PFEIFFER FINDS YOUNG LOVERIN PERIOD ROMANCE
AGE BECOMES HER
MICHELLE PFEIFFER: MY MARRIAGE SECRETS
MICHELLE IS GETTING BETTER WITH AGE
MICHELLE PFEIFFER: REMEMBER HER?
COMEBACK KID
BEAUTIFUL..? SOME DAYS I JUST WANT TO CRAWL UNDER A ROCK
FILMS VIE FOR KEY SLOTS AT CANNES
PSSST! PSSST! JOHN TRAVOLTA IS EDNA TURNBLAD
DE NIRO LATEST FILM IN BRECON BEACONS
MICHELLE PFEIFFER TURNS WITCHY, CLAIRE DANES IS A TRUE HEAVENLY BODY IN "STARDUST"
PFEIFFER TIPPED FOR MAMMA MIA ROLE
MICHELLE PFEIFFER SAYS SHE'S CONSIDERED A FACELIFT
PFEIFFER JOINS CAST OF HAIRSPRAY
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME NAMES 2007 HONOREES
"BOSTON LEGAL" STOPS IN NEW YORK
NOW WITCH SHOES GO WITH THIS?
MICHELLE'S SO IN LOVE
TRANS-GLOBAL HOLDINGS BEGINS CASTING FOR ''LIFE, LOVE AND ROCK AND ROLL''
JOHN TRAVOLTA TO STAR IN 'DALLAS' THE MOVIE
HORSES DRAGGING HOLLYWOOD STARS AWAY FROM ICELAND
10 SEXIEST FILM SCENES EVER...
FIVE JOIN CAST OF ''STARDUST'' FOR PARAMOUNT
THEIR LONG GOODBYE TO BRENTWOOD
WHY MICHELLE WOULD LOVE TO LAUGH AT ED IN BELFAST
MICHELLE PFEIFFER'S ODD LEADING MAN
STAR ESCAPES
BECKHAM TURNS DOWN HOLLYWOOD ROLE
RUBB MAKES DATE WITH PFEIFFER IN ''WOMAN''
7 October 2007
PFEIFFER FINDS YOUNG LOVERIN PERIOD ROMANCE

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Rupert Friend, who captured the heart of Keira Knightley in "Pride & Prejudice," will romance Michelle Pfeiffer in another period drama.

He will play the title character in "Cheri," which is based on French writer Colette's provocative 1920 novel. Stephen Frears ("The Queen") is directing.

Kathy Bates is in final negotiations to play his mother, Madame Peloux, a famed courtesan in 1920s France. Peloux sends the spoiled Cheri to her courtesan pal Lea de Lonval (Pfeiffer) for an adult education, but their six-year affair comes to a painful end when he's forced to marry a wealthy young woman.

Friend will soon be seen courting Emily Blunt as Prince Albert in "The Young Victoria." Bates currently can be seen torturing James Caan in a DirecTV commercial parody of her Oscar-winning "Misery" role.

"Cheri" will reunite "Dangerous Liaisons" partners Pfeiffer, Frears and screenwriter Christopher Hampton. Miramax and Pathe will distribute.

Source: Gregg Goldstein, Reuters, March 17, 2008
 
AGE BECOMES HER

When you’re pushing 50, Hollywood doesn’t want to know – unless, of course, you’re Michelle Pfeiffer. The actress talks beauty, surgery and ageism

When casting his latest film, the director Matthew Vaughn wanted his female baddie to be “absolutely an iconic beauty”. He knew exactly who it should be – a woman he had idolised since he was a teenager. So Vaughn got on a plane, flew to San Francisco, drove out to the chic, rural suburb of Palo Alto – all bookshops, alfresco Italian restaurants and expensive modernism – to the home of the woman whom scientists have described as the apotheosis of feminine facial beauty. She was knocking on the door of 50, taking a long break from work to concentrate on family life – a husband of 14 years and a teenage son and daughter – and keeping horses, miniature donkeys and lots of dogs in the countryside. The role he wanted her to take was that of the evil Lamia, a chillingly powerful witch desperate to find the fallen star (Claire Danes) whose heart holds the key to eternal youth and beauty.

“She’s a universal beauty,” says Vaughn of Pfeiffer. “Now, Angelina Jolie is beautiful, but some people think she isn’t all that. But I have never met anyone who doesn’t think Michelle Pfeiffer is gorgeous.” And I have to agree. Inside a lot of women, there’s a part that is jealous and small, a part that wants Sienna Miller to get fat, Jerry Hall to go bald, supermodels to be stupid and Jolie to take just one bad photograph and keep on with the charity-worker drab. Pfeiffer doesn’t seem to tap this vein, perhaps because she has an elegant indifference to her looks, which has seen her take as many ugly roles as beautiful ones.

We meet in a Palo Alto restaurant, and she is effortlessly pleasant. Slender and chic, she is dressed in a simple dark shirt, slim-fitting jeans (but not skinny – you couldn’t imagine her doing anything so vulgar and try-hard as fashion) and a pair of functional, not statement, sunglasses that she takes off as soon as she meets me. She’s hardly wearing any jewellery; her ears are peppered with homemade holes from a period of rebellious teenage piercing.

So what made her take this role as an ugly, old witch – a part that required her to look like a hag, not to mention pull the horrific visual gag of what time does to a woman’s breasts. For her, the indignity was overridden by “Matthew talking to me about a lot of nuances to the character that weren’t necessarily on the page”.

Because despite being a slapstick, OTT witch, the role of Lamia is actually a wrinkly metaphor for women’s battle against the ageing process. Vaughn says: “This character was inspired by all those women in LA who were once beautiful, and now look like freaks; the fact that the ageing process is scarier than claws and fangs.”

