A harrowing shoot, but it was Sophie’s choice

LITHE and striking, with more than a hint of retro-futurist glamour in her kinky, corkscrew curls and asymmetrical earrings, Sophie Okonedo seems a far cry from the plainly resolute woman she portrays in “Hotel Rwanda.”

The wrenching new film due Dec. 22 tells the true story of Paul Rusesabagina and his wife, Tatiana, and how they survived the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s. Settling down in the lobby bar of a Beverly Hills hotel, the London-born Okonedo, who plays Tatiana, recalls the three-month shoot in South Africa.

In one of the most harrowing moments, Okonedo’s character is in the back of a truck full of escaping refugees when they are set upon by a marauding horde of guerrillas. A machete is soon at her throat, and the look of terror in Okonedo’s eyes is visceral and electric.

Okonedo, 35, is a veteran of the London theater scene, on the board of directors at the Royal Court Theater, and has appeared in films as diverse as the broad slapstick “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls” and the gritty immigrant drama “Dirty Pretty Things.”

She laughs at the mention of the machete scene, in which the soldier were played by locals. “Let’s put it this way: I didn’t have to act on that one. Those guys really went for it. I had bruises left, right and center. They’re not actors, there wasn’t the usual things with extras,” -- and here Okonedo breaks into an impression of the classic English homemaker -- “ ‘Ooh, when I worked with Dustin Hoffman in 1972 ...’ None of that. These guys, you say, ‘OK, you drag her across and you threaten her. Action.’ Then it’s just boom, bam, boom!”

Okonedo is in Los Angeles on a brief break from the Berlin-based shoot for the science-fiction action film “Aeon Flux,” because of a neck injury suffered by its star, Charlize Theron.

On top of the usual concerns for an actress, Okonedo is a single mother to her 7-year-old daughter, and as her career gains momentum things are becoming more complicated.

“I can’t think ahead,” Okonedo says. “This year she went to school in South Africa, a regular school there, right around the corner. Then I started in Berlin at the beginning of her summer holiday, so we’ve been there together. Then Charlize hurt her neck the day before [my daughter] went back to school, so we went back to London together. It’s all just sort of worked out. If I think more than a month ahead of what my child care scenario is, it sends me into a free-form meltdown. All I know is the next few months are OK. God knows what I’m going to do if I get some job in New Zealand for six months.”