Ник, чего вы в нем нашли? Опции

[DDfans]

Лично я считаю Ника лучшим, т.к. он мне более симпатичен. Его имидж самый лучший! И на мое мнение не влияет его жизнь, творения и все его остальные предпочтения. Продолжая тему о Нике, тут, я могу сказать в дополнение что он магический клавишник :)

[winter rose]

Интервью нынешней подружки Ника-Мередит Остром

Rhodes to fame

Best known as the girlfriend of Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes, Meredith Ostrom is juggling her career with her real passion – acting.

Interview by Julia Llewellyn-Smith

Photographs by Bob Carlos Clarke

The way Meredith Ostrom met her boyfriend, Nick Rhodes, of Eighties pop group Duran Duran, sounds - as she herself puts it – ‘straight out of a movie’. Ostrom, a New Yorker, had been in London for just two days when some Italian friends invited her to the ‘coolest party’ in town – celebrity photographer Mario Testino’s book launch at the fashionable Sanderson hotel.

‘I was so excited,’ the 23-year-old recalls in her dramatic American accent, ‘I was running late and I ran outside to get a taxi and there were three men already waiting for one. I thought: “I’m from New York, I’m a young girl, I’m going to push in front of them”. So I walked to the next corner and hailed the first taxi that came. I was getting in and one of the people in the queue came running over, and said: “Please, we’ve been waiting so long.” I was shocked. I thought, “Who are you?” So I said, “I’m late, find another one.”

‘He said, “Where are you going?” and I was thinking, “Are you a psycho killer? That’s none of your business.” He said, “I bet it’s the Sanderson.” I said, “No.” Then I looked that the invitation and it was! So the guys got in the cab, and they all had funny haircuts and looked kind of punky cool. I said, “Are you in the music industry?” and they said, “You could say that.”

‘We pulled up to the party and there were suddenly all these flashes, and people crying, “Nick! Nick!” It was like something out of a Woody Allen film. I turned to him and said, “Who are you? Austin Powers?” We got inside and this man, Nick, just stood next to me the whole time, as if I’d come with him. It was weird but he was very sweet. He felt like someone I’d known for a long time. I’d just arrived from a foreign country and it was so comforting because I’d met someone who was so smart.’

The pair exchanged phone numbers and over the next few weeks became a couple. But it was more than a month before Ostrom realized who her new boyfriend actually was (his friends turned out to be record producers). How could it have taken her so long to catch on?

‘I was oblivious,’ Ostrom says. ‘I’m not the kind of person who goes into a record store and buys a CD. Of course I knew Duran Duran songs like Ordinary World, but even when there were clues all over the place, I didn’t put Nick and the music together. That’s just my personality.’
Such comments make Ostrom sound a bit of an airhead which, frankly, is what I had been expecting. After all, Rhodes, 40, has a reputation for dating girls who are famous for being famous and has had flings with the two ultimate It girls: Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and Lady Victoria Hervey. But it takes only five minutes with Ostrom to realize this is no piece of arm candy but a fiercely ambitious and articulate woman. I’d been warned she was nervous about the interview, but before we had even sat down she was chatting volubly about everything from the September 11 terrorist attacks to the architecture of Sicilian palaces.

Inevitably, the only time Ostrom grows reticent is when conversation centers on her famous boyfriend. ‘It bothers me to be seen just as someone’s girlfriend,’ she says, ‘I’m my own person. I’m working hard to accomplish something and I just happened to run into Nick. It wasn’t like I was looking to meet somebody. And, anyway, I’m so over posing and being impressed by famous people. It’s not like I grew up in the middle of nowhere. I am from New York.’

This determination to be famous in her own right is backed by her mother, an interior designer and, according to her daughter, ‘a very strong woman’. I ask Ostrom if she is living with Rhodes. ‘No!’ she cries. ‘My mother wouldn’t have it. She says I’ve got to make it on my own. I can’t rely on a man for a meal ticket. And if I don’t do well here, then I’m going back to New York.’ ‘Doing well’ means making it as an actress, on which subject Ostrom is more voluble.

‘Everyone who meets me assumes I’m a model,’ she grumbles. It’s an understandable assumption, I say, given that she is a 6ft beanpole with an ethereal, Nordic beauty – her father, a chemical engineer, is part-Swedish. ‘Thank you,’ she says, ‘Well, I have been a model, but that’s not what I am. I just want to say to people, “I have a degree, don’t assume I’m stupid”.’