“For women it is!” says Pfeiffer, when I repeat Vaughn’s line to her. “The first time [I saw myself in prosthetic ‘old’ make-up], I literally gasped. I was so distressed, I ran into the bathroom to hide.” She says she looks like a monster, but to be honest, I have seen not dissimilar complexions on those once-beautiful, topless septuagenarians you spot on the beach in St Tropez. The key thing is that while this film deals brilliantly with the magical fantasy realm of Harry Potter, Narnia and its closest relative, the 1980s movie The Princess Bride, the card it deals on ageing is all too real.

Matthew wanted to shine a light on that and poke fun at it,” Pfeiffer says. “To play with our obsession with youth and the ludicrous degrees to which women will go to reclaim it. Lamia’s desperate quest for youth [in the form of eating Danes’s heart] is a metaphor for the grotesque mutilation taking place in society.

“I don’t think anyone is going to be condemned for a little something done here or there, but people have lost sight of what’s beautiful. There’s a lot that you can do surgically and otherwise to make yourself look younger, yes – but not necessarily better. One of the most beautiful women I have seen in my life – still young and truly a beauty – I hate what I have seen happen to her,” she says of a well-known woman she will not name. “It’s like some weird anorexic disease where people don’t see what’s in the mirror.”

A sort of body dysmorphia, something that used to be a mental illness? “Right,” she says, “and now it is a disease of our culture. It just keeps growing. We have less and less to compare it to for our idea of normal. In fact, it’s really hard to even remember what normal is.”

Vaughn’s prosthetics people based Lamia’s ancient body on pictures of 90-year-olds doing yoga naked. “I looked at them and, well, we don’t look good when we get old,” says Vaughn. According to him, women who have seen the movie have “gone bananas” for the ageing horror-comedy played out by Pfeiffer’s character. “They say, ‘At least someone is addressing how we all feel.’ ” Ageing is the new bogeyman. “Look at all the stuff my wife promotes [Claudia Schiffer, who is the face of L’Oréal], I can’t believe it works.”

Pfeiffer says: “I found all this very interesting coming from a man who is married to a young, beautiful model. Someone who I would not imagine is feeling all those age issues yet, but who knows what plays out in the model world.”

Pfeiffer seems remarkably serene about the human body’s inevitable decline, but then she looks astonishing for a 49-year-old. Her eyes have natural creases around them, her nose is her own and there is none of waxy appearance of an overly lasered epidermis. “I don’t do that much to preserve. I used to worship the sun when I was younger – I’m a southern Californian girl, it was all baby oil and beach life – but now I get white spots, so I stay out of the sun. I really have to. And, you know, I read about some miracle product and think, ‘I should try that, it’s going to be great. I’m going to get that cream,’ and sometimes I go out and buy it, but I forget to use it after two weeks, or I get a rash.”

She shows me her nails, and they are all random lengths, a couple of them a bit grubby, no polish. “I can go months, years without a mani. I never pluck my eyebrows. The make-up artists shape them only when I am doing publicity. I don’t get my hair cut between films, just when I work and I have to. As far as body maintenance goes, I do eat well and I exercise. I go at it hardcore in my gym, but that’s it.”

As Vaughn says: “She’s ageing gracefully. People who age gracefully look so much better.” He says that he loved working with Pfeiffer, having admired her since her two breakthrough films of the early 1980s. “I loved Grease 2 when I was a pent-up teenager; I loved Scarface,” he says. “I was obsessed with her as a kid. She’s one of my top two all-time great beauties. No 1 being my wife, obviously – I have to say that.”

In the past, Pfeiffer has been quoted, like every other actress of her generation, complaining about the lack of decent parts for older actresses. Demi Moore, five years her junior, is rumoured to have spent £250,000 on youth-preserving surgical procedures and still says she struggles to get good roles in a youth-obsessed Hollywood. Post The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep, 58, threatened to retire if the industry didn’t start producing better, more complex roles for women than the “dragons or gorgons” she describes as the norm.

“The whole idea of [Lamia] ageing as she loses her magic powers is an obvious allegory for not just the Hollywood system, but how women’s power is tied in with their appearance,” says Pfeiffer. In the days of Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, things may change – Pfeiffer acknowledges that as more women rise to power in the movie business, more interesting female roles are emerging.

“I’ve defied the obsession with looks in this industry and not allowed it to shape me,” she says. “I’ve always known beauty is fleeting; I have a fear of living in the past. I don’t have any awards I’ve won anywhere in the house, I don’t pine for some moment when I was at the top of my career, or a way I used to look. I try to live in the present. It’s a real trap in our industry – women who have the same hairstyle as when they were at their so-called peak. People get stuck in their time. I’ve spent most of my life not thinking about my looks and it has served me really well.”

Stardust is in cinemas nationwide from October 19

Source: Kate Spicer , The Sunday Times, October 7, 2007
 
23 September 2007
MICHELLE PFEIFFER: MY MARRIAGE SECRETS
Pfeiffer tops list of beautiful women
As she approaches 50, Michelle Pfeiffer pays far more attention to the lines of a script than the few that exist on her timelessly beautiful face. It's no wonder, then, that playing her latest role, Velma Von Tussle, a vain stage mother in the movie adaptation of Hairspray, was a big stretch. Not that she wasn't up to the challenge.

Off set, the three-time Oscar-nominated star is one of the most hands-on mothers in Hollywood, not to mention a devoted wife to husband of 14 years David E. Kelley, a TV writer/producer who's hit shows include Ally McBeal and Boston Public.

