Weisz Talks 'Mummy Returns'

"I'm more interested in doing independent film projects," says Weisz. "I think lately I've gone astray. Blockbuster movies are really not the kind of movies I want to be in."

That being said, Weisz also recognizes that working on mega-budget films can offer some incredible theater-going experiences that smaller films cannot.

"Sometimes you want to go to Terminator and eat popcorn – I think acting is like that too," says Weisz.

In 1996, Weisz co-starred in the Keanu Reeves action film Chain Reaction, which was both her first big budget project and her first American film. Aside from working in the miserable cold of a Chicago winter, she says, her experience on that picture wasn't much more than "big studio hoo-haw . . . just boring."

The critics thought so, too. So, until signing on to do The Mummy, she stayed pretty far away from doing another big Hollywood project. She opted to do smaller films like Stealing Beauty or the 1999 Golden Globe winning dramatic film Sunshine instead.

Weisz says she felt comfortable making the leap back to mainstream Hollywood to do The Mummy, because it was a film that had a good heart and wasn't trying to make any grand statements.

"It's a great self-conscious B-Movie," says Weisz. "It's not trying to say anything in particular. It's just pure unadulterated entertainment."