The Year in The Verge
AGE: 25
THEN: Gained notice as part of the Parks and Recreation ensemble and as Seth Rogen's love interest in Funny People
NOW: In addition to a second season of the newly thriving Parks, will be seen in Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
ON AN IMDB COMMENTER WHO CLAIMED TO HAVE ACTED WITH PLAZA IN A PLAY: "The Bo Peep Case! That was totally real, and I played the evil villain. It was this one-act play in my hometown at the Wilmington Drama League Community Theater, and I think that girl's name was Lucy. I feel like I remember her. She was maybe playing, like, a little newsboy. Or a chicken. Wow. That play was full of Oscar-worthy performances."
AGE: 32
THEN: Charmed audiences with a George Sanders purr as Lt. Hicox in Inglourious Basterds, was shortlisted for the lead in The Green Lantern
NOW: Will shortly be seen in the well-received Cannes entry Fish Tank, then plays a heavily tattooed villain in Jonah Hex
ON TRYING FOR CHRISTOPH WALTZ'S BASTERDS ROLE: "I didn't really know what way to pitch Hicox because I was really gunning for Landa, actually...They had told me, 'Look at Hicox as well,' and I was sort of in denial, I suppose -- like, 'No, no, no.' So then I arrived, and Quentin was like, 'OK, let's take a look at Hicox' and I was like, 'Shit!' [Laughs] I was like, 'What about Landa?' and he was like, 'I cast my Landa on Tuesday.' I went, 'Really? Are you sure?' But then, I'm not about to tell Quentin Tarantino how to cast his movies, so I said, 'OK, let's read Hicox.'"
AGE: 13
THEN: Starred opposite Viggo Mortensen in the post-apocalyptic drama The Road.
NOW: Will play the lead in the Hollywood remake of Sweden's vampire thriller Let the Right One In.
ON TACKLING DARK MATERIAL AT A YOUNG AGE: "I remember in one of the interviews I did they said I was like an alien who could turn it on and off. And that's not the thing -- it's that I did the work beforehand. That's why I can turn it on and off. You've got to make a whole different character of it -- what happened before this, what happens after, what's not in the script that I need to put in there."
AGE: 30
THEN: Appeared briefly as Silver Fox in X-Men Origins: Wolverine
NOW: Shortly after our interview, Collins snagged the high-profile female lead in Andrew Stanton's John Carter of Mars
ON ASTROLOGY: "I've studied astrology for many, many years, and I feel like it's an incredibly challenging art. Personally, I go both ways with it, and one way is that I think it's an incredible way to get in touch with yourself. At the same time, I don't believe that by knowing someone's sign you're going to define them in a couple of sentences, nor does predictive astrology necessarily ring true to me. But the intuitive art and metaphysical studies and the big questions that we don't have the answers for...I prefer to play with that."
AGE: 31
THEN: Co-starred in An Education and nailed the showiest monologue in John Krasinski's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
NOW: Just finished the Stephen Frears film Tamara Drewe, and is prepping Lee Tamahori's The Devil's Double and a new adaptation of David Copperfield
ON THE INSIDIOUS PERKS OF ESCALATING FAME: "You go and do a press junket for a film and you stay in these lavish, wonderful hotels, or you're on these islands in the middle of nowhere and you're treated like royalty, and you begin to think, 'Oh, this is how my life is. This is me now.' But it's not -- it's just a little chunk of time, and I think it's quite dangerous. Why wouldn't you be excited, though? It's exciting, jetting off and staying somewhere different and being treated nicely and experiencing these things."
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