SUPERMAN RETURNS JUNKET: PARKER POSEY

LOS ANGELES -- The Continuum continues its series of stories from the Superman Returns junket on Friday.

This installment is a roundtable question-and-answer with Parker Posey, who plays Kitty Kowalski.

Below is an edited transcription of the interview.

Question: You play one of the few characters who doesn't have years of back story. Was it fun for you to get to play this role?

Posey: Yeah. Where should I start? ... I'd say it's a comic-book part. It started with kind of a look and of course it started with the Richard Donner movie.

Question: Why were you attracted to this part and this movie?

Posey: I was doing a play. I was doing Hurly Burly for six months and I got a call saying, "They're interested in you for Superman!" So, I thought, "OK, well, let them figure it out and maybe I'll get cast. We'll see."

And Can I read the script?" No. "OK, well, is it good?" I didn't see X-Men. I don't usually see these kinds of movies, so, gosh I hope it's good!.It's Superman.

I got the part and I said, "Am I going to be able to read it when I go in to do it? I googled Kitty and Superman and there was a Kitty somewhere in the Superman world and she extracted like green energy from plants and solar energy from the sun and would use this power in not a good way and Superman would help her kind of use her powers for good. This is just like Google, very abstract.

So, I thought, "Wow, maybe I'll get to have super powers!" I remember (executive producer) Chris Lee calling me and I'm like, "Does he extract energy from the sun?"

So, they literally fly someone from Australia to deliver the script. And I read it at Cafe Mogador in the East Village in New York. That was like a movie in itself. It had this energy. Already the world was being created, it was a big and majestic movie.

I read it and I thought, "Thank God!" I thought it was really, really good. She was written a little more villainous, conscious a villain, like a baddie, a bad girl. But, I got away with not doing that much, which I like.

She doesn't see clearly what's in front of her. She sees just material things. Things that are pretty. She likes diamonds and pearls, and I picture her having a pink room at one point. Basically, a princess, as well as someone who'll do anything for Lex.

Miss Tessmacher watched a lot of TV in that first movie. She was always sun bathing, baking herself and watching television and I was like, "OK, that's good. Let's have Kitty look like someone who is obsessed with looking like that." I looked this way to please my man. In a way, she's a kept woman. I wanted her hair to look like a wig.

Question: Was it a wig? Was it your real hair?

Posey: Nope, it's my real hair. That's what she does for Lex.

Question: Can we talk a little bit more about the fashion and what kind of input you had with the designer?

Posey: Louise (Mingenbach), our costume designer, started with someone different and it became these kind of little homage's to kind of Hollywood glamor '40s, '30s, '70s and '80s. They had a huge selection of vintage clothes you could try on..

So I tried on a lot of stuff. We had a shoemaker come in to design boots. We didn't want any pointy shoes, we wanted them round. So she walks like they're keeping her bound in a way.

When we got to the set, we got three or four days into it and we were shooting at the Vanderworth Mansion - it was a really long night - and I said I want that dog every chance I can get. That's what she holds onto and it becomes a great prop for her and a great image for this woman who's in love with a man who isn't loveable.

Question: Are you signed up for a sequel?

Posey: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm surprised they didn't make me sign my life! Who knows what it will be?

Question: This is your second comic-book film following Blade: Trinity. Is there another comics character you'd like to tackle?

Posey: No. I don't know.

Question: Wonder Woman?

Posey: I'm too old. (laughs) I like Isis! Remember that TV show? "Oh, twister winds that blow on high, lift me now so that I can fly!" (laughs)

I would love that! I loved the crappy sets and how the walls were like hinging apart and you could see the sound stage through the wall. And there's that crow. If it's done bad like that, I think that would be cool. That could be a really kind of funny thing. Her as like a professor of biology or something.