Actress Bryce Dallas Howard, daughter of director Ron Howard, is best known for her roles in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village and Lady In The Water as well as genre films such as Spider-Man 3, Terminator: Salvation and the upcoming The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Now audiences will get to see a different side of the actress as she speaks the words of the great playwright Tennessee Williams in the adaptation of his long-forgotten screenplay The Loss Of A Teardrop Diamond, opening in theaters on December 30th. In the film, which Howard actually shot after Spider-Man 3 and before last summer’s Terminator: Salvation, the actress plays the role of Fisher Willow replacing Lindsay Lohan who had originally been cast in the part. We recently had an opportunity to sit down with Bryce Dallas Howard to discuss her new film, the work of Tennessee Williams, acting with Chris Evans and the difference between making this film and some of her past work.

Widely considered the most important American playwright of the post-WWII era, Tennessee Williams wrote the The Loss Of A Teardrop Diamond screenplay at the height of his late-50’s heyday, amid such classic plays, (which themselves were adapted into classic films) as “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Suddenly, Last Summer,” “Sweet Bird of Youth,” and “Orpheus Descending.” Set in the Roaring Twenties in Williams’ (and director Jodie Markell’s) home town of Memphis, the film tells the story of Fisher Willow (Howard) a headstrong young heiress who chafes under the constraints of proper Southern society, and who rebels by asking the impoverished but handsome son of her father’s caretaker, Jimmy Dobyne, (Chris Evans) to escort her to the major social events of the season. The relationship is purely a business arrangement at the outset, with Fisher paying for Jimmy’s time and attention, but when she discovers that she really loves him, she finds it impossible to re-write the rules and earn the affection she tried to buy. Starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Evans, Ellen Burstyn, Ann-Margret, Jennifer Spies, Mamie Gummer, Will Paton, and Jessica Collins and directed by Jodie Markell, The Loss Of A Teardrop Diamond opens in theaters on December 30th.