Demi Moore would seem happy to have it all--her health, those looks, a happy marriage, a growing family, and starring roles in two talked-about new films, A Few Good Men and Indecent Proposal--but she wants more; in fact, she says, "I want everything."
Demi Moore, swathed in silk, sits draped on a couch in her trailer on the Paramount lot. Although she's between shots on Adrian Lyne's new movie, Indecent Proposal, she's as vivid and present and here with me as if she'd just awoke from an 18-hour nap. There's plenty on her mind at the moment, including not just this movie, in which she and Woody Harrelson play financially strapped marrieds offered $1 million by Robert Redford if Moore will spend a night with him, but also her current release, A Few Good Men, Rob Reiner's movie version of the Broadway hit in which she and Tom Cruise are lawyers investigating a military murder cover-up that involves Jack Nicholson. If Ghost ($500 million worldwide, at last count) had positioned Moore to ascend to the rarified ranks inhabited only by Julia Roberts, Geena Davis and Sharon Stone, these two new movies--after the anticlimax of The Butcher's Wife--bid fair to put her precisely where she belongs. Which means that the girl who is, arguably, the most beautiful in town and certainly the savviest at manipulating publicity, could one day rival the Toms, Kevins and Arnolds of this world.
Born in New Mexico to teenage parents, Moore survived a tumultuous, nomadic childhood to shine through a stint on the TV soap "General Hospital," and in such better-left-forgotten movies as Choices, Parasite and Blame It On Rio. During her Brat-Pack era, marked by such emblematic epics as St. Elmo's Fire, About Last Night . . . and Wisdom, Moore detoured into fast-lane Hollywood excesses that nearly snuffed her promise. Just as quickly, she came to, cleaned up, marshaled her resources, and promoted some standout reviews into a deal at TriStar, which birthed only The Seventh Sign, a would-be Rosemary's Baby for the '80s. If that one lost her points because she wasn't ready to carry solo the weight of a bad script and clueless direction, We're No Angels gained her points because she almost withstood the sheer dead weight of Robert De Niro and Sean Penn congratulating themselves on how side-splitting they weren't.
Critics and audiences forgave her everything with Ghost, and, overnight, she became a "household name" by appearing nude and pregnant on a magazine cover with her second child by husband Bruce Willis. However, the inevitable backlash set in: word went out that Moore does not suffer fools gladly, that she's been accused of terminal entouragitis, that she's the most image-wise actress now plying her trade. Ironically, much of this chatter got started by another magazine story--same magazine--when she appeared nude and painted on the cover.
I expected steel from Moore. Self-enchantment. The gosh-I-wish-I-didn't-have-to-do-this blah-blah. I get the steel, all right, but much more. Greeting me with a friendly handshake and a glacier-melting smile, she spends hours with me being open, frisky, thoughtful and passionate. When the demands of shooting Indecent Proposal while publicizing A Few Good Men cramp our style, Moore simply barrels me with her down onto the set, which Paramount has declared strictly off-limits to the press. Her response? "Fuck 'em," she growls, introducing me to Lyne, her Indecent Proposal director. "Hello, darling," he chirps. "Remember, whatever mess you see here, it'll all come out in the wash." Later, when studio publicists get wind of her indiscretion and materialize on the set, Moore apologizes to all concerned with abject sincerity.
"I only want," she tells me again and again, "everything." If Moore chooses right--she has a deal these days at Columbia-- this 30-year-old, who masterfully reinvents her looks and her style from movie to movie, even from cover to cover, may reinvent for the movie-star-starved '90s the real thing.
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.
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.
Q: Whatever happened to your doing that big, juicy Ray Stark project about '30s torch singer Libby Holman? Songs, scandal, millionaires, possible murder and sex, sex, sex.
A: I really want to do it. It's a dark story--she had such a sad life-- and it's a matter of finding the right people to do it with. Ray Stark tends to have a more conservative eye and the most interesting things about [Holman's] life might be considered too provocative, dangerous. Right now, we're trying to find the right director who can really center it.
Q: By "provocative, dangerous" do you mean her sexuality?
A: Bottom line is, she was a bisexual woman whose biggest love in her life was a woman. I don't know if audiences want that... but you either go for it and explore the sexuality as it needs to be, or you don't bother.