Michelle adopted her now 14-year-old daughter, Claudia Rose, just before she met David. She gave birth to their son John Henry, 13, less than a year after they married. While she and her brood live far from the bright lights of Tinseltown, she's more than comfortable being back on the big screen after three years away.

What were your first impressions of your husband David?

We got off to a rocky start. I thought he was attractive, but that was almost a detriment at that point. I wasn't into cute. Fortunately, he had a couple of good scars on his face, and he'd broken his nose once playing football. That got me through. We had a bigger problem with conversation; he was quiet and so was I. We really had to work at it because we're so much alike that way. In fact, when his agent heard we were dating, he asked David, "What's she like?" When David answered, "She's real quiet",' his agent said, "Then who talks?" But now we've discovered we can both talk a good argument. I thank God I met David when I did because I wouldn't have been right for him any earlier. I just wasn't evolved enough as a human being. David was the healthiest person I'd ever dated. He's really grounded.

What's the secret of your 14-year marriage?
I think compatibility is important, and respect. Because that's sexy to me. We're both homebodies. I'm not sure about the opposites thing. It may attract initially, but it's what eventually breaks people apart. We love being parents. He has a wonderful family and a real feel for family, as do I. We're similar in our approach to everything, and he's romantic and cute to boot.

Where people surprised you can sing and dance, as you do in Hairspray?
I sang in The Fabulous Baker Boys and I sang and danced in Grease 2 — so it shouldn't come as a huge surprise. But I'm better known for my dramatic roles. I like playing trashy girls, though, like I did in Grease 2.

That's despite the fact you're really shy?
I've always been shy. I used to be paralysed when I had to make small talk. I was the kind of person who entered a room, found the nearest corner and hoped no-one noticed me before it was time to go home. Now I'm better at socialising.

Are you into the 60s fashion from the movie that's becoming popular again?
Fashion is so confused today. I don't even know what to say about it. You can see it's just like leftovers or something. I'm not loving it right now.

Does fashion interest you still?
You know, honestly, that era (the '60s) is not my favourite for women. I think the clothes are beautiful, but when I look at women back then, all I can think of is how uncomfortable they look. Everything is so fitted, so pressed. The make-up is so heavy and the hair is all sprayed and the clip-on earrings, the shoes. It just looks like it hurts — and it did.

Your character in Hairspray is racist. Was that a challenge?

It was hard. That was the hardest thing. I've played some evil characters before. I've played some killers and I signed on to do this … then one day it registered, oh my God I'm playing a racist. I understood that the message of the piece was really important and certainly it's about anti-racism and anti-bigotry. I had to talk to the kids. I wanted to make sure they understood that, look, this is what the movie's about. It's a really important movie and in order to do a movie about racism, somebody has got to be the racist and it's me. They were OK, they got it and I'm so glad I did it because I had a lot of fun playing the part, even though there were some lines I honestly couldn't remember because they were so hateful.

How do you feel about how you are perceived in Hollywood?

I was always the biggest girl in my class. I was always taller than the boys and considered large-boned. That's why it's always surprising for me when I hear myself described by adjectives like "delicate" and "fine-featured", because I'll always think of myself as that big-boned girl.

Does motherhood affect your career choices?
Yes, as a mother I relate to different projects than before.

Do your children see your films?
I showed them Grease 2 and they got bored with it. Most of my movies aren't suited for kids. And I'm pretty strict about television, so they don't really come across my movies.

You sold your estate in LA for $19million and moved to a sprawling ranch outside the city with a menagerie that includes numerous dogs, a cat, a pair of miniature donkeys and horses. Has the change helped your family life?
I think it helps a little bit, but then again, it's not just living outside Hollywood. You can pick a worse place than Hollywood (laughs). I think it's helped us as a family to be less distracted, and David and I to be less distractive as parents, even though I think we were pretty good when we lived there. I think we wanted to have more land and we wanted to have animals on our property and you couldn't do that there. So I think it's just a different kind of lifestyle we were looking for.

When did you stop smoking?
Fifteen years ago. I used to smoke three packs a day. Not good.

What's your attitude to plastic surgery?
I guess as long as people keep saying I've had it, I can continue to put it off for a few more years. I'm hoping I'm courageous enough to age gracefully. So much of the way I look depends on the photographer. I think the years have been kind to me, but I know they're taking their toll. For a while, it seemed like the only actress who was ageing gracefully was Susan Sarandon. But now, thank God, look at Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep and Catherine Deneuve.

Would you ever go under the knife?
If I did, I wouldn't tell. I'm very near-sighted and that makes ageing easier. I can't see what I really look like. I can't see anything!
Source: Woman's Day magazine, September 17, 2007
 
2 September 2007
MICHELLE IS GETTING BETTER WITH AGE
Pfeiffer tops list of beautiful women
London: Actress Michelle Pfeiffer has topped a list of women who get more beautiful with age.

Pfeiffer, 49, beat the likes of supermodel Cindy Crawford and actress Ellen Barkin, contactmusic.com reported.

Crawford, 41, and Barkin, 53, came in second and third respectively in the poll by OK! magazine.

Sixty-year-old actress Glen Close, who starred in Fatal Attraction, and Desperate Housewives star Marcia Cross, 45, finished fourth and fifth.

DOUGHNUT DIET FOR PFEIFFER

However, Pfeiffer insists there is no big secret to keeping in shape and admits she indulges her craving for calorific treats whenever she feels like it.

She said: “It’s simple. Eat well, exercise and get lots of sleep but make sure you indulge occasionally. At my age I think, what the hell, and eat a Krispy Kreme doughnut!”

