Eve Hewson on smooching her ‘Robin Hood’ co-star — and becoming the next Tom Cruise
Eve Hewson finds the humor in everything, from her dangerously single status to her prepubescent-boy dress sense. When she’s not poking fun at her personal life, the Irish actress is making light of her on-screen escapades, especially the stunts and smooches.
There are plenty of both in her first action flick, director Otto Bathurst’s gritty, reimagined “Robin Hood,” out Nov. 21. The ingénue plays Maid Marian, love interest of both The Hood (Taron Egerton) and his rival, Will Scarlet (Jamie Dornan). And she had a laugh doing it.
‘I don’t find make-out scenes embarrassing at all. Everybody knows how to kiss.’
“It was great — I was the only girl on set, I got all the attention,” the 27-year-old tells Alexa with a twinkle in her sky-blue eyes.
Hollywood is also paying attention to Hewson, the daughter of U2 frontman Bono and activist-entrepreneur Ali Hewson. With her dramatic coloring, easygoing personality and quick wit, she’s part of a new breed of hilarious beauties who banter. And unlike her cagier counterparts, she’s happy to talk about canoodling with co-stars.
“I don’t find make-out scenes embarrassing at all,” says the Brooklyn-based leading lady. “Everybody knows how to kiss. We’ve all had a lot of practice. I find other things to be more challenging, like learning to ride a horse or learning an accent or things that you don’t normally do in your daily life.”
In fact, Hewson had such a blast with Dornan, the “50 Shades of Grey” hunk, that she had to hide her giggles during their lip locks. “Jamie and I get along really well because we’re both Irish,” she explains. “He feels very much to me almost like a fun brother. So I think it was a little strange for us when we got along immediately, and then it was like, ‘Oh s – – t, we have to kiss now.’”
Puckering up with Egerton (who, like Dornan, “has a very cool significant other”) was also a goof. “Taron is very attractive, and he’s got a sick body,” says Hewson matter-of-factly. “They should have done a naked scene with just Taron and Jamie wrestling in the mud or something, just for the ladies!”
Hewson keeps her clothes on in every frame, but they’re muddied during an epic, high-speed chase scene involving horse-drawn carts and fireballs. At one point, she’s taken hostage and locked in a box.
The crate was wooden and tight-fitting, which may or may not have led to a tiny injury. “I think I got a splinter,” says Hewson. “Call the medic!” she bellows. “I cannot work in these conditions.”
“I love stunts,” adds Hewson, who has taken dance lessons since she was a child. “I want to be the next female Tom Cruise, or just the next Tom Cruise.”
Despite her glamorous career and rock-royalty background, Hewson is somewhat of an anti-diva, showing up for her interview barefaced and wearing faded mom jeans, Adidas slides and an oversized T-shirt with a picture of Drake licking his lips. Although she starred in a short film directed by Dakota Fanning for the “Miu Miu Women’s Tales” series, and swans the red carpet in designer gear from Chanel, Dior and Alexander Wang (“Rihanna at a funeral, that’s kind of the inspiration”), her everyday look is low-key cool. “I like wearing boys’ clothes and putting some heels on and some eyeliner.”
And she certainly doesn’t play the flattery game.
“In Ireland, we very much don’t compliment each other,” she says. “We show our affection by making fun of the other person — it’s called a slag. I grew up in school with all the guys just ripping it into all the girls. They would never buy you a drink, they would never tell you you looked pretty; that was just unheard of, and it’s the humor that we all share.”
When Hewson moved to America in 2009 to attend NYU’s Tisch School of The Arts, she was weirded out by the fawning. “Guys would come up and say, ‘Oh, you’re so beautiful.’” Her reaction to the compliments? “Gross!”
Dudes, in turn, were baffled by her tongue-in-cheek insult-slinging. “I’ll do the Irish thing where I’ll take the piss out of them, and they find it offensive.” Her defense: “‘I’m just Irish, sorry. I swear, I think you’re attractive.’”
Perhaps this has contributed to her sad-sack love life, which she loves to lampoon. “Third wheeling with my parents is like what I do. It’s the story of my life. It’s what I was born to do,” riffs the star, who is said to have dated actors Max Minghella and James Lafferty. “They feel sorry for me, so they include me in their activities.
“My friends suck — they don’t introduce me to anybody,” continues Hewson, who hangs out in Brooklyn with a gang of Irish pals that includes her older sister, Jordan, a tech entrepreneur. “I keep asking them, and they just don’t. I’m this close to going on Christian Mingle, I swear to God,” she adds, cracking up.
If Hewson seems, well, normal, it’s because her parents did their utmost to bring their four children up like regular kids in the suburbs of Dublin. “We have a close community; my parents’ friends are their friends from high school, and their kids are my friends. We are like a co-dependent, crazy family, and we love to be around each other.”
Of course, Hewson also jetsetted all over the world with her father’s band. Was it fun? “F – – k yeah! It’s the best. We got to run around and cause havoc.”
It’s thanks to one of her tour tutors, Erica Dunton, that Hewson became an actress in the first place. Writer and director Dunton cast the then-teenager as an Irish hitchhiker in her 2008 drama “The 27 Club.” Hewson was hooked, moving to New York for drama school a few years later. She then landed roles in Nicole Holofcener’s “Enough Said” (one of James Gandolfini’s final movies) and Steven Spielberg’s “Bridge of Spies.”
Next, she did a racy turn as a naive nurse in Steven Soderbergh’s medical drama “The Knick.” “There was a penis injection. There were lots of hands going different places and lots of cocaine-fueled sexual intercourse,” she says gleefully. This year, she channeled a newlywed in the indie dramedy “Paper Year.”
Now the globetrotter will travel to New Zealand to play an addict and adventurer in “The Luminaries,” a six-part BBC Two adaptation of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel.
She’ll do some combat and a high fall, but her real challenge will be passing for an opium fiend. “I plan on not doing any research,” says Hewson, grinning. “I think I’ll just act.”
Fashion Editor: Serena French; Stylist: Anahita Moussavian; Hair: Rebekah Forecast at The Wall Group using Hair Food; Makeup: Tyron Machhausen at The Wall Group using Chanel.