Q: The Butcher's Wife was perceived, after Ghost, as your movie, the one that would gauge your power at the box office. It wasn't a hit. How did that affect you?
A: That movie never ended up being what I wanted it to be. If it had been really good, if it had been what I really wanted it to be, and people didn't go, it would have been sad. On the other hand, if A Few Good Men, which we all believe is really good, came out and nobody saw it, that would be a huge disappointment.
Q: Where did things get out of hand on The Butcher's Wife?
A: There was a feeling in a wonderful Barbra Streisand film, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, that made me see what The Butcher's Wife could have been: following a rich, charming character through an odd, fish-out-of-water experience. It was lightweight fluff, let's get that straight, but the script was kind of a Cinderella story and in the movie, I was like the fairy godmother. The audience didn't get to live through my character, because [the moviemakers] missed it.
Q: That's where the conflict began?
A: When I go into a project, it's from the viewpoint of "What is the concept? What are we trying to communicate? Who's taking us for this ride?" And I think that sometimes my passion is misconstrued as "being difficult." I really do fight for things to be the best they can be. But look, I went in eight months pregnant and did reshoots on The Butcher's Wife so, obviously, I wasn't totally wrong.
Q: Let's talk about your relationship with Bruce Willis. What do you think you do for each other, day to day?
A: [Long pause] The simplest thing I can say is that, in different ways, we've given the other a strength we didn't have for ourselves. I'm very embracing, very maternal, and I think I'm a grounding force, a center that I provide for Bruce. But we, together, have created a tremendous foundation of a family. I have been through a lot of things and have come out of that as an example, a light of sorts--a light of possibilities. Almost in the same way, there was an embracing and reassuring of values that Bruce gave me that no one had ever given me before. Bruce made me feel important. That filled me with a strength to step forward with a courage that, if I stepped a bit further, I knew I wasn't going to fall. If I fell, it wasn't going to be quite as hard.
Q: You're more than aware of the reputation your husband has. What don't we know about him?
A: Bruce hasn't found a role to even expose how truly gentle and fragile he can be. When Bruce feels something, he really feels it--much more than me. He gets so deep, so personal with the children; there's a sweetness, a gentleness, a quiet in him.
Q: Let's get to some dishy, career-minded questions again.
A: [Laughing] Yes, we like those Movieline questions. By the way, your magazine isn't nasty in a malicious way, like Premiere--even if I am doing a Premiere cover tomorrow, I don't have to do the interview!--but Movieline's fun-nasty, like, you read it and go, "Ooooh, ooooooh, OOOOOHHHH!" Anyway, I know Bruce will read this and say, like he always does, "You didn't have to tell him everything." And I'll read this and say, "I wish I knew how to make myself seem mysterious."
Q: Okay, so Meg Ryan was originally going to do The Butcher's Wife and, around town, the dozen or so women who are on Hollywood's short list were mentioned for the roles you won in A Few Good Men and Indecent Proposal. Have you read for roles that you didn't get?
A: My career has been very slow, not a flashy thing. A long time of chipping away. I've been around for a long time and people have seen me kind of grow along the way. For whatever reason, I've ended up working with a lot of first-time directors, a lot of them really talented. But to help me grow, I want to work with people much more experienced than me. So to answer your question, it's a role that I got, but I had to read for Indecent Proposal, too. Adrian saw everyone. He sees everyone on every movie. [Laughing] Since I was 15 years old and read for Foxes, he's turned me down on every other movie--except 9 1/2 Weeks, which I didn't read for--that he's done. I didn't want to read for Indecent Proposal at all because when I read the first script, I said, "Ecccchhh, who cares?" Later, from my agent, I heard that the script had really changed and I read it and said, "Is it too late?" I knew they were coming down to the wire on casting. So, I had this very cursory meeting with Adrian.
Q: Knowing how you prepare for a photo shoot, did you do it up for your meeting with Lyne?
A: [Laughing] You know, I did. I wore an Armani jacket over velvet stretch leggings with a ribbed, long-sleeve, tight-fitting T-shirt. We started talking and he finally got around to asking me, very gingerly, if I would read. I said I would, but that I wouldn't be put on tape and I wouldn't test. That's where I draw my line. Look, it's always nicer if you don't have to read, but I don't mind. It makes me know that I've really earned the part, if I get it and, in a sense, I get an opportunity to see what I'm going to do with the part.