Sugary snacks are not the only junk food Pfeiffer — who famously donned a skin-tight PVC catsuit to play super-villain Catwoman in Batman Returns — likes to gorge on.

She added: “My other thing is crunchy, salty food. I love chips, salsa and guacamole.”

Pfeiffer also has some words of advice for any women who are stressing about their weight or considering going under the surgeon’s knife to change their appearance.

She said: “I don’t believe men want women to have grotesque plastic surgery or be undernourished and bony. All the plastic surgery in the world can’t stop you getting older.”
Source: Mumbai News
 
9 August 2007
MICHELLE PFEIFFER: REMEMBER HER?
After nearly five years away, Michelle Pfeiffer is relishing her villainous roles.
Michelle Pfeiffer had no intention of spending nearly five years away from the silver screen.

"You know," the 49-year-old actress says matter-of-factly, "it just happened."

A few years ago, Pfeiffer, her über-TV-producer husband David E. Kelley and their children, Claudia Rose, 14, and Jack Henry, 13, relocated from Los Angeles to Northern California.

"I think it was a big venture relocating," she offers. "I had been reading things. It wasn't like I made a conscious decision to not work. Honestly, just four years went by."

Actually, Pfeiffer did return to work two years ago in Amy Heckerling's May-December romantic comedy, "I Could Never Be Your Woman," but its release has been held up because of distribution problems. It's now scheduled to arrive in theaters in November.

In the meantime, Pfeiffer seems to be everywhere this summer. She does a delicious comedic turn as the villainous former beauty queen Velma Von Tussle in the musical comedy "Hairspray" and plays a ruthless, decrepit witch named Lamia who seeks to regain her youth in the fantasy "Stardust," opening Friday.

Though there is a maturity to her beauty these days, Pfeiffer is still stunning. So much so that one can't escape feeling like the country cousin who just arrived in the big city to meet their glamorous relative. She's tall and whippet-slender. Dressed in blue jeans and a crisp white shirt, Pfeiffer seems at ease with her beauty and comes across as down-to-earth. After all, the former Orange County resident used to work as a checker at Vons before she turned to acting.

During her hiatus, says the three-time Oscar nominee, "I may very well have been reading good scripts and I wasn't inclined to say 'yes.' Maybe I needed a break. I think how long I have been working. . . . I have been working since I was 14. I have really never taken a break. I think maybe my psyche was just telling me not to work for a while."

Not that she was idle. Pfeiffer labored full-time as a wife and mother. "People have been asking me what I have been doing the past few years. I have hardly come up for a breath," she reports. "It's all the mundane stuff. I try to be everywhere all the time. Of course, we know that's impossible, but I am going to make it work . . . damn it!"

Though she does have help, both she and Kelley agreed that they never wanted their children raised by nannies. While making "Stardust" in London last summer, the children came with her. "They had never been to Europe," she says. "When I did 'Hairspray,' I was able to come back and forth because it was during the school year."

And last month, her children finally accompanied her to a premiere for "Hairspray."

"I'm so glad I waited for that to be kind of their introduction [to the limelight]. It was such a perfect movie to share with them. I am excited about them seeing 'Stardust.' It's fun for me that they are at that age now that I can share my work with them and I don't have to decompartmentalize it and protect them from it."

Pfeiffer admits she felt rusty when she started to film the Heckerling comedy. But by the time she finished "Stardust," "I felt all cylinders were going again and I realized I still love doing this. I feel like I have come to a peace with the balance of work and being a mom."

Besides, Pfeiffer adds, she loves to work. "I can't ever imagine retiring. I don't get why somebody would want to look forward to retirement. What are you going to do?"

In "Stardust," Lamia attempts to capture the incarnation of a celestial star (Claire Danes) in order to cut out her heart, thus restoring the witch's youth and beauty. Pfeiffer was drawn to the project because of director Matthew Vaughn. She'd seen his gangster film "Layer Cake" and was impressed that "he took a relatively simple movie and brought a specific style to it and put his stamp on it."

She was equally impressed meeting him. "He literally had the entire movie in a big binder," Pfeiffer says. "He had already begun to storyboard, so I could really get a strong idea of his vision of the film and also the direction he wanted to take his character."

As Lamia, Pfeiffer had to endure 4 1/2 hours of makeup to become a sagging, liver-spotted, hairless harpy. It was so grueling, she welcomed the scenes depicting the younger Lamia.

"Normally, if I am doing a kind of glamour thing, it is like, 'Here we go, having to look perfect. They are going to fuss with me.' I hate being fussed with," the actress says. "But the interesting thing was after having been the hag, which is so high-maintenance, the glamour stuff was like being natural. It was like a relief to be glamorous."
Source: by Susan King, LAtimes.com
 
5 August 2007
COMBACK KID
After five years, Michelle Pfeiffer is back on screen in two new films.

NEW YORK -- "I missed being on the screen," says Michelle Pfeiffer, nibbling on a pistachio. "I just didn't realize how much."

For five years, though -- ever since "White Oleander" in 2002 -- Pfeiffer didn't appear in a movie. She didn't officially retire; she still looked at scripts and, in 2003, contributed a voice to a cartoon, "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas." But she never went before a camera or stepped on a stage.

"It just sort of happened," she explains. "We moved" -- Pfeiffer is married to TV mogul David E. Kelley, with whom she has two teenagers -- "and that was a job. And I have a lot of other interests, and the time just flew by."

Until suddenly it was five years.

