 And
Isabeau D'Anjou
was some character. Pfeiffer
was still knee deep in Elvira
type scripts when along came a fairytale.
Director producer Richard
Donner who had helmed the original
Christopher Reeve
Superman
in 1978 and would go on to make the runaway
box office bandit series of Lethal
Weapon films, plunged into medieval
myth for Ladyhawke,
which began production in 1983 but was
not released until 1985. It was the first
important film of the genre since Excalibur
in 1981, which starred Nigel
Terry, Nicol
Williamson and Helen
Mirren. The market seemed ready
for another.
And it provided Pfeiffer
with a role that was altogether something
completely different. It's something she
felt would fly. But she wasn't sure. She
hesitated. Was it something she should
be doing?
 Two
major film studios, 20th
Century Fox and Warner
Brothers, got together to finance
Donner's
$18 million version of the romantic thirteenth
century legend, in which lovers are cursed
by an evil bishop to be 'always together,
eternally apart'. Dutch actor Rutger
Hauer was cast by Donner
as the dashing if brooding knight in black
armour riding a black stallion by day.
By night the evil spell cast him as a
prowling wolf. Pfeiffer
took the role of Isabeau, a beauty of
the night who by day soared into the skies
as a hawk. As Donner
saw it: 'It's adventurous,
outrageously romantic and pure escapism,
which I prefer to films that set out to
show how dull everyday life is and generally
succeed.'
Pfeiffer
almost passed on the film. As she saw
it she didn't want to 'play
this little princess running around in
the woods'. But then she talked
to Donner,
who is a blustery, confident and persuasive
man.
 'I
spoke with Dick
Donner, and he said that wasn't
how he saw my character. He wanted to
cut my hair off real short like Joan of
Arc, and I thought that was an interesting
idea.
'And I just loved
the script so much. It was one of the
most charming, sweet scripts I'd ever
read. But I wasn't sure I wanted to do
it until I talked to Dick. His background
in special effects convinced me it would
be done well.
'The hardest part of
the movie was the start. When I first
read it I thought: I can do this. Then
came the awful realization: I don't know
anything about this part.'
Back to the Method. The Al
Pacino wondering. There's some
silliness in even 'wondering' for this
character how could anyone know what it's
like to be a woman by night and a hawk
by day? It had only been what would seem
like moments ago that she was a supermarket
check out girl. Yes, she had gone through
acting classes and appeared in a couple
of films and on television. But does that
prepare you to search for the motivation
for playing a pivotal part in a multi
million dollar film? And to playing a
woman and a bird? It's as remarkable a
metamorphosis from beach bunny to deep
thinking, inner looking, movie star as
it is in some Devil's whim from human
to hawk.
 Pfeiffer
says: 'Yeah, it
becomes a little bit schizophrenic. To
begin with just moving out of your hometown
makes you a different kind of person than
someone who stays. And I'm no exception
to that rule. On the one hand I'm the
same girl I was in Orange County, and
on the other hand I lead a very different
life. So there is discrepancy, and there
will always be a discrepancy. As a result
of that I think I'll always feet somewhat
homeless ... no matter where I am.
'I know it appears that
nothing in my life prepared me for this.
But, if you really analyse it, you'd see
there is cause and effect for everything...
see that there was some event that we
could go back to my childhood to find.
Even though I feel completely unprepared,
I know there's a method to this madness.
I can't come up with one nor do I probably
want to, but I'm sure there is some plan
to all of this.'
 For
Ladybawke
she decided to take the character as it
was in the screenplay and calm down. As
she explained: 'That's
when you get down to the real work, probing
it, talking it through, doing it. The
trap in anything like that is to over
project yourself. It's stylish, but it's
not Shakespeare.
It's difficult working with animals and
special effects. You're away from home
and your friends, and suddenly you are
asked to respond to special effects you'll
never see until the movie is done. I then
related to my character and falling in
love and having to overcome simple problems
simple problems like how to get together
when your lover's a wolf while you're
a human, and you're a hawk while he's
human.'
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