Elizabeth Banks jumps from Mass. childhood to Hollywood superstardom

She’s played first lady Laura Bush, enticed a 40-year-old virgin and flirted with amateur porn stardom, but never has Elizabeth Banks’ career reached the heights of “Man on a Ledge.” It’s a tall story about being 22 stories up, precariously perched on a 14-inch sill outside New York’s swank Roosevelt Hotel, where the accommodations are nothing more than a bitingly cold wind and a flimsy harness designed to keep her pouty lips from kissing the rock-hard pavement of Madison Avenue.

That she survived the shoot remains a marvel to the Massachusetts-born beauty, but her heart-stopping display of derring-do is indicative of an actress who has never been afraid to take chances. It’s a fearlessness that has won her great favor in Hollywood, where she’s rapidly become one of the industry’s hardest working women. Still, she prides herself on having the ability to keep her feet firmly planted on the ground, even if that ground is nearly 200 feet up.

“I always want to stay grounded and real,” Banks said last week during a trip home to promote Friday’s opening of “Man on a Ledge.” “I’m just a regular gal from Western Mass. who puts her family first. That’s really important to me. I also have a long-term relationship with my husband and a stable home life. I have a real stable life, generally.”

She’s equally proud of diverting her eyes from the glitz and glitter that have blinded so many young stars, an attribute she attributes to staying focused on her education, which was capped off by graduating magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1996.

“I came into this business relatively late,” said Banks, smartly dressed in black tights and a short plaid skirt with matching top. “I didn’t have a professional acting job until I was almost 26 years old, so I was already a fully formed person by then. I had worked much of my life in the service industry; I worked with real people. And so I’m always trying to honor them.”

Those honorees, she said, include the dedicated policewoman who served as her technical adviser on “Man on a Ledge,” a high-concept thriller in which Banks plays a hostage negotiator summoned to keep an escaped convict (“Avatar’s” Sam Worthington) from taking a 22-story dive off the hotel’s ledge.

“She was just a great resource. So much of what she told me I brought to the movie,” Banks, 37, said of her consultant. “I also liked that she was very feminine and she had long hair and she was a mom. She was not a cliche, she wasn’t trying to be tough, she wasn’t trying to be masculine, she wasn’t apologizing for being a woman on the police force, she was just a woman who just happened to be a cop.”

The advice was solid, but the prospect of dangling in a harness high above street level was not. In fact, it presented a bit of a distraction that Banks said she had to overcome so she could concentrate entirely on her acting. But that doesn’t mean she ever felt comfortable.

“I was attached to a harness at all times,” Banks said. “It was a great big rigmarole to get in and out of everything, so the hardest thing was not being able to go to the bathroom or take a break. Plus, it was so cold. We shot in November and it was very windy. I had to wear long underwear and several layers of clothes just to stay warm.”

Whenever she was tempted to call her agent to get her out of her predicament, Banks said she was buoyed by the knowledge that she was part of a cast featuring the likes of Ed Harris, Jamie Bell, Kyra Sedgwick, Ed Burns and Anthony Mackie.

“It’s a pretty great bunch,” Banks said. “I really love this group. I think Jamie Bell is a real star. I love that kid. Sam Worthington is great; and obviously Ed Harris is incredible; Anthony Mackie, so great. I was really lucky, too, because Ed Burns, who plays my colleague in the movie, is the epitome of the authentic New York City cop. His entire family is New York cops. He had the language, and he had the accent and the demeanor of all those guys. I just thought he was so right on the money. He just knows that world really well.”

As is the case with nearly everyone she works with, be it Seth Rogen in “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” Josh Brolin in “W.,” or Alec Baldwin on “30 Rock,” Banks generates potent chemistry with “Ledge” co-stars Burns and Worthington, the latter a disgraced ex-cop looking to right wrongs, or die trying. Banks says sometimes the sparks are set off naturally, sometimes not.

“I have a lot of secret methods,” Banks said with a sly smile. “With Alec Baldwin it comes naturally. I really enjoy him. But for sure, there are times when you have to work at it. I’m a good flirt; that’s probably my No. 1 secret weapon.”

Lately, she’s been flirting with something else: producing. She and her husband, Max Handelman, are partners in the company Brownstone Productions, which will release its second movie, “Pitch Perfect,” later this year. The film, which stars Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick, explores the world of college a cappella singing competitions.

“It’s very hard work,” Banks said of producing. “But it’s also extremely gratifying. I love creating opportunities for other people and getting involved with somebody else’s dream, whether they’re a writer or director. I also love telling stories, and as an actor, I’m just a piece of the puzzle; but as a producer, you pick which puzzle you’re going to make. You get to shape so much of the storytelling because you are choosing the writer, director, the tone and the scope of it.”

It also provides Banks the opportunity to get closer to her husband and their infant son, Felix.

“It’s fantastic,” she said of the chance to work together. “I don’t recommend it for all couples, but it works really well for Max and me. It also, frankly, helps us see each other more often because I travel so much for this job as an actress. And so being able to work together is really great.”

Next up for Banks is the hotly anticipated release of “The Hunger Games” on March 20. In it, she plays Effie Trinket, a “District 12 escort” assigned to keep the tale’s main character, played by Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence, in good humor, as the teen enters into a sadistic game of kill or be killed.

“Effie is a really intense character, very theatrical,” said Banks, who is almost unrecognizable in a towering curly pink wig and tons of pink pancake makeup. “I based her partially on Rosalind Russell in ‘Auntie Mame.’ That was one of my favorite influences. It’s a really fun project to be a part of.”