"Actually, I was beginning to worry that I didn't miss it," she confesses during an interview in a Manhattan hotel. "I began to think, 'This isn't like me, not to need to go back to work, I'm a worker, I've always been a worker, I love what I do. Maybe I don't love this anymore. I should be missing this -- what's wrong with me?'" And then she got the script for "Stardust," a romantic fantasy opening this Friday. And then she got the script for "Hairspray," currently a sunny summer hit. And suddenly just staying home, and working out, and snuggling up with Kelley on the couch to watch television didn't seem like quite enough.

"And once I stepped back on the soundstage," she says, "it felt right."

Right, but also different. For years, Pfeiffer, 49, had put her talent and looks in the service of serious dramas -- "Dangerous Liaisons," "Love Field," "The Age of Innocence," "A Thousand Acres," "The Deep End of the Ocean." Her characters were often frustrated, her enormous eyes frequently red-rimmed with tears. And when I first interviewed her, 10 years ago, she seemed less than happy, too -- a little tense, a little impatient, a little distant.

"Michelle Pfeiffer has been a dozen different women on the screen," I wrote then. "She looks as though she wishes she were one of them now."

Today, though, Pfeiffer seems perfectly happy with who she is in every way -- calmer, cooler, more content. And the new features she's promoting tap into a sexy, silly side of her little seen since she last slithered through "Batman Returns" in a vacuum-packed catsuit, or wailed her way through "Grease 2." In "Hairspray," she's a monster mother; in "Stardust," she's a scheming, looks-obsessed witch.

"I had so much fun," Pfeiffer says. "'Stardust' really got me charged up, just from an acting point of view -- I got all cylinders going again."

"I think she was really reveling in her role as an evil witch," says Claire Danes, who plays the movie's spunky heroine. "It was a great display of imagination. I think she's just an electric performer anyway, but she really pushed herself."

No one would have said that about her growing up. Pfeiffer was raised in Southern California, and lived an unremarkable Southern California life -- going to the beach, rolling her eyes through high school, ringing up avocadoes at the local Von's supermarket ("I've been in the workforce since I was 14"). Nothing made much of an impression.

And then she discovered acting.

"I first enrolled in a drama class because I hated English, and I could get the English credit by doing plays," she said. "I thought that was very clever of me, but that was really it -- I'd always felt that the drama people were kind of geeky. And not only did I fall in love with acting, but I fell in love with an actor who I dated for two years -- and that was when the bug first bit me. And when I got out of school I decided to just do it."

And suddenly a curtain went up.

"Growing up, I never felt like I belonged anywhere," she says. "And suddenly there were people around me who were of like mind, it felt like home."

With straight blonde hair, bright blue eyes and cheekbones you could whet a knife on, Pfeiffer didn't spend much time struggling. Barely 20, she landed a recurring part on TV's "Animal House" knockoff, "Delta House," playing "The Bombshell." Decorative parts in shows like "Fantasy Island" and movies like "Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen" soon followed.

Within two years, she'd notched a dozen credits. But if her agent was thrilled, the actress was terrified she was in over her head.

"I was so nervous and scared, because I knew that I was getting work before my skills were where I wanted them to be," she says. "The confidence was incremental ... There was never really any one film where I thought, OK, I've finally gotten this down. I still don't."

"Scarface," in 1983, established her as a screen presence, but it also froze her into a pose -- the icy, almost-too-perfect love object. It took Jonathan Demme's "Married to the Mob" five years later -- with Pfeiffer hidden under a mop of dark curls as Angie de Marco, struggling widow of mobster "Cucumber" de Marco -- to prove that she wasn't a beauty who happened to act, but an actress who happened to be a beauty.

"I'm still so indebted to Jonathan for believing I could do that movie," she says. "That role was a huge departure for me, and it shook people up and made it difficult for them to typecast me. I never wanted to just do the parts that were expected of me. I never wanted to just be the pretty girl in the room."

She knew she had been, though, and she knew to some people she always would. She's been in this business too long to think the public finds self-pity attractive -- there'll be no don't-hate-me-because-I'm-beautiful pleas. Still, she acknowledges that good looks make it easier to find jobs than to get respect.

"I've always felt I had to be better than others in order to prove myself," she says. "I'm less likely to be acknowledged for accomplishment, more likely to be criticized if I make a false move ... Now, though, things seem to be more youth-obsessed, as opposed to beauty. Which is one of the things I liked about 'Stardust,' that it poked fun at that."

"When we talked about the script, we were really laughing about some of these people in Hollywood, and their quest for eternal youth," director Matthew Vaughn says. "Michelle really got the comedy of it."

In "Stardust", Pfeiffer is a crone who can only recover her youth by consuming the heart of a star that fell to earth -- personified by Danes. In real life, though, Pfeiffer -- while strikingly thin -- doesn't look like some shellacked Rodeo Drive matron. Her body remains unplumped by silicone. A few fine lines accentuate her eyes.

They've seen a lot. When "Married to the Mob" finally broke her out of the beauty trap, Pfeiffer pushed herself hard. She was an untrustworthy French noblewoman in "Dangerous Liaisons," a smoky jazz chanteuse in "The Fabulous Baker Boys," a Kennedy-era matron in "Love Field," a bottled-up lady in "The Age of Innocence," a tough ghetto teacher in "Dangerous Minds."

None of them was a simple "beautiful-girl-in-the-room" part. None of them was an easy movie to get made, either.

"'Love Field' was made right before Orion closed its doors and it sat on the shelf for the longest time," she says. "We were lucky it even got released . 'Dangerous Minds,' we had one screening and it didn't go so well. The studio was really ready to just write it off. And then it came out, and it was killed by the critics -- just killed. The day it was released I was home in bed, really depressed. But in the end it turned out to be this huge hit."

