#039;t believe we were working. It was like `Go swim [for the shot]&amp;#039; `Oh, okay!&amp;#039; ELLE:  After getting to play an iconic literary character, you&amp;#039;ve got a new superhero project coming up?MS: I just finished this project with NBC called The Cape. It&amp;#039;s premiering in January and it&amp;#039;s like Batman in a sense, but instead of Gotham it&amp;#039;s Palm City and I play this character called Dice. It&amp;#039;s so cool; she&amp;#039;s a superhero villain. I&amp;#039;ve never done anything like that before. ELLE: Did you get to wear a cape?MS: Well, no because there was The Cape, he&amp;#039;s the good guy. I&amp;#039;m a good guy too\u2014well not totally. The Garden of Eden hits theaters December 10th. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/books/news/a5274/thoroughly-modern-mena-mena-suvari-takes-on-hemingway-10531/>