LOS ANGELES -- Emilie de Ravin may have gotten off the island for a while.
But it didn’t keep her away from trouble.
The Australian actress, who is back playing Claire Littleton on the last season of ABC’s "Lost," spent her absence from the past season making several movies.
One was Michael Mann’s violent gangster epic "Public Enemies." The other was "Re-member Me," Robert Pattinson’s first project since "Twilight" made him an international sensation. Shot on location in New York, "Remember Me" was plagued by hordes of screaming tweens (and older women), and the clicking of paparazzi camera shutters threatened to ruin exterior sound takes.
Put through ringer
But perhaps even more trying, what you might assume would be a nice little big city romance with the hottest leading man of the moment put de Ravin through the emotional wringer.
Her character, Ally, witnesses her mother’s murder while a young girl.
Her efforts to lead a normal life as a New York University commuter student clash with her policeman father’s (Chris Cooper) understandable overprotectiveness.
Then she falls head over heels for troubled rich boy Tyler (Pattinson). He loves her too, but the relationship is built on a lie.
And then Š OH Š EM Š GEE! We can’t reveal what happens at the end of "Remember Me," but let’s just say that "Lost’s"
Claire may have been better off stranded on her island than the folks in "Remember Me" are on Manhattan. And Claire’s pretty much bat-crazy at this point.
"I am always trying to do characters that challenge me in different ways," de Ravin, 28, says. "This movie definitely did that." The trick was to make Ally a tough enough New York chick that she didn’t go through "Remember Me" like a big, walking wound. At the same time, she had to be appealing and optimistic enough to win the heart of a volatile, self-dramatizing emo-boy.
"Remember Me’s" director, Allen Coulter, picked de Ravin out of some 180 actresses who auditioned for the complex part. Even though he’s directed episodes of numerous top TV shows like "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City," Coulter was unfamiliar with "Lost."
"I think Emilie’s abilities will surprise some other people, too," Coulter says. "Like the fact that she can play an American -- and an American from Queens! -- so accurately, with just the right attitude."
Accent easy
Getting an American accent right didn’t seem to be much trouble for the Melbourne native, who’s lived in L.A. for the better part of 10 years and in Hawaii when shooting "Lost." What was difficult was maintaining concentration while filming on the streets of New York just as "Twilight"-mania was building to feverish proportions.
"When we could, we shot exactly where we were meant to be: NYU, Central Park, all these places," she recalls. "Unfortun-ately, everything had to be barricaded off because of the paparazzi and fans."
Of course, any shot that intimated intimacy between de Ravin and Pattinson hit the tabloids and the Internet, along with suggestions that they were an item. The same thing happened with Pattinson and his "Twilight" co-star Kristen Stewart, and there seems to be even less evidence to back up any rumors in de Ravin’s case.
Mum on private life
She doesn’t discuss her private life. The status of her three-year marriage to actor Josh Janowicz has been something of a question mark for some time.
And then there’s "Lost." De Ravin swears she’s as in the dark about how the series will be resolved as anyone who’s tried to follow its byzantine, reality-bending story line since 2004.
All she knows is that she’s had a lot to do in the recently begun sixth season.
"It’s constantly such a surprise," she says of working on "Lost."
"Because there are really no boundaries. It’s mind-blowing."
De Ravin seems content with the prospect of unpredictability defining her own post-"Lost" future.
"I’m taking meetings and figuring that out right now," she says.
"But it’s not like I need to do a specific genre or time period or role. It’s more about that feeling that you get when you read something that you really connect with."
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