It was one of the last ones Pfeiffer would have. "Up Close & Personal" -- yet another re-do of "A Star Is Born" -- didn't excite audiences. "A Thousand Acres" -- a personal project Pfeiffer shepherded to the screen -- was wracked by disputes and re-edits, leading to those glum interviews ten years ago.

"I learned way too much about the inside working of things," Pfeiffer says now. "'What do you mean it's two days before the opening and you already know how much the movie's going to gross? That's crazy!' I found out I really didn't like the business side of it ... I don't have my production company anymore, and I really don't miss it."

The business side of it, though, can still flummox her. A can't-fail romantic comedy she made with George Clooney, "One Fine Day," abruptly tanked -- "I think they teach that one now in classrooms on how not to market a movie," she says. Another romance, "I Could Never Be Your Woman" -- "I've actually lost track of what's happening with that one" -- has had its release repeatedly delayed. (It's now scheduled for September.)

"I've learned you need to just do the work and then let it go," she says. "I didn't at the beginning of my career and it just got too frustrating ... Ultimately, I think, you just have to focus on the part. Whatever havoc is happening around you -- and I've been on films where there's a constant storm -- you just have to concentrate on that. And if you've taken the part for all the right reasons that will get you through."

After five years off the screen, though -- and a decade of mostly not-quite-there films -- Pfeiffer is back, and less likely to be disappointed again.

Much of that, she says, comes from a new outlook.

"I think I used to be too much about work," she says. "Not that I didn't care about my friends -- actually I don't have that many friends, I'm not known for my huge social life -- but I really was putting all my eggs in that one basket. Having a family helped me change that ... I think doing both really makes me a better mother. And I have more fun working because the stakes are no longer so high."

So she's spending time with her teenagers. She's cocooning at home with her husband, most often catching reruns of all the shows -- "Boston Legal," "The Practice" and "Ally McBeal" among them -- he's brought to TV.

"He writes women really so beautifully," his wife gushes. "I watch them do these wonderful speeches and I turn to him and say, ' I hope they appreciate you!'"

She's reading scripts again, too -- "It won't be another five years before I do a movie, I promise." But now that she has taken the time off, she's realized that the world doesn't end when she's not on the set. And she knows that however well or poorly the movie turns out, she always has another role waiting for her at home -- and another opportunity, somewhere down the road, in a another film.

"I always had the feeling that I really don't know what I'm doing and that one day they're going to discover what a fraud I am," she says. "And that's never really left me. I still think I'm going to be found out. But it's just that, lately, I've learned how to have fun with it. I've found a balance. And if they find me out now -- well, so what?"

Source: by Stephen Whitty, Star-Ledger Staff (NJ.com)
 
16 June 2007
BEAUTIFUL..? SOME DAYS I JUST WANT TO CRAWL UNDER A ROCK
Michelle Pfeiffer admits it's hard to see her stunning looks fade but she is relishing her screen return

AT the age of 48, she admits she has achieved everything she ever hoped for.

Yet, this year Michelle Pfeiffer has put her family life on hold for two films. In Stardust she plays an evil sorceress in a fantasy epic with Robert De Niro, Claire Danes and Sienna Miller.

But before that she stars opposite John Travolta in the all-singing, all-dancing movie Hairspray, where she plays former beauty queen Velma von Tussel.

John Travolta will play the downtrodden housewife Edna Turnblad and Queen Latifah is Motormouth Maybelle, a civil rights activist and TV host.

The film is a musical version of a 1988 picture about teenagers on a Baltimore dance show - and a blast from the past for real-life former beauty queen Michelle, who held the title of Miss Orange County almost 30 years ago.

"Honestly, I don't feel older," said Michelle.

But age catches up even with superstars - in the form of fine lines, and a serious glasses habit.

Without her lemon-tinted specs, Michelle says she's blind as a bat but growing old gracefully remains one of her goals.

"I certainly see that I've changed. I just try not to dwell on it. Now it's easier than it was in my early 40s," she said. "I'm over that hump. Ageing happens to every single one of us. Once you accept that, it unburdens you."

Yet she admits she's thought about plastic surgery.

"I toy with it. When I'm rested, taking good care of myself, exercising, happy, I think I look pretty OK. I can hold off on that facelift for another few years. But when I'm feeling weary, then I think, maybe I better make that appointment.

"On the one hand, I've seen some amazing-looking plastic surgery. But who knows if that's what you'll get? There are some freakish things going on right now."

In an industry where being beautiful is almost a pre-requisite, Michelle insists she had to work harder in the beginning because people always assumed all she had going for her was herlooks.

Even after almost 20 years and some 30 films, Michelle still admits to feeling insecure about how good an actress she really is - despite three Oscar nominations.

"I always think that I'm going to be found out on the next one," she admitted. "I always think they'll go, 'She's really bad at this'."

And the sultry star is uncomfortable with the glamorous image that had men swooning over her singing Making Whoopee on top of a grand piano in The Fabulous Baker Boys, moodily snarling at a hostile class of ghetto kids in Dangerous Minds and clad in skin-tight black leather as Catwoman in Batman Returns.

"I look good with the right lighting. But you should see me when I'm at home, painting and there's sweat dripping down, and paint on my upper lip," said Michelle. Her Hair-spray character never stops reminding everyone of her beauty queen past - but Michelle says she has done everything in her power to bury her beauty myth.

Not until Jonathan Demme cast her in Married To The Mob in 1988 did Hollywood begin to see her as more than just another pretty face.

Michelle insists her early days in acting were a battle against typecasting. "I got a lot of, 'You know, sorry, you're too pretty'," she said.

Michelle famously rejected leading roles in the movies Basic Instinct, Silence of the Lambs, Sleepless in Seattle and Thelma & Louise.

