Profile | Maggie Grace: Latest role lets actress display some lightness
Actress Maggie Grace has specialized in women in distress from Lost and Taken to her new film, Lockout, but this latest role is laced with something new: a sense of humor.
The Worthington native, 28, co-stars with Guy Pearce in the science-fiction thriller, opening on Friday.
“The tone is a heightened reality, a throwback to the films of the ’80s and early ’90s, when they didn’t take themselves so seriously,” Grace said from New York.
“We really embraced that. .?.?. What I embraced most was the humor.”
Grace plays Emilie Warnock, the president’s kidnapped daughter, opposite Pearce, a government agent falsely convicted of a crime who will win his freedom if he rescues her from a space prison that has been overtaken by inmates.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
“She’s a little more empowered than some of the imperiled females I’ve played recently,” Grace said.
After becoming widely known as snobbish Shannon on the first two seasons of Lost, Grace has forged an up-and-coming film career that put her on Variety’s 2009 list of top 10 actors to watch.
Perhaps her most visible film role was as the kidnapped daughter of a secret agent (Liam Neeson) in Taken, an international hit in 2008. Grace will reprise her role opposite Neeson in Taken?2, set for release in October.
Grace also appears in the small role of vampire Irina in the two-part conclusion to the Twilight film series. But the part is pivotal: In The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part II, set for release in mid-
November, Irina misidentifies Bella’s baby as an outlawed “immortal child” who must be killed, which sparks the central conflict of the finale.
“Irina is more misunderstood than villainous, but most villains would say that,” Grace said.
“But it’s crazy to become a part of pop-cultural references, between Lost and Taken and the Twilight Saga films.”
Among her other films: The Jane Austen Book Club, The Fog (the 2005 remake), Murder in Greenwich, Shop Club,
Suburban Girl and Twelve Mile Road.
“I’m single, in my 20s and passionate about travel, so it seems like a no-brainer to do feature films.”
As a child in central Ohio, Grace appeared in a 2000 Gallery Players production of The Crucible. She played the part of Abigail, a child who accuses others of witchcraft, in the Arthur Miller drama about the Salem witch trials.
The play featured actress Cate Blair-Wilhelm, who has been friends with Grace for 12 years.
“We thought right away that she was very sharp and talented,” Blair-Wilhelm said.
“Maggie had that maturity from the get-go, but today she seems more self-assured. She’s finding more depth in her film and TV roles.”
Grace — who dropped out of Thomas Worthington High School to move to Los Angeles with her mother, Valinn Denig — looks back fondly on The Crucible.
“Gallery Players was a great community and a safe place to learn,” she said.
Now a Los Angeles resident, Grace (born Margaret Grace Denig) returns to Columbus to visit friends and family members at least once a year. She’s the daughter of Rick Denig, co-owner of Denig Jewelers in Worthington, and the niece of co-owner Scott Denig.
“My cousins have had babies, and I’m looking forward to meeting the little guys this summer,” she said.
“But I usually get homesick in the autumn. We don’t really have seasons in L.A.”