Flicka doesn't seem like the kind of movie that Maria Bello, star of The Cooler and A History of Violence would be in. But no woman can resist horses, so she took the role of a mother refereeing the battle between her rebellious daughter and her traditional husband over a seemingly untamable wild mustang.
"Well, I'm always looking for something that's a challenge, that I'm going to learn something," said Bello. 'so I've always wanted to ride a horse and I�ve been on a few horses but I got terrified as soon as I got on one. So they said they'd send me to cowboy camp, they'd teach me how to ride this horse. I go to cowboy camp and the first three days, I had sores up and down my legs, all over my ass. I mean, because I couldn't find my seat. I didn't understand what it was, that fine balance that [cowboy] Monty explained to me between surrender and control. But I was holding on too tight like I was doing in real life I think, which is the sort of controlling thing. Instead I had to surrender to the thrill of something. So from learning to ride my horse, I learned a lot about myself and about life and how to work my way through life, I guess."
Leave it to Maria Bello to find philosophy at cowboy camp. "I think that with every role I do, I come away with a spiritual, emotional, psychological something that I didn't have before and that was definitely part of it. I didn't even know what side of the horse to get up on. So that was the first step, to teach me how to actually get on the horse and how to navigate that. And then Monty would just sort of walk me around the rink. I had this beautiful painted mare, the one I rode in the movie called Belle. She was just beautiful, a sweet, sweet horse. He just sort of walked me around and then had me walk around on my own and told me that my reigns were like a joystick. Wherever I pushed the joystick, my horse would go. So I was very robotic the first couple of days until I started to surrender."
Getting to make out with Faith Hill's husband, Tim McGraw, was a nice bonus. "We had fun together. That was fun doing that dance scene. I never knew how to line dance and they brought in all these extras and they were line dancers. They taught me right there on the spot how to do that dance, so I spent half the day learning the dance. It was so much fun. So I learned a lot of things on this movie."
A mother herself, Bello appreciated the message of this modern update of Flicka."to listen to their own voice, to be the most authentic selves. It doesn't matter what your parents think, what the world thinks, who you should be or what you should be. The only thing that matters is who you want to be and what your destiny is and what god wants you to be."
Flicka opens Friday.
