It terrifies me, the position that I'm in right now 
These are happy days for Ron Howard's daughter, 23-year-old Bryce Dallas Howard. Discovered by director M Night Shyamalan in a New York stage production of Shakespeare's As You Like It, she makes her movie debut playing blind but headstrong Ivy Walker in the director's 19th century-set chiller, The Village. She follows that with the lead in headstrong Danish director Lars Von Trier's Manderlay.
Given your family background, was it always inevitable that you would become an actor?
My dad's a filmmaker and my mom is a writer, so it seemed fairly reasonable to assume that I would participate in this industry, or at least be in a business or livelihood that depended upon the imagination. My form of rebellion was to say, "No, I want to do forensic anthropology, or law. I gave it a good shot, because I was just frustrated with all of the assumptions. My imagination has always been much stronger to me than my real life, though, and that would have been a clear indication to most onlookers that a life in the arts would be appropriate. But I only admitted it to myself or my family when I was 17- or 18-years-old.
What's the deal surrounding the secrecy over Night's scripts?
It's funny. There is so much secrecy on a project like this, but it's never come from Night. He's never said: "This is so precious, please keep it secret." It comes more from me and other people who've read the script for the first time, and they would want others to experience the story in the way in which I was able to experience it - freshly. It's so unfortunate: scripts are released on the internet quite often and it's reviewed. To me, that's like if an artist has a blank canvas and a bunch of pots of paint, and someone comes by and says. "Oh, that's not going to be a good painting, I don't like those colours." I'm glad there's this amount of secrecy, just so that people can form their own opinions.
Yes, there is a bunch of FedExing of pages back and forth, but that's just... FedEx is very efficient! When Night offered me this role, he said: "There's a bunch of guys on the internet who want this script, but please don't give it to them." But he never said don't give it to your parents, don't give it to your agents, don't give it to your managers. When I read it, I didn't want to ruin it for my family and my friends.
How afraid were you when you were cast in this, your first movie?
I wasn't afraid, because when it comes to my work I don't operate from a place of fear, because that's quite destructive and would waste time. I got this job in May [2003] and we started in October, so I had a limited amount of time to prepare for the role. If I'd spent any amount of time being insecure or doubting my ability, or being nervous, that would have been disgraceful, especially with this opportunity that I was given. Also, Night just had this insane amount of of faith in me. He cast me without auditioning me, just after watching an hour and a half production of As You Like It in New York. So it was my responsibility to have at least that amount of faith in myself. The day after we finished, however, I was quite anxious!
How much research did you have to do to play a blind girl?
Blindness constitutes a very small part of Ivy, but it was the thing that was most distant from my reality. So I went to a place called The Lighthouse in New York City, an institution where they aid the visually impaired. The first thing that happened is that the head of one of the departments came up to me and said "I hope you enjoy your time here", and then she walked away. She was holding a cane in her hand, and I hadn't realised during our dialogue that she was blind; I had never seen that in film before. I thought that was something that was very important: how do you play blindness when you're existing in an environment where there's no longer a handicap, no longer a disability, as in the case of Ivy Walker in The Village?
The instructors there took me through the entire script, because I was extremely sceptical as to how this girl could do what she does in this film, and they were like: "Yeah, she could do all of this, and she could do more." I decided to spend a large majority of every day blindfolded, because after wearing a blindfold for 90 minutes your brain starts to rewire itself. So that was my rule: no less than 90 minutes.
Has your father offered you much advice?
It's unfortunate, because the small amount of advice my dad has given me about this profession, I didn't take seriously when I should have, and now he's stopped giving me advice. And I'm like, "Trust me, when I was seven I was an idiot!" The one thing I've learned, more from experience, is that we can have very long careers, and it can extend to the day we die, and so there will be moments when you feel like you're experiencing failure or disappointment or - perhaps even worse - that you're disappointed in yourself and what you've done. What I've learned from that, from my dad, is that that doesn't mean you should stop. That means you should try even harder, you should push it even further. And perhaps because of failure, you're getting even closer to the ultimate goal. It terrifies me, the position that I'm in right now, but that's a very very good thing.
What's next for you?
I just finished doing Lars Von Trier's second film in his USA trilogy. The first was called Dogville, this one's called Manderlay. Then, as far as what I'll do after that, I don't know. Honestly, in many ways I feel like I'm doomed, because I had this experience with Night, and then to follow that with a really quite amazing experience with Lars... I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm nervous about it, and think about it every day. It's not just the film. The filmmaking experience is very satisfying, and it can be with a lot of different filmmakers - I'm an actor, I like playing roles. But to work with a director who is... an angel, it'll be hard. I'm screwed!
