Why Heather enjoys a gamble

BEING cast as a pole-dancing stripper in the new American comedy The Hangover didn’t faze Boogie Nights and Austin Powers star Heather Graham.

She was already learning that particular style of dancing at a Los Angeles class.

“In America, women feel sexy about themselves and cheer on the other women to do it,” she says.

In the end, she isn’t actually seen wrapping herself around a pole in the movie except for still photos shown at the end of the film. “I’m a method actor – what can I say?,” she asks. “I started the classes before I got the job and I just thought it was cool. So I went back and did more classes just to refresh myself.”

“I did some of my tricks for the photos but it doesn’t translate as well to a still photograph. But I did have a stripper come up to me in Vegas and ask if I worked there.

So I felt good about that.”

Graham’s character Jade is one participant in a rowdy night enjoyed, but then totally forgotten, by three guys on a stag night in Las Vegas. She plays the mother of the baby they find in the cupboard the next morning.

“I love babies, so it was really fun,” she says of working with a dribbling co-star. Or to be accurate, co-stars, as six different youngsters were used.

“There’s a mixture of babies. If you watch the movie a second time you can see that the babies are different. Four of them were sweet and two were very cranky.

“One mom handed me the baby and said, ‘he hates everyone but me’. And then I took the baby and it started crying. For hours. I was just so mad at her. I thought ‘why put your baby in this movie then?’.

“There was one baby who was so incredibly calm and relaxed. Everyone loved him. He was so easy to work with.”

Much of the movie was actually filmed on location in Las Vegas, although Graham confesses she’s not a big fan of the gambling city. But she loved being around the four guys – Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bartha – playing the bachelor party revellers. “I never had brothers so I felt like it was a fun thing to be around these funny, charming, cute guys,” says Graham.

“Vegas is the kind of a place where you’re encouraged to go crazy, I guess. There’s a lot going on and all these weird hotels. I think it’s a very weird American thing and, personally, I find it strange.

“I suppose if you like gambling it’s good, but I like to play in someone’s house as much as in Vegas.”

That didn’t stop her competing in a poker competition for cast and crew during filming. She came fourth, winning the grand total of $350.

Graham reaches the big 4-0 this year, but doesn’t look her age as she sits crosslegged on a sofa in a London hotel room doing promotional duties for The Hangover. Her secret would appear to be healthy eating and yoga.

She’s a believer in meditation, which she does 20 minutes a day, twice a day. She says it’s “just peaceful, a feeling of peacefulness and relieving stress”.

She’s been acting 20 years, doing more indie than mainstream movies in recent years, and liking them because “they’re not so formulaic”.

For the most part, she’s avoided TV although she was seen as kooky therapist Dr Molly Clock in the comedy Scrubs a few years ago. “To be honest, I like movies better because I’m the kind of person who likes to prepare in advance,” she explains.

“With TV, you don’t get to prepare because it’s like ‘here’s your script for tomorrow’. I like having something months in advance and thinking for five days ‘how do I say this one line?’ But it depends on the project. If it’s something really good on TV, I would love to be in it.”

She has another film due out in October, Boogie Woogie, in which she plays an ambitious social climber and has just been offered a movie, to be made in New Orleans, with Kevin Spacey.

Her ambition when she began acting two decades ago was just to keep working, something she’s proud to have achieved. “I still feel I have a lot of things I want to do but also feel grateful to have a career that’s lasted this long,” she sums up.