Interview: Michelle Pfeiffer

Witchy Woman
Michelle Pfeiffer lightens up her dark side in 'Hairspray' and 'Stardust'

The Queen of mean
But Michelle Pfeiffer’s ‘bad girl’ act is only for the screen

BY BOB STRAUSS > FILM WRITER

So gorgeous. So talented. So mean! Don't know how, exactly, Michelle Pfeiffer became Hollywood's biggest villainess this summer. Sure, she's played ladies of questionable character in the past — "White Oleander's" murdering mom, "Batman Returns'" whip-cracking Catwoman, "Scarface's" trophy coke wife — but they all had, shall we say, their reasons for being bad.

Not the case with scheming Velma Von Tussle in the well-received musical version of "Hairspray." Nor the ancient sorceress Lamia in this week's release of "Stardust," an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's best-selling fantasy book co-starring Robert De Niro, Claire Danes and Peter O'Toole. Lamia will stop at nothing to regain her long-lost loveliness — something the 49-year old Pfeiffer, decked out in skinny jeans and a beaded, ruffled tank top, appears in no danger of imminently misplacing.

Funny, unpretentious and self-deprecating, Pfeiffer is a lot nicer in real life, too. Her husband of many years, Emmy winning writer-producer David E. Kelley, obviously thinks that she is. Her two tween kids (a son 13, a daughter 14) tolerate her just fine, too, which at their ages counts as a ringing endorsement.

And however wicked she's acting, it's great fun to see Pfeiffer back on the screen again after too long an absence. We were eager to catch up with her, even if we were maybe a little scared to at first.

In "Hairspray," Velma tries to seduce Christopher Walken's character, and he's not
interested. Did that ever happen to you?

Well, I'm kind of shy in that way. I'm not the sort of person who makes the advances. In fact, if somebody's making advances on me, you have to drop a house on me. I mean, I'm completely oblivious. I've been hit on by people that, by the time they had their lips stuck to my lip, I'm just like, "Oh?" And then I'm somehow justifying, "Maybe they're not really into this." It's just ridiculous, the denial that I go into.

How long did it take you to realize that your husband was interested?

We were set up. So it was obvious to me that thiswas a potential romantic relationship. Maybe that's why it was successful. I had to have somebody say: "Here!"

There's a romantic destiny theme in "Stardust." Do you buy that stuff?

No. Because I think life is really about the choices that you make. I worked really hard to be the kind of person that I was when I met my husband, and if I hadn't I wouldn't have been ready for him. I wouldn't have appreciated it, I would have sabotaged it in some way.

So I wouldn't call it destiny, if you will. Maybe I would look at it more as facing different forks in the road. Sometimes you get your mind going in a certain direction, but other opportunities come along and you just don't see them. For me, it's about recognizing that.

Are bad girls more fun to play than good ones?

They are, but I always approach them with a lot of hesitation because there are so many pitfalls in terms of underplaying it or overplaying it, or playing too much into it and not really finding her humanity. You don't want to just get up and play evil.

In "Stardust," we tried to find, at times, how sad it was for this character to have that moment of recovered youth; to move without pain and look beautiful, and then see that being stripped away. I'm not sure how much of that actually comes through, but you try to sort of sneak those moments in — whilst never forgetting that your primary obligation is to be hated.

"Stardust" is quirky and complicated for a fairy-tale movie. How would you describe it?

It's this really interesting, action/mythic/romance/ adventure movie. It's just all these things rolled into one; it's very hard to describe. It's got an incredible cast and takes place in all of these different worlds. So there are all of these different acting styles, but for once when everyone's in a different movie it actually works for the movie. It's just charming, charming, charming.

And the special effects?

The movie is stunning. It is. I mean, I look hideous, but the movie is beautiful.

Not having to worry about looking beautiful all the time must've been fun.

Not. It's not one bit. You know, the idea of it is really fun. But the reality of (wearing all those old crone appliances) is pretty uncomfortable. I don't want to sound like a big whiner, but it's four to five hours in makeup. And then it's hot and sweaty and it burns a little bit, and then it's an hour to get off and it's literally like peeling a Band-Aid off your skin. Slowly. It's like Chi¬nese water torture. So, I'm glad I did it; I'm not sure how soon I'll be getting back into the prosthetics world.

You took a long breather from Hollywood. What have you been doing?

I've been painting. I don't really like to talk about it because I feel embarrassed. But it's kind of been an on-and-off thing my whole life. The trouble is, when I'm acting I can't paint, and when I paint I get very immersed. I was also, honestly, just very busy with a number of things and not finding anything that prompted me to go back to work. But that was compounded by the fact that I was really immersing myselfin some painting courses. I actually enrolled in an art college. I was just loving it so much that I couldn't breathe.

How do your children feel about what you're up to?

My kids were starting to say, "Mom, are you ever going back to work?" Here I am, thinking I'm making this big sacrifice for my family. I'm like, "What do you mean? Isn't it great? I'm here. Isn't it nice having me home?" And they're like, "Uh, yeah. But we like visiting you at work, too." So I thought, better that they're actually kicking me out of the house than saying, "Where ya been? You're gone all the time."

You really do have a remarkable body of work. Do you ever look at your filmography and go, "Wow"?

I don't really think that way. I'm always charging ahead. I've always been really afraid —and I don't know why this is — to be a person who lives in the past. So I never actually save things like reviews and souve¬nirs. I don't archive things. I just sort of shed it and move on.