MOVIES - Dec. 25, 2005

NAOMIE HARRIS

Actress

The 2003 zombie thriller “28 Days Later” changed the career of British actress Naomie Harris: Her performance as the resilient Selena in the low-budget British film caught the attention of Hollywood. “That made a big difference,” the 29-year-old Harris said.

Harris has three films on the horizon this year, including the high-profile “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” and “Miami Vice.”

In “Pirates,” she plays a Jamaican witch doctor. “Johnny Depp’s character, Jack Sparrow, comes to her for advice,” Harris explains. But that’s just the beginning. The character shows back up in “Pirates 3.”

She loved working with “Vice” director Michael Mann on the big-screen version of the 1980s TV series because “he completely respects and adores actors and actors’ processes..”

Harris also gets a rare chance to show her lighter side in Michael Winterbottom’s comedy “Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story,” which opens in January. In this movie-within-a-movie, she plays the assistant and sometimes lover of actor Steve Coogan. “Most people don’t see me as a comedic actress, but I like to do comedy,” Harris says.