"I learned quickly that part of how you look is how you are cast," she explained. "It's damaging if you grow up being told you're beautiful, because that becomes a part of how you see yourself.

"There are definitely times when I feel beautiful but, at times, I want to crawl under a rock. And some days, I get mad. The older I get, the more gracefully I handle it but, some days, it just bugs me.

" I actually said to a woman the other day, 'Are you going to stare at me all evening?' I was upset about what was going on in the world and my defences were down, and it just came out. Anyway, it passed and I felt kind of shameful."

Over the years there have been other, younger leading ladies - but Nicole Kidman does not have Michelle's cool sexiness or Julia Roberts her sculpted beauty.

These days, however, Hollywood takes second place to her family.

Indeed, Michelle no longer lives in Hollywood but quietly at the other end of California with her husband, David E. Kelley, their son John Henry, 12, and adopted daughter, Claudia Rose, 14.

In fact, when her children started school, she said she had to confess she was quite a famous actress, so they would be prepared for classmates talking about her movies.

Her homelife is a cross between domestic goddess and zookeeper. The family have three dogs, a cat, tree frog, horses and a pair of miniature donkeys.

"They suffer from depression if they're alone, so we had to get two," said Michelle. "They're pretty darn cute, these tiny things with enormous eyes and huge ears. They're smaller than the dog."

Growing up in a small town in California, Michelle always felt like a fish out of water. The eldest daughter of an air-conditioning businessman and his wife, she studied to be a court reporter and even thought about becoming a psychiatrist.

Instead, she started a series of part-time jobs when she was only 14 and said she remembers thinking, "This is my life and I hate it - what am I going to do?"

In 1977, she summoned the courage to have professional photos taken. Next thing she knew, she had won the 1978 Miss Orange County contest, got an agent and made her television debut in late 1978 with an episode on the popular series Fantasy Island.

She married actor Peter Horton in 1981, but the couple broke up seven years later.

After a three-year romance with toyboy Fisher Stevens, she didn't want to wait for a husband to start a family, so she adopted Claudia Rose.

"I think she was an angel," Michelle says of her daughter, whom she brought home in March 1993. "From the day I started waiting for her to come, I've had a completely different life."

Michelle met writer David E. Kelley, the creator of Ally McBeal and The Practice, shortly after the adoption went through. The pair went bowling with a gang of mutual pals and the attraction was instant.

They married in November 1993 and had Jack the following August.

Despite Hollywood's endless fascination with youth, she says that right now things couldn't be better personally and professionally.

"I think that even though the roles might be fewer, I think they're better and I think I enjoy the work more than I ever have," she said.

"And this whole kind of youth thing comes in cycles, you kind of wait it through and then people are ready for something new."

Adding: "Or something old."

Source: bySiobhan Synnot (The Daily Record)
 
18 February 2007
PFEIFFER: DON'T HATE ME BECAUSE I'M BEAUTIFUL
Michelle Pfeiffer might be closing in on 50, but you wouldn't know it from the new issue of Allure magazine.

The actress is as gorgeous as ever - and she talks about how her beauty has been as much a curse as a blessing.

In an interview with Judy Bacharach, Pfeiffer recalls the heat she took for playing a frowsy waitress opposite Al Pacino in the 1991 film "Frankie and Johnny."

"That was one of our biggest criticisms: that you couldn't believe me in the part," she said. "And my argument is always, 'You know everyone can be damaged. And pretty people can be just as damaged as ugly people or fat people.'"

"It was harder for me to get a good part. When I went into an audition, I had to be better because I was beautiful."

Pfeiffer turns 49 in April and though she appears untouched by the ravages of time, she does note that roles for women in the over-40 category are scarce.

Source: by Don Singleton (New York Daily)
 
15 February 2007
FILMS VIE FOR KEY SLOTS AT CANNES

PARIS (Hollywood Reporter) - As the Berlin International Film Festival winds down, attention is beginning to focus on the Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off May 16.

After the poor reception given to last year's opener "The Da Vinci Code," pressure is on to find a more crowd-pleasing title for the 60th edition. One option is the hugely ambitious documentary "Earth," which offers a dazzling look at natural life on the planet.

"We're already speaking to Cannes about being the opening film," said Sophokles Tasioulis of Greenlight Media, which co-produced the movie with the BBC.

A more conventional contender is "Ocean's Thirteen" from Palme d'Or winner Steven Soderbergh. That would allow for a top-flight red-carpet gala given that the all-star cast is headed by George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and Al Pacino.

The Iraq-themed movie "The Valley of Elah," written and directed by Paul Haggis and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and James Franco, also is in the running. "It's not out of the question," a source said.

Although it is too early for titles to have received any locked-down slots, artistic director Thierry Fremaux looks to have a good choice of titles from the U.S. and France.

Among the former is Cannes golden boy Quentin Tarantino's exploitation double-feature "Grind House," co-directed with Robert Rodriguez.

A more conventional contender is "Ocean's Thirteen" from Palme d'Or winner Steven Soderbergh. That would allow for a top-flight red-carpet gala given that the all-star cast is headed by George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and Al Pacino.

The Iraq-themed movie "The Valley of Elah," written and directed by Paul Haggis and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and James Franco, also is in the running. "It's not out of the question," a source said.

Although it is too early for titles to have received any locked-down slots, artistic director Thierry Fremaux looks to have a good choice of titles from the U.S. and France.

"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" is one possibility for an out of competition slot. The fantasy adventure "Stardust," starring Claire Danes, Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer, also might show up. "Spider-Man 3" is thought unlikely because it bows in the U.S. on May 4 ahead of the festival. Despite early speculation that DreamWorks' "Shrek the Third" would make the trip -- following in the footsteps of its predecessors -- the odds seem to be lengthening.

