Ageing beauty

Approaching 50 and ageing on screen, doesn't seem to faze actress Michelle Pfeiffer as it does other Hollywood stars. She talks to Steve Pratt about her latest film, Stardust

The Hollywood actress who has featured no less than six times in People's Magazine 50 Most Beautiful People In The World list is looking the worst for wear. She resembles - and I hesitate to be unkind about Michelle Pfeiffer - the grandmother of all hags with sagging flesh, drooping wrinkles and pasty skin.

I'm happy to be able to report that this isn't the way she normally looks. This is what she looks like in her new movie. She owes her bad looks to the make-up team as she plays a wicked witch who ages every time she uses a spell in the fantasy film Stardust.

For the star of such movies as The Witches Of Eastwick, One Fine Day, The Fabulous Baker Boys and Batman Returns, this film is the second of her comeback films this summer. Earlier we saw her in the musical Hairspray, as scheming, untrustworthy but glamorous Velma Von Tussle. Apart from lending her voice to an animated feature, she's been absent from the screen for five years.

Yet Stardust so nearly didn't happen because of the lengthy make-up process required to transform her into witch Lamia. "I really hate it when I hear actors whine about things, but it was difficult I have to admit," she says, the day after the London premiere of the film directed by Layer Cake director Matthew Vaughn.

"The very first time they applied the prosthetics, which was in California, it took about six hours. It never occurred to me what that would feel like and the claustrophobia that would set it. My entire face, head and neck were encased in rubber. The only thing that was left of me was the tip of my nose and my eyeballs. I panicked and immediately thought 'how do I get out of this?' because I didn't honestly think that I could do it."

She retreated to the bathroom because she didn't want all those who'd worked so hard and long on the whole look to know how upset she was. From there, she called Vaughn on her phone and he, as she puts it "talked me off a ledge".

Although she came to terms with the elaborate make-up, nothing could be done to remove it any quicker. "It wasn't one of those situations where you could say 'ok, I want to get out of this now'. It took an hour to get it off because they peeled it off your skin and they could only go so fast. If they tried to go any faster you could lose a layer of skin. So it was a lot of books on tape, fortunately we had a great crew, a great sense of humour and we laughed a lot. I think it was the humour in the trailer that kept our sanity."

As she approaches 50, the actress who worked as a supermarket checkout girl before entering movies doesn't appear worried about losing her looks.

She admits it was "disturbing" seeing herself aged. "I got used to that fairly quickly though," she says. "But I have to say even though we really pushed the limits of reality - you'd really be dead long before you looked like that - the really disturbing stage for me was the half-aged, half my face because you could look in the mirror and really see where you're going. I didn't like that one so much."

The film's approach to youth and beauty was one aspect that attracted her to the project. That and the fact it wasn't a typical fantasy or any one genre. It's a lot of different genres all mixed into one - an adventure story, romantic, magical, dark, and also incredibly funny and very epic. "Yet at the same time it had a very contemporary modern tone to it and the humour was very modern," she adds.

Then she sat down with Vaughn who talked more specifically about the character and the commentary he wanted to make on society's obsession with youth and beauty and perfectionism.

"He wanted to really poke fun at that and see how far we could take it. I thought that was kind of risky, courageous and unusual, I felt, for a man, honestly, to be thinking about those issues. So that intrigued me, and also he's so young, so why would he even be thinking about that? It was one of those things where I knew if I didn't do it, I would end up regretting it and I didn't want someone else playing this part."

Unlike other actors, Pfeiffer doesn't hide behind her children as an excuse for making a family film like Stardust. She owns up to being "completely selfish" when choosing the films she makes and parts she plays.

"I'm committed and focused on my kids when I'm not working and when I go to work it's for me. I'd done a movie before this, which was a year before, and that was like getting my feet wet again and finding my way and discovering that it really isn't like getting back on a bike after all that time.

"As hard as this movie was - and it was very challenging - by the end of it I felt like all the pistons were going and fired up. I remembered what it was I love about the work and how much it really gives me as a person. I knew my children would love it, but I didn't do it for them. The only thing I consider in terms of my family in my decision-making process is whether it's anything that could embarrass them or cause them grief in any way. Other than that it's purely selfish on my part. However, I did love this summer having two films coming out that I could share with them because they have hardly seen anything that I've done."

Despite her long service and status in Hollywood, she doesn't feel qualified to hand out advice to those starting out in the business. It's changed so much since her first days, she says.

"First of all, I'm reluctant to give advice to people about anything because everyone comes into this business in a different way and the rules that applied when I started out really don't anymore. People come into showbusiness in all kinds of crazy ways and I honestly wouldn't know what to tell them."

What she does feel qualified to comment on is the weather in the Isle of Skye and Scotland, where Stardust was filmed. The landscape was rugged and not the easiest location she's been on.

"The weather was fierce at that time of year, but apparently we had to go because if you waited another month there were these little bugs that would eat you alive. So you either got hailed on or eaten alive." The wind was so fierce that they had to anchor her, literally cabling herself to the mountain, because they feared she was going to blow off the cliff. "If that wasn't enough I also thought my make-up artist was jabbing me with the powder brush, but then realised I was being hailed on. It was brutal."