Demi Moore: More, More, Moore

Q: Do you think your "reputation" got spikier once you and Bruce got married?

A: Yeah, I think so. It's a lot easier to say shitty things than to make me out to be a regular kind of girl or a nice person. People see it as more juicy.

Q: Can you go out and, say, buy a toaster without a fuss being made over you?

A: Lots of times, people have no idea that I'm anybody but my kids' mother. I've had situations in a restaurant where I'll go [does a sexy movie star voice], "Hi, how ya doin'?" and the waiter just looks at me like I'm crazy and says, "Yeeesssss?" I have this joke among my friends that I'm gonna get a great cleft chin and a glamorous mole to make sure this doesn't ever happen again. Oh, here's a funny story. When I went for the first time to Planet Hollywood [the Manhattan restaurant that Bruce Willis co-owns], I called ahead and went with a bunch of girlfriends. It was very late by the time we got there and I said, "Can we sit down?" and the guy said, "We're closed." I said, "Oh, well, can we just get a drink and sit at a table?" and he said, "The only thing open is the bar." I said, "Well, can we just look around at the memorabilia?" and he said, "You can just get your drink at the bar." We went looking around and all of a sudden the guy looked at me again and beat, beat, BEAT, then he walked over to us, white-faced, saying, "You can sit down at a table."

Q: So, there are advantages to being a movie star?

A: Why don't you define "movie star"?

Q: Someone who so intrigues and entertains people, they sell tickets because they're in a movie.

A: Then I wonder if I'm really there yet. The kind of stardom you're defining is exciting because it's a throwback to what it really used to be. In the '30s or '40s, you really had to qualify. You could just say "movie star" and it was immediately accepted that they were actors who sold tickets. The way most people define it today--somebody you may like to look at once in a while, who isn't necessarily talented--wouldn't be interesting to me.

Q: The more I see your movies and your carefully planned magazine covers, the more I think: "This girl ought to be teaching Movie Career Management 101." For our cover, for your best-selling Vanity Fair covers, you came in with detailed, specific concepts for the mood, the look you wanted to convey.

A: [Laughing] Who have you been talking to? Part of it is just to entertain myself because it's stuff I have to do. Magazines and interviews are something you have to do because you need it for your movie. It's a lot more interesting for me to decide to portray various versions of myself than to just show up and say, "Okay, I'm just gonna be me." I'm uncomfortable with that, to tell you the truth.

Q: From the looks of things, you seem to be carving something in your career. It seems clear in the roles you choose and even clearer from how you present yourself to the public.

A: I think that's accurate. I don't know if I'm exactly "carving," if you want to use that metaphor, but there is a bigger picture I'm working toward. I didn't study this or come from a place that taught you your craft, then encouraged you to proceed--

Q: Like the old-time studio system?

A: Right. For me, it's all been trial and error, assessing, learning, studying how other people work, seeing what they have, what works. And seeing what I want to steal from them, whether it be from the technical side of their work or from how they manage their lives and careers. You watch, assess, and go for it.

Q: You've recently worked with Jack Nicholson and with Robert Redford, both of whom know a thing or two about stardom. Anything you learned from watching them?

A: Bob is a very private person, but we had a good rapport, very early on. The thing I've enjoyed about getting to know Bob is how playful and loose he can be. We've had no outside social time, but he's not a man who engages in frivolous talk and he's inquisitive about other people. I enjoyed watching him interact with people--the prop girl, the caterer, the extras--because it was always with the same level of interest, charm and engagement. He really understands who he is, in terms of outside perception; he knows what kind of weight he brings just by walking into a room. I also saw that a lot with Jack. He is so aware that people look at him and are, like, "God, that's Jack," and he just got in there, did his thing, and was there for everybody.

Q: Ellen Barkin says that one way women stars could earn parity with our biggest male stars would be by starring in Terminator-type action films.

A: The phenomenon of action films is, on a strictly business level, a way to put people in seats who want a guarantee that they'll be taken for a ride. If there were several kinds of working "formulas" for putting women in films--things that worked at the box office like in the old days--pretty soon, you'd see all kinds of films being made starring women. I don't totally disagree with [Barkin's] theory, though I think that putting women in action films is a very delicate thing. There's not an audience who wants to see a "chick" acting like a man.

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