Interview: Pfeiffer - 'Ladyhawke'

Ladyhawke
IS A FAR FLIGHT FROM SCARFACE FOR
Michelle Pfeiffer

By JAMES VAN HISE and STEVE WINBAUM

She is Isabeau of Anjou, a woman cursed to see the sunrise as a hawk while at sunset her lover walks at her side as a wolf, together but parted by a wizard's curse.

To say that this role is a departure for Michelle Pfeiffer is an understatement. "I felt that there weren't going to be many opportunities for me, in my roles to come, to act in a medieval fairy tale," the lissome blonde actress says. Her first screen appearance was in an episode of TV's Delta House. This was followed by parts in Falling in Love Again, Hollywood Knights, Grease 2 and Scarface. The fact that Ladyhawke was so different was what attracted her to it.

"One of the reasons I did Ladyhawke was because in Scarface the woman was so hard and serious. I liked the fantasy princess part of Ladyhawke. The script really appealed to me. I thought it was the most charming and unique piece I had read in a long time, perhaps ever."

She especialy liked the fact that director Richard Donner didn't simply want to make the character a fairy princess running through the woods.

"He wanted this woman surviving. That adds a realism to the project. The idea of hiding is very realistic. In that period of time, if a woman was caught at night alone in the woods, she would have been considered a witch."

THE COMPANY OF WOLVES

Since her lover is transformed into a wolf at night, Pfeiffer worked with her lupine co-stars more than she did with Rutger Hauer, the actor who played the man in her life.

Animal trainer Ron Oxley imported four Siberian wolves from California to the film's location in Italy. These wolves were chosen because they are easier to train than their European counterparts.

"At first I was afraid of them," Pfeiffer admits, "but once I started working around them I realized the trainers clearly knew what they were doing. They never put you in a situation that you were unprepared for, or that the wolf was unprepared for. You have to be around the wolves enough for them to get used to you. They have to come to you, you cannot go up to a wolf. When there's a new person in the environment, a wolf will seek them out. It's really fascinating."

Working with the wolves can be deceptive. Canines themselves, they often seem doglike, but pooches they most definitely are not.

"If they like you, they'll jump on you like a dog. It makes you want to play with them. But you can never forget that they're unpredictable, wild animals. And yet they'll eat out of your hand.

"By the time we started working, there was never a fear that I had been put into a job situation that could get out of hand. You learn to trust people, and of course you have to trust your own instincts, too. You know when you're being asked to do something that's not safe. We had very good stunt people and animal trainers."

There was a drawback, though. "The chances are that the take they'll use is the one in which the animal did the right thing instead of when you did the right thing!"

THE PERILS OF PFEIFFER

For this and similar reasons, Pfeiffer did not sound enthusiastic when recalling what working on an effects-laden fantasy film had been like.

"It was difficult because I've never done special effects before. As an actor I'm always trying to feed off of my environment, the other actors and whatever's happening in the scene. When you're doing effects, you're truly doing special effects. You're on a soundstage recreating something which doesn't exist anymore. It's very difficult."

As an example, Pfeiffer cites a scene in which she had to fall from a tower. "We did that three different times. The last time was in New York, finishing up the effects. I was on a soundstage in front of a technicolor bluescreen. I was pretending to be falling from a tower. I was hooked onto this wire, screaming and carrying on. I felt like an idiot!

"We filmed that scene once at the real location, the real castle. The second time was against a re-creation of the scene at Cinecitta, the big studio complex in Rome. A tower was built outside of the studio. And the third shot was in New York.

"At times, it felt like the priority was with the animals and the effects shots, as opposed to the acting."

IT WAS SO...ITALIAN

Working in Italy had its good and bad points for an American actress far from home. "You start to miss the smallest things, like an AM/PM Market. Or getting something to eat any time of the day. Italy has great food, but it's all Italian! You can't find anything else. Here, you can get anything you want. You miss those small things. Also, you're away from your friends.

"But there's a flipside. I was in awe of Italy. Being paid to live in another culture for five months, I felt like the luckiest person in the world. I loved the Italians. I grew a lot on a personal level by being away from home and out on my own."

Another plus was that Pfeiffer became good friends with her co-star Matthew Broderick, who plays the film's elfin thief Phillipe Gaston.

"It's difficult being in a foreign country for five months, away from home, where no one speaks your language. We had some tough locations, but Matthew really kept me sane. We could laugh together and release frustration. We had a great relationship. I was very grateful to have him there because it was a very hard shoot, and he's so funny and easy to be around."

FUTURE FLIGHTS?

Michelle Pfeiffer plans to continue acting in as many kinds of roles as possible. "I want to get to a point where I can really take chances. My object is to play as many different roles as I want to do, rather than what someone else wants to cast me in. That's the only reason to have power in this business, so that you're not stifled."

It's hard to stifle a Ladyhawke.