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.
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