Q: You don't get much romance in A Few Good Men, but Indecent Proposal is another thing altogether. How would you rate Woody Harrelson and Robert Redford as Romeos?
A: Adrian feels the love scene that Woody and I have is probably one of the hottest he's ever seen. To me, it's the worst stuff you have to do. Woody is one of Bruce's friends and I met him five years ago. I mean, he's been to my house and played with the kids! He said, "It's hard to think of you in an attractive way; you're my friend's wife." At the same time, there's a natural comfort built in because we know each other, just our physical rapport. But you know what? At one point I asked the crew when we were shooting the scene, "Is this as embarrassing for you as it is for me?" They said, "Absolutely."
Q: Is Redford a good kisser?
A: Adrian was very curious about that, too. I don't really think about that. All I think about is, "Is this good for the scene?" When it was going on, I was thinking, "I'll put my hand here. I'll turn this way... " Obviously, if his kisses were really bad, I would know. I can't say either Woody or Bob were bad.
Q: Will Indecent Proposal, which sounds like the dark side of Honeymoon in Vegas, show us you and Redford in the sex scene we prayed we wouldn't have to watch in the earlier movie between Sarah Jessica Parker and James Caan?
A: So far, it's going to be left to the imagination, because I don't know if we could ever do anything that could live up to what people might imagine. Honeymoon in Vegas was a broad comedy; this is a morality play. In the first script for this movie, the Redford character was an ugly, stereotypical user, the rich guy without morals, values or ethics. In the rewrite, he became a handsome, charming guy to whom challenging someone else's morals is a game. Then, he falls in love with someone he can't have. It's much more multilayered.
Q: Is it a turnon playing a woman who is offered $1 million for one night of companionship?
A: [Laughter] All I thought was, "Oh, my God, what am I going to do? I'd better look like something someone would pay that much for." I only felt paranoid, not flattered.
Q: How "out there" have you gotten to land a role you wanted?
A: Well, I wouldn't put on a cat suit, if that's what you mean.
Q: Did you want to do Batman Returns?
A: Oh, I wanted it. I kept saying, "I can get in shape, I can." I really wanted Basic Instinct, too, but Paul Verhoeven wouldn't even see me for the part. And I was even blonde at the time. Sharon Stone was really great in it. What struck me about that character was that it was a woman in control of her life, however sick it was. So many times in movies where there's blatant sex, it's as if it's being done to the woman. The sexiest moment in Basic Instinct, the one that reminded me how much I had wanted that part, was the interrogation scene where Sharon Stone parted her legs. I thought, "Great!" I guess in comparison to a lot of people in this country, I never even question whether something's pornographic or offensive. I loved the power of that moment.
Q: Any other stories about parts you've missed?
A: The most "out there" I've gone to get a film was for Sleepless in Seattle. Someone got me a copy of the script and I loved it. Whatever part of my fucked-up psychology it has to do with, I don't like to put myself out there like this, but I called the head of TriStar and said, "I want to do this!" I don't like feeling that vulnerable. Sometimes, roles I've wanted have floated right by me, and I've thought: things that are meant to be are meant to be. Anyway, on Sleepless in Seattle, they were very nice, respectful, pleasant, all that kind of stuff they all do, but, obviously, I got rejected. They wanted Meg Ryan.
Q: What's next on the Demi agenda?
A: The Demi agenda, huh? Well, Libby, I hope, though I'm not producing that. I have a project from a true story about a New York social worker, a middle-class Jewish girl, who does incredible work with multicultural kids from the worst sections of the Bronx to kids from Park Avenue. It's kind of like Fame meets Stand and Deliver.
Q: You're talking like a producer now.
A: [Laughing] Well, I am one. I'm developing a three-part movie with Turner [Network Television] about abortion and the difficulty of the choice. It's called If These Walls Could Talk. Besides producing it, I'm actually considering directing it. That's a big proposition. When I saw Jodie Foster's film, I thought, "This is her first film! I could never do that," and when I saw Bob Roberts the other night, oh, my God, it was so great. Maybe doing a little piece like mine might be a good way to break the ice.
Q: Imagine that 20 years from now, you come across the entry for Demi Moore in an encyclopedia of movie stars. What does it say?
A: What I hope for is, "a real diverse, full body of work that shows growth." Work that could be looked on as courageous.
Stephen Rebello is one of our contributing editors.