The Z factor

IT'S THE STUFF of which fairy tales are made. Talented young performer from tiny village lands role as understudy to lead in West End musical only to get thrust into the spotlight when principal falls ill. Understudy excels, earns rave reviews, heads to Hollywood, forges a successful movie career, marries into Tinseltown royalty, wins an Oscar and lives happily ever after.

Any screenwriter trying to persuade a studio to make a film of Catherine Zeta-Jones' life might have trouble getting the project approved on the grounds of plausibility. Even Zeta-Jones has to pinch herself sometimes to believe the twists and turns of a career that have seen her transform from, in her own words, a 'dumb little Welsh girl' to bona-fide screen goddess - a latter-day Rita Hayworth or Ava Gardner - feted by the likes of Esquire magazine as 'the most beautiful woman on the planet'.

The 36-year-old actress is back on the silver screen this month in The Legend of Zorro, starring opposite Antonio Banderas in a long-awaited follow-up to the 1998 box-office hit The Mask of Zorro. Shooting the sequel was a sentimental journey, she says, allowing her to revisit the character of the fiery Elena that launched her movie career seven short years ago.

'Elena means a lot to me personally and professionally because it was the role that got me recognised internationally,' Zeta-Jones says between sips of tea at a Beverly Hills hotel.

Elena also helped her win the heart of the man to whom she's been married for five years, the actor and producer Michael Douglas, with whom she has two children. 'He fell in love with me after watching that movie,' Zeta-Jones says. 'At least that's what he says - and I've never questioned him.'

Reprising Elena was 'like visiting an old friend', Zeta-Jones says. 'When I walked on set and saw Antonio in his Zorro outfit it brought tears to my eyes.'

The Legend of Zorro is set a decade after the original. Zorro and Elena are married with a 10-year-old son as California struggles to become the 31st state of the union in the face of murder and intimidation orchestrated by a shadowy secret society determined to prevent it.

By Hollywood standards, the sequel has been a long time coming. Although one has been regularly mooted since the success of the first film, it took a while for the pieces to fall into place. 'I really thought Zorro was behind me,' Zeta-Jones says. 'But the thought of a sequel was always in the back of my mind, and whenever Antonio and I would meet up for dinner we'd talk about it.

'So I'm glad we got the script we did. I wanted to make sure that we could make a movie that had the excitement and the charm and the fun of the first - something that adults as well as kids can enjoy. And it's hard to find all those elements.'

The movie is a deliberate throwback to the swashbuckling romps of the 1930s and 40s, and required its principal actors to undergo hours of training for bewilderingly intricate sword play. 'I was happy to be involved in the sword-fighting scenes when I saw the script,' Zeta-Jones says. 'I certainly didn't want to be the mother stuck at home. But it was fun. It's like dancing to me - the choreography is similar.'

Indeed, her background in dancing and singing helped her win the best supporting actress Oscar in 2002 for her performance as Velma Kelly in the film version of the Broadway musical Chicago.

Born in Swansea, Zeta-Jones grew up in the fishing village of Mumbles a few miles down the road. Her precocity was spotted at an early age, and by 10 she was the star attraction in an amateur dancing troupe.

She later starred in productions of Annie and Bugsy Malone, and by the time she was 15, she'd reached London's West End as second understudy in a production of 42nd Street. When the musical's star and first understudy both fell ill, Zeta-Jones got her break. The play's producer was in the audience and was so impressed he decided to keep her on for the rest of the run, for which she won critical acclaim.

That stroke of fortune helped her land the role of Mariette in the hit 1991 television series The Darling Buds of May (based on the novels of H.E. Bates). It thrust her into the public eye and made her a target for the tabloids and gossip columnists.

Fed-up with the tabloid attention - 'I felt hunted' - and disillusioned with the lack of opportunities in the British film industry, Zeta-Jones moved to Los Angeles in the early 90s. 'I always wanted to be in film,' she says. 'Back then, the whole Cool Britannia thing hadn't started. And the film industry in the UK was dead. The centre of the movie-making world was here, so that's why I came.'

An unknown in Hollywood, Zeta-Jones had to start almost from scratch, but had no difficulty getting regular work. In 1996, she appeared in a television docu-drama about the sinking of the Titanic, and once again the gods smiled on her. Steven Spielberg saw her performance and convinced Martin Campbell, The Mask of Zorro's director, to cast her as Elena.

While Zorro was awaiting release she landed a role opposite Sean Connery in Entrapment and went on to appear in The Haunting with Liam Neeson, later in 1999. But her talent as an actress in weighty roles was only seen for the first time the following year, with her spellbinding performance in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic.

Zeta-Jones' portrayal of a drug kingpin's wife who discovers that she'll do anything to defend her family and her comfortable existence won wide praise - but wasn't enough to secure a best supporting actress Oscar nomination. Nevertheless, it confirmed her arrival as a serious Hollywood player.

Ferociously ambitious earlier in her career, Zeta-Jones admits that her priorities have changed since her marriage to Douglas in 2000 and the birth of her children, Dylan, five, and Carys, two. She hasn't worked for much of the past year, choosing instead to spend time with her children. She and Douglas have homes in New York, Mallorca and Canada, but now spend most of their time in Bermuda, where Dylan is at school. Like many Hollywood couples, Douglas and Zeta-Jones try to plan their filming schedules to ensure that one of them is free for parenting duties.

'I think for any working mother it's hard,' she says. 'The logistics of your life change. Before, you could just pack up and go wherever work dictated. But the flipside is that, when I'm on set working, I can have my kids with me. If I was in an office I couldn't do that. And when I'm not working, I'm not working, so I've got all the time for them. But it's exhausting. I almost find myself saying, 'You know, kids, I've got to go to work - I need a rest'.'

Whether Zeta-Jones' children follow their parents into the industry remains to be seen. She says she'd be happy to see them pursue careers in showbusiness, but Douglas is less enthusiastic.

'If they wanted to be actors, I'd support them wholeheartedly,' she says. 'Acting's been great to me.' And she says both children - who sport the Douglas dimple - were actors 'from the moment they popped out'.

'But Michael might have a different take on it because he's been through that. He grew up as 'the son of Kirk', which is a different dynamic from me. Nobody knew me, nobody cared. But when you're 'the son of' or 'the daughter of' people look at you in a different way. Michael can talk about it more eloquently than me, but the bottom line is that it's harder.'

A decade spent in Hollywood may have given Zeta-Jones' speech an American twang, but the underlying Welshness remains. Indeed, she places great importance on staying in touch with her roots, where she's regarded as something of a folk hero. 'I was back over there in August with my kids getting spoiled rotten by my family,' she says. 'And I saw a girl that I hadn't seen in 21 years. It was great. We met up and our kids got together. I have a lot of good friends from school and my teenage years that I stay in contact with.'

That tightly knit network of family and friends has helped to ensure that Zeta-Jones has remained down-to-earth, while also giving her the confidence to pursue her career.

'When I first came to the US, a lot of my drive and ambition came from the fact that I knew I could always go back to my family and friends if it didn't turn out right. And it was important to know that I could go back and be Catherine without my family looking at me and saying, 'Why did you fail so miserably?'.'

The Legend of Zorro opens on Thursday