Dawn of the Red

What’s in a name? In the case of actress Bryce Dallas Howard, it tells you (1) the color of her hair—red like the famous Utah canyon; (2) the city where she was conceived; and (3) that she’s finally copping to the fact she’s Ron Howard’s daughter. “When I was applying to drama school, I was Bryce Dallas,” explains the 23-year-old former NYU student. “I didn’t want any association with my pops.”

Determined to make it on her own, Howard caught her break last year with a critically lauded stage performance in As You Like It, which M. Night Shyamalan scouted on producer Scott Rudin’s advice. “I thought she was breathtaking,” says Shyamalan, who had cast Kirsten Dunst as Ivy, a young blind woman, in this summer’s supernatural period drama The Village. As luck would have it, Dunst dropped out, and Howard was hired. “If I see [Dunst], I’m going to get down on my hands and knees and say, ‘Thank you, thank you,’ ” she says.

While she’s genuflecting for folks, Howard should probably give a shout-out to Nicole Kidman, whom she’s replaced in Manderlay, Lars von Trier’s Dogville sequel (Kidman had a scheduling conflict). Although Howard says the notorious director is “a gentle human being” on set, “when I do a scene badly, he makes a lot of jokes about wanting to spank me.” Who’s your daddy, indeed.