Twenty years after the release of 2003’s Underworld, the death-dealing vampiress Selene remains one of Kate Beckinsale’s most famous roles.
It wasn’t an easy, nor particularly smooth, path to action stardom for the now-50-year-old Beckinsale, the British actress toldduring a 2016 Role Recall interview
“I’d be in America for a while and occasionally going up for parts [like] a cop or somebody tougher, and people would be like, ‘Oh, but she’s sort of Jane Austen-y and she’s very period, and a bit fragile,” Beckinsale said, referencing her early breakout roles in costume dramas like Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Cold Comfort Farm (1995) and Emma (1996). “Oh, I thought, ‘I can’t have that.’
“And then suddenly I got sent this script and I also thought, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I could do that. I’ve never even thought about being that sort of person.”
The role of Selene in the action-thriller written by Danny McBride (not that Danny McBride) and directed by Len Wiseman (whom Beckinsale married in 2004 and divorced in 2019) would require her to play a fearless vampire assassin at the center of a generations-long battle between her ageless breed and the Lycans, an ancient species of werewolf.
Ultimately it all worked out for Beckinsale.
Released 20 years ago, on Sept. 18, 2003, Underworld became a surprise hit, grossing million worldwide on a budget of million.
The genre movie didn’t fare well with critics (it landed a 31% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes) but earned fast fanbase. And no one complained about Beckinsale’s shooting, running or punching.
It even landed Beckinsale Best Actress nominations from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror’s Saturn Awards and the Teen Choice Awards.
