Ali Larter Obsessed

Larter, famous for her whipped cream-bikini role in Varsity Blues and her acting in the sci-fi television series on NBC “Heroes,” plays a woman with a dark obsession. The new flick, directed by Steve Shill and co-starring Beyoncé Knowles and Idris Elba, involves a bizarre love triangle between three gorgeous actors; Larter, a young temp with a twisted obsession for her boss, Larter’s boss, Elba and Elba’s wife, Knowles. Larter summed up the plot as an “imaginary office romance with disastrous consequences.”

“Obsessed,” set in a world where technology bends the traditional rules of courtship, is a lover’s worst nightmare. Cell phone calls made after dark and personal e-mails allow people to stay in touch outside formal settings and creep into one’s personal life.

“We now have modern technology and many new ways to have an affair,” said Larter. “Is it appropriate to send a personal e-mail to your boss? If someone sends you an i-Chat invitation at 11 p.m., is it appropriate to answer? That’s so interesting. People spend more time at the office than with their family. [“Obsessed”] draws on the fears and jealousies that arise from the imbalance.”
Larter’s character, Lisa Sheridan, is hunting for husbands, it turns out that Knowles’ character, Sharon, does not have to question her man’s fidelity. The hook of the movie is that Lisa Sheridan is so desperately in love that she fabricates a steamy affair with her boss.

“Lisa Sheridan is delusional, a bit of a psychopath. But you can’t play her that way,” said Larter. “There are reasons, past experiences, for why she does what she does.” She really gets lost in her psychosis and [the audience] must understand why she went down this path of believing one thing when another is probably true. [The audience] gets to see the three different points of view of people in the same situation.”

She thrives on her work, even when the most difficult aspect of playing Sheridan’s character onscreen was “hopping from one character to the next” while shooting “Heroes” and “Obsessed” simultaneously, a routine which took “months of working 12 hours a day.” Hot Indie News