It's difficult not to be charmed by rising star Sarah Bolger. No sooner had the stunning Irish actress slid into the booth to chat with us about her latest thriller The Moth Diaries than she brandished her latest Apple products (the latest iPad and two iPhone models) like an excited child.
"I don't drink or smoke. But I do Apple products," Bolger said, adding that she is one of those die-hard Apple fans who would queue up at the store as early as 5am to get her hands on the latest toy.
"I am such a gadget geek. Right from a young age I have been breaking things, and then I learn how I can fix them. It's my hobby."
Unlike her troubled teenage act in The Moth Diaries, the 20-year-old Bolger is as normal as they come. She is super-excited about Abu Dhabi, has already made a mental note to come back on a four-day holiday (two days in Abu Dhabi and two days in Dubai) soon, thinks the women in the UAE are gorgeous and that she can't get enough of this place. Simply put, she's no Lindsay Lohan.
"There was no time to be a deviant teenager. I was always prepping for a film and it's hard to get hooked on alcohol when you are shooting round the clock. And yes, my friends are not Lindsay Lohan," Bolger said.
Like all child stars, she began at a young age and was thrust into the limelight with award-winning TV show Jim Sheridan's In America in 2002 that revolved around an Irish immigrant family in New York.
A normal life
"But I had a completely normal childhood. I started when I was 5. Until the age of 15, I worked but I also finished school and got a degree. It has been a wonderful ride to Hollywood."
In The Moth Diaries, she plays Rebecca, whose life revolves around her best friend Lucy but finds her world toppled when a sinister newcomer (Lily Cole) joins her boarding school and disrupts her clique.
"In the book, Rebecca is shown as bipolar. But we never said that in the movie. So the challenge was to show the undertones of what's real and what's fiction in Rebecca's world. It's about intense relationships and we also toy with the idea of what's platonic and what's sexual in the movie."
Set in a boarding school, the mind-altering thriller analyses adolescent angst, anorexia and teenage fascination with vampires in great detail. But it's no Twilight, she adds.
Supernatural
"Mine is more supernatural and has a thriller aspect to it than vampirish one. It has this whole Hitchcock-esque feel to it." Now Bolger is giving a breather of sorts to her series of girl-interrupted roles. Even in the historical TV drama The Tudors she plays a vampish Princess Mary.
"Fortunately, I haven't been typecast yet. And I have this movie called Crush with Lucas Till — the Hannah Montana blonde from Texas, and yeah he was in the X-Men movie too. So my character is glamorous, sort of titillating people in a cute and funny way. It's completely different from the dark, brooding roles."
She has also just finished filming with Claire Danes for As Cool As I Am in New Mexico, whom she describes as fun and tomboyish.
"Hollywood is the next stop until Christmas. Then it's home for Christmas!"
