I wasn't the biggest rebel as a child; I wanted to do my job, show up on time and be responsible for my career. But I found being on time, learning my lines and standing on my mark a bit stagnating. A casting director introduced her to Sergio Leone, who was seeking a young girl forOnce Upon a Time in America, a film that offered her a platform to demonstrate her acting skills and led to her next role, in the mid-Eighties, alongside David Bowie in Jim Henson's Labyrinth, which made her an international star.Connelly doesn't see it that way "I don't know if I was a star. When she was 10, her parents were advised by a family friend, who was an advertising executive, to take her to a modelling audition. From there she was signed to the Ford Agency, who arranged for her to appear in magazine and TV adverts.

"Walter came to my house before we started filming, and a week later the house flooded And it didn't just flood once, it flooded twice. I hold him directly responsible." But as to whether she is a believer in the paranormal, Connelly remains unsure "I don't know whether I'm afraid I do absolutely believe in ghosts and the abstract, though. There seem to be lots of haunted people walking around out there."Born to a clothing manufacturer and massage therapist in the Catskill Mountains of New York State in 1970, Connelly grew up in Brooklyn (aside from the four years the family lived in Woodstock, New York). However, Connelly encountered these problems before the filming for Dark Water even began. I trusted him so much that, even if he would come up with ideas I didn't think were so good, I would certainly try them, because if they didn't work he wouldn't use them."He says he's next doing something in Brazil with a bunch of boys and I said 'Walter, you know what, I could play a Brazilian boy', and I think I could, it could be interesting, but I guess he didn't go for that."As with so many horror films, studios often leak stories of paranormal events that occur on the set while filming.

When we did takes and looked at the monitor, I generally agreed with his opinions and I always looked forward to hearing his ideas and getting feedback from him. In rehearsals he was so lovely, but that's an aside, because he's talented enough for me to enjoy working with him even if he were a creep, which he's not. He's sensitive but he's not precious, nor is he sentimental."I have a lot of respect for his type of director and I really trusted his judgement. "Dark Water was one of my favourite films to shoot because of Walter. I had seen the previous films he had directed, Central Station and Motorcycle Diaries, and I thought they were great I really trusted him. There have been films like that in the past that people have really responded to, such as Rosemary's Baby and Don't Look Now, and I feel, at the moment, there's a renewed interest in that kind of film."Horror is not a genre that Connelly has featured in before, but it was the prospect of working with Walter Salles, the award-winning director of The Motorcycle Diaries, the film of the motorcycle road-trip that Che Guevara went on as a youth, that drew her to the project. "There are certain examples of it in the fact that it isn't a gory film, it isn't a slasher movie, and it doesn't have some aberration running around and coming to threaten the homeland."It's more subtle and more psychological, and could be seen as allegorical.