The inimitable Kim Basinger talks about the talk about her, praises her new husband Alec Baldwin and the film they've made together, The Getaway, and gives her verdict on Boxing Helena: "Let's just say I made the right decision."
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The first time I interviewed Kim Basinger she'd had a blinding-hot relationship with her co-star Alec Baldwin during the troubled making of The Marrying Man, which served as fodder for the gossip columnists, and she'd put up money and garnered investors to buy a small town called Braselton in Georgia. What's happened since is much more soap-operaish. Kim was approached by Jennifer Lynch. David's daughter, with a project called Boxing Helena, about a woman abducted by a man who becomes so obsessed with her that he cuts off her arms and legs so that he alone can possess her. Kim expressed interest, but when she talked it over with her advisors, she began to have second thoughts. When she backed out, producer Carl Mazzocone and Main Line Pictures decided to sue her for breach of an oral contract. The jury found for the producer and said Basinger must pay $8.9 million, plus court fees. During this ordeal, one man has stuck by her: Alec Baldwin, her new husband and co-star in the upcoming The Getaway.
So, that's where we stand today. But would Kim be as forthright as she had been during our earlier interview? I had my doubts, which were reinforced when she told me that she'd been thinking of canceling because she'd done only one magazine interview since her ordeal and she felt it was full of lies and distortions. "It's no pleasure anymore to publicize a film or to celebrate a moment or to say anything to anybody."
But slowly she began to warm up. We talked for four hours and when we were done, I felt, as I had the first time, that Kim is a unique woman in a tough business. I like her. She's definitely not out of any mold.
LAWRENCE GROBEL: How agonizing was the lawsuit and trial for you?
KIM BASINGER: It was the worst experience I've ever been through in my life, are you kidding? As shy as I am, do you honestly think I wanted to be in front of 12 jurors and a courtroom full of people that looked like "Night Court"? I've never been that scared in my life.
Q: Why'd you put yourself through it instead of settling quietly out of court?
A: The other side wanted to settle so many times it's unbelievable. Up until the court steps on the first day of this trial they were saying in my lawyer's office, "Just give us the money and we'll go away." It's all about money. And I don't have the money.
Q: Last time, you said that from your experience with Batman you learned about being screwed and how not to ever get screwed again. Would you say you were screwed over Boxing Helena?
A: Because it's in appeal I can't really talk about it. You know what a lot of people think? That I've lost this case. Are you going to write that it is in appeal? Serious appeal. We have the truth on