Up close with Pfeiffer
Now a mellow mom, she lets down her guard.
By Tom Green
USA TODAY
 BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Maybe because motherhood has overtaken her life, there are two stories going around about movie star Michelle Pfeiffer. One is that she's a changed person. The other is that she's going to retire.
Let's take the easy one first:
"I'm not going to retire!" she says with the kind of exasperation that suggests she has heard this one many times before. "I say it every day when I come into work — 'I'm going to retire.' I don't mean it."
In fact, this week the former Catwoman of Batman Returns ironically is back on the job with the likely new Caped Crusader, George Clooney, in a lighthearted romantic comedy called One Fine Day, written by Neil Simon's daughter, Ellen.
Today, Pfeiffer's newest film, Up Close & Personal, opens nationwide. In this romantic pairing, she's an ambitious TV newswoman who relies on Robert Redford to propel her career.
And projects are piling up for the actress. This summer she hopes to film the Midwestern farm drama based on Jane Smiley's novel A Thousand Acres. A bio-pic about artist Georgia O'Keeffe is in the works. And if only she can find a script, she wants to do a Catwoman movie.
None of that sounds like a retiring actress. But even she will admit that marriage to producer David E. Kelley (TV's Chicago Hope and Picket Fences), the adoption of 3-year-old Claudia Rose and the birth of 1 1/2- year-old John have altered her personality and lessened the wariness she has always had for the press.
"You're like, 'What happened?'" she laughs.
Well, yes.
"I feel like I was preparing myself for a long time to be able to handle having a family and meet someone like David," says Pfeiffer, 37, who had been married to thirtysomething's Peter Horton and had romances with John Malkovich, Alec Baldwin and Fisher Stevens.
"Thank God I met David when I met him because I wouldn't have been right for him any earlier. I just wasn't evolved enough as a human being. He's really healthy, David. And he's very grounded. I had some catching up to do. I had to work a little harder to get to where I was ready for a really healthy relationship."
Pfeiffer says life started changing for her the moment she committed to adopting Claudia. "She kind of brought everything to me." Weeks later she was fixed up with Kelley on a blind date.
Now that she's immersed in following two kids around the house trying to get them to eat, she seems more relaxed than she was in her early 30s, somewhat more expansive in talking about herself.
"Now I probably have enough of a body of work," she says. "It's all about how people perceive you and not being pigeonholed and limited to one kind of character. I don't feel that kind of threat anymore."
Her career began in hot pants and silly roles in such woeful early '80s films as Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen and Grease 2, which may explain her fear of being relegated to mindless parts. But 22 films and three Oscar nominations (Dangerous Liaisons, The Fabulous Baker Boys and Love Field) have buoyed her self-esteem.
In the past, she's been described as being allergic to fame and glamour, but she says she's more comfortable with glamour than she's ever been. With her husband's TV shows regularly nominated for Emmy awards, she turns up at his side at each ceremony.
"I love going to the Emmys," she says. "People aren't as uptight. Well, maybe I'm not as uptight — maybe that's the issue. I'm not in the hot seat, and I can go and just be David's wife, and I can dress up and have a date with my husband and be glamorous for the evening, and I don't have to worry about giving a speech or looking happy if I lose."
Contacts with the press are no longer as painful, she says, though she admits, "If I had my druthers, I wouldn't do it." She has sometimes felt "invaded and stalked," but now the price doesn't seem so huge.
What's hard for Pfeiffer is balancing work and motherhood. Work has a strong pull on her. It's something she has done since she was young. Her break came while she was working as a checkout girl at an Orange County, Calif., supermarket.
But there have to be limits even if the career suffers, she says. That's the hard pan.
"I will always be a working person. I always have been. It's part of who I am and part of what makes me happy. It makes me a better mother, but it's hard to strike that balance every day."
The working person won out when Up Close came along. What lured her to the part was the love story and the character's journey. Also, she is drawn to women "who pull themselves out of the rubble and overcome obstacles." Then there was Robert Redford, with whom she gets to do love scenes in the film.
"Well, there are perks to the job."
She and Redford had met before to discuss projects that never happened and were pleased when this one came together. She expresses disbelief that some in the media have suggested the craggy-faced, 58-year-old actor is too old to play romantic leading men, a murmur that has dogged Redford since 1990's boxoffice disappointment, Havana.
"I think this movie will put that to rest. He's still every bit the leading man he's always been. He's still Robert Redford, still very committed to the work. He's every bit as charming. Probably more so now that he has a little age on him. He was too handsome when he was younger. He's more interesting now."
In the film, Redford is Pfeiffer's mentor as she rises to national anchorwoman. She researched the part, even sitting at an anchor desk to be taped reading a TelePrompTer. It was humiliating, she says.
"I didn't anticipate it being that difficult. Pretty arrogant, isn't it? But how was I to know? It looks easy."
The film was shot in sequence, so she was at her worst in the early stand-up shots, which is what the script called for. She isn't sure she ever got good enough to be on national TV, but she got good enough to be in the movie.
Pfeiffer plays a character who is ambitious but not ruthless, which is a fair description of Pfeiffer herself — "I know I'm very driven." She says she has not encountered much ruthlessness in Hollywood because the industry is too competitive, and it would come back to haunt you.
The character she plays also seems overly dependent on a man, which could raise hackles among some women. But Pfeiffer isn't worried about that.
"In the end she realizes she's not. It's her journey. Nobody's perfect. And a lot of women spend a whole lifetime realizing they don't have to be dependent on a man."
As an actress, Pfeiffer will fight when she thinks the battle is appropriate. Maybe that's part of the change that has come over her. "I used to fight about everything."
She fought big time when the title of last year's hit teacher drama Dangerous Minds was changed from My Posse Don't Do Homework and a B-plot involving Andy Garcia was cut from the film.
"Maybe I was wrong," she says. "Maybe it's a great title. But don't you think it's a sucky title? It's a terrible title!"
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Robert Redford