The Coen brothers' adventure drama "No Country for Old Men," starring Jones, should be ready, as should Palme d'Or winner Gus van Sant's French-backed "Paranoid Park."

But selectors might be wary of criticisms about packing the lineup with familiar faces.

Among the former is Cannes golden boy Quentin Tarantino's exploitation double-feature "Grind House," co-directed with Robert Rodriguez.

Woody Allen's "Cassandra's Dreams," shot in London and Brighton and starring Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell and Michelle Williams, and Francis Ford Coppola's "Youth Without Youth" also are possibilities.

The documentary possibilities include the Leonardo DiCaprio-produced "11th Hour," a sort of survival guide for the global environment, and Michael Moore's "Sicko," an expose of the U.S. health-care system.

Source: by Charles Masters (Reuters/Hollywood Reporter)
 
30 October 2006
PSSST! PSSST! JOHN TRAVOLTA IS EDNA TURNBLAD
TORONTO — In the wee hours of Saturday morning on the soundstages of the new movie version of Hairspray, the fat lady sang. Or at least lip-synched to a pre-recorded track.

And then it was over for John Travolta. The Grease star wrapped his return to the musical genre.

Travolta said goodbye to the generously proportioned Edna Turnblad — the same role created by the late Divine in the 1988 John Waters film and by Tony winner Harvey Fierstein in the smash Broadway show. Travolta's version is expected in theaters next summer.

"It's good," said the exhausted actor of finally being freed of Edna's cumbersome body. "The effect that I caused is fun and all, but it's a lot of work, man."

Travolta, 52, spent the past week filming the grand finale, YouCan't Stop the Beat, with Michelle Pfeiffer as Velma Von Tussle, Christopher Walken as hubby Wilbur and bubbly newcomer Nikki Blonsky, 17, as Edna's daughter. While that scene caps Travolta's involvement, the film's shoot continues through early December.

Travolta wanted to make Edna sexier and real, not a campy drag act. That required four hours of prep time before putting in eight hours of performing in padding and silicone prosthetics.

"You feel like you are coming out of a prison. It's such a relief to get air again to the skin and breathe again," he says. It's the first time in his long career that he has played a woman, save for doing Barbra Streisand on Saturday Night Live.

Becoming Edna was an eye-opener. "I thought, 'My God, how do women do that?' I know my mother had a girdle, bra and sometimes a cinch, but wow. How do they ever endure stockings and high heels? The discomfort level was astonishing.

"When you have all that dancing to do and a level to live up to, you just go for it and forget the suit. But when that number is over, you're gasping. It may be called You Can't Stop the Beat, but I call it You Can't Find Your Breath."

Travolta isn't exactly breathing easy over his next project, a big-screen adaptation of TV soap Dallas, which was to start filming next month but is delayed until January. He'll still play wily J.R. Ewing. But other actors previously attached, including Jennifer Lopez as Sue Ellen, Luke Wilson as brother Bobby and Shirley MacLaine as Miss Ellie, are gone.

"They did this survey thing, I guess," Travolta explains. "They liked me as J.R. and loved the title of Dallas. But they want to see me with comedians around me, to make sure it is a comedy."

The good news is, viewers are hog wild over the trailer for Wild Hogs, his March comedy co-starring William H. Macy, Martin Lawrence and Tim Allen as cross-country motorcyclists. Says Travolta, "The coming attraction scored the highest in Disney's history."

Source: Susan Wloszczyna, USA TODAY
 
29 October 2006
DE NIRO LATEST FILM IN BRECON BEACONS

THERE may not have been any Raging Bulls, but there were plenty of sheep to watch Oscar- winning legend Robert De Niro filming his brand new movie in the Brecon Beacons.

The Taxi Driver star is said to have swapped the Hollywood hills for the high peaks of mid-Wales for his role as swashbuckling 'sky pirate' Captain Shakespeare in a major new fantasy blockbuster called Stardust.

Adapted from Neil Gaiman's best-selling fantasy novel, the flick also features a glittering cast of Tinseltown royalty like Peter O'Toole and Michelle Pfeiffer, not to mention the first foray into moviedom by The Office funnyman Ricky Gervais.

Despite production details being kept tightly under wraps, we can reveal Stardust tells the tale of a young man who promises his beloved that he'll retrieve a fallen star by venturing into a magical realm where he encounters Pfeiffer's evil witch and De Niro's pirate.

Meanwhile, Gervais - who admits spending the duration of his main scene in the movie trying to make his hero De Niro laugh - has described his character of Ferdy The Fence as a "kind of Never Never Land Arthur Daley".

The cast and crew spent a week during this summer on location shooting around Llyn Y Fan Fach, a 20,000-year-old glacial lake near Ystradfellte in the breathtaking National Park.

The stretch of water - whose name translates to 'small lake of the peaks' - was chosen due to it's mythical connections, shrouded as it is in Celtic legend and purported to be the location where the lady of the lake handed the sword Excalibur to King Arthur.

The movie's director and producer Matthew Vaughan, who worked with Guy Ritchie on Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels and is married to supermodel Claudia Schiffer, was full of praise for the National Park's stunning scenery.

He said: "The Brecon Beacons is a hidden gem and just a fantastic location for us to film Stardust. Its dramatic landscape and sweeping views were just perfect for us and made it a pleasure to shoot there."

Stardust, produced by Paramount Pictures, will hit British cinemas next summer.

A spokeswoman for the film giant said: "The stars of Stardust did descend on Wales for filming duri