Though she is now with Kate Moss’s agency Storm, Ostrom is certainly not starry-eyed about the modeling industry. She arrives at the photo shoot in a T-shirt that proclaims ‘No Diet’ in sparkly letters, and she makes a point of demanding pizza. ‘I’m so not into being emaciated,’ she says. A bit later, she comments, ‘You know, if I was ten pounds skinnier, I’d probably be on the cover of Vogue.’

‘Most of the girls are much thinner than me,’ she says, ‘But I really can’t be that skinny without doing something harmful to myself. You can’t malnourish yourself like that; eventually your internal organs don’t work as well. And you get wrinkles, which should worry you if you’re vain!’

She is speaking from personal experience. Ostrom went to school in Virginia where her parents have a home. In her teens, she says she had ‘an experience’ that resulted in her becoming dangerously thin. ‘It was a stupid thing,’ she says, ‘But there’s so much pressure on young girls, so many of us have eating disorders. It’s crazy. Nothing’s worth your health.’
With this behind her, Ostrom was wary when at 16, she was spotted in the street by a scout from the Elite model agency. ‘John Casablancas [the founder of Elite] was saying, “You will be the next Claudia Schiffer!”, she recalls. ‘But I said, “Actually, I have to go to college.” In a family like mine, it’s not a question of if you go to university, it’s which university. Possibly, I could have done quite well if I’d gone with them. I’ll never know. I think I was quite fortunate to have parents who directed me the other way.’

Instead, Ostrom studied drama at the Tish School of Film Arts, part of New York University. ‘It’s very good, I’m very proud to talk about it,’ she gushes. ‘It’s like Rada.’ On graduating, however, she could land only a couple of small film parts.

To pay the bills, she reverted to modeling, but continued to pursue her real dream with astonishing drive. Her model agency sent her to Milan, but when she heard that a film director in Rome was looking for a blonde American actress, she bought a ticket to the capital, tracked him down and begged for the part. ‘My agency was like, “What are you doing? We need you for castings, you flaky girl!” But I said, “I am making a film. This is my passion”.’

After filming My Name is Tamino in Sicily in 2001, which premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival, she came to Britain to see her brother, Roy, who was taking a summer course in business at the London School of Economics. Having met Rhodes, her visit turned into something more permanent, although Ostrom is adamant it is work that is keeping her here, not love.

She recently picked up a cameo role in Richard Curtis’s new comedy Love Actually, starring Hugh Grant. She plays the drummer in a spoof of Robert Palmer’s Addicted to Love video. ‘Richard said shooting the scene was the most fun he had in the film,’ she says.

And despite landing a small role in a new comedy series called Keen Eddie for the Fox network in America, she is scathing about Hollywood. ‘It’s just so cheesy there. In Hollywood, there are 16-year-old girls who will do anything – and I mean anything – to get a part. I value myself too much for that. Besides, if I were in California, I’d have to alter my body and I don’t want that. Already the people in Milan have told me I ought to get a “little adjustment”.’ Does she mean a boob job? She nods. ‘It’s disgusting. It really is the plastic life. So two-dimensional.’

Having not seen Ostrom act, it’s impossible to judge her talent, but she is certainly entertaining company. I suspect, however, she can be a bit of a drama queen. I also get the impression that despite her famous boyfriend, she is somewhat lonely in her Chelsea flat. ‘It is difficult to meet people,’ she says. ‘And Nick is always working. He’s a very serious person. He doesn’t go out much.’

She is keen to rush home from the interview to prepare for an evening out. ‘I’m meant to be somewhere with Nick.’ She explains, but then adds, ‘But it all depends on his work. If he’s still in the studio it wont happen. It’s often like that.’

It doesn’t sound like the behavior of a red-hot lover, and although maybe she is just guarded, Ostrom’s comments about Rhodes sound more like those of a business associate than a besotted girlfriend. ‘Oh, Nick’s just so intelligent, I really respect him,’ she says. ‘I love the way his mind works. He was playing Scrabble with my brother recently and he just killed him. He invests carefully, he chooses the people he surrounds himself with. I feel lucky to know him because he gives such good advice.’

The impression is of a couple who are both putting their careers first. Ostrom dismisses any suggestion of marriage or children. ‘I have strong family values, but I’m not looking for something,’ she says, “Whatever happens will happen. You can’t really look into the future.’

What is certain is that if Keen Eddie takes off in America, where it is due to be screened next month, Ostrom will be drawn there. It’s clear she wont rest until she is better known than any man in her life.