Demi Moore: More, More, Moore

STEPHEN REBELLO: How would you assess your position in the business right this second?

DEMI MOORE: That's tough. I'm probably in a better position than I've ever been thus far, okay? I think people in the business are certainly interested in doing business with me.

Q: You're coming off what could turn out to be quite a one-two punch. In Indecent Proposal you're the married woman to whom Robert Redford pays $1 million for a night of bliss and right now, you're on-screen as a driven, tough military lawyer in A Few Good Men, where you co-star with Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise.

A: I have no idea why, but I feel really critical of my performance in that movie, maybe because I really wanted to be great in it.

Q: Does it have anything to do with the company you kept?

A: I so respect Rob Reiner as a director that I really wanted to be good for him. Tom was already set for the part when I came into it. I was seven-and-a-half months pregnant and my agent, who's also Tom's agent, said, "Here's this project." Rob had been meeting people for the part and had everybody in to read for him. I read the script but I had questions about it. Then, I read the play and realized that some of the things I questioned had been taken out. I wanted to be kind of delicate because I was getting this reputation for being kind of ...

Q: Ummm, assertive?

A: [Laughing] That's a nice way of putting it. Assertive. So, I auditioned for Rob. I went in and had to do this scene with Tom, whom I've known for a long time, and it was funny because I had to be this straight, uptight, military lawyer. I had this whole physical redo and had to get really tough. Rob was actually scared because he'd heard all these rumors about me. He actually called two or three directors that I've worked with. I'm glad to say most, if not all, of his concerns were dispelled. So, I went and had my baby and came back to join the group.

Q: Lots of people these days have been accusing you of indulging yourself in high diva behavior. Entourages, demands about the size and location of your trailer, arguments about scripts, direction . . .

A: Steve, look around, this is nice but is it a palace? Even though other people say that they don't think I came off that way in the recent Vanity Fair article . . . well, [writer Jennet Conant] wrote that I was smart, which is the only way that she could say that I was basically a bitch. Look, right now, the way I am with you is pretty much how I am.

Q: So you're not a diva?

A: I don't think so, but it would be fun to play one. My basic perception of how things have to work to get things done is: group effort. Everybody that works with me is part of my team. It isn't about catering to my needs, my whims. It's about the best idea winning in the end. I know that you already know that on Indecent Proposal, Adrian Lyne and I started off very rough.

Q: How rough?

A: He and I had friction over my constant need to fight to make my character smarter, to show her more in control of the decisions that are made. I don't want to say that Adrian's chauvinistic, but he has a more traditional sense of women. We actually laugh about it now, but there was a scene where I wanted to keep my clothes on, and I told him, "They don't have to see my breasts in every shot, do they?" I don't know if he means to be offensive to women, I just think it's how, out of his passion, he romanticizes them. We'd literally be talking, loudly sometimes, about the same thing. It's worked out, we have a tremendous affection. I can only try as much as I can to portray this character as being as well-grounded as I hope she'll be, but, in the end, I'm at the mercy of how Adrian cuts it together. Anyway, going back to your original "diva" question, I don't see working with me as just a matter of my just showing up. Or that everyone else is expendable. I value everybody that I have here, particularly in my insular group. Everybody that I've worked with, I've worked with for a long time.

Q: "Everybody" would be how many?

A: I have one, my assistant, who is here with me. At my production company, I have employees, as anybody does. The studio, as happens when you're making any movie, has their people, and I have hair, makeup, a driver.

Q: So this is the infamous entourage?

A: Right. I go to and from the set with a driver. The production company hires people to watch my hair, my wardrobe, but if you want to know the person I'm paying, it's my assistant. Oh, and on Indecent Proposal, Woody [Harrelson] and I, as a gift to the crew, pay for a masseuse, who is available to all of us.

Q: So, does Bruce Willis have, like, 22 assistants?

A: My makeup man on this film was also on my last movie and he read the same article and asked, "Well, where were they? We could have used them." It's ludicrous. We have one motor-home driver out there and Bruce has an assistant, and, of course, hair and makeup people on a movie. That's it. Even if we computed all the employees in his company and mine, it wouldn't equal 22. We'd have to round up, like, our gardener, our pool man.

Q: What about bodyguards?

A: That was misconstrued in Vanity Fair. They got a little dramatic. [The writer] has created new boundaries for me, which is unfortunate because I don't like to hide. Even less so than Bruce or many other people in this industry. What that writer didn't want to put into her article is why these people sometimes have to be in my life. When you get calls from your agent saying, "We just received a call from a mental institution. A man there is telling them he wants to kill you. He's having delusions, we don't know whether he's on narcotics, we don't even know if he's given us the right address," wouldn't you do something? Then, you know, he's been released but the address he had given as his home address isn't even a real one. Or you get weird letters or people show up at your house, thinking your husband is the character that they've seen in a movie. It would be stupid not to protect myself when situations like that arise and when the media continues to print how much my husband makes. If something ever happened, God forbid, I would just feel stupid not to have protected all of us to the best of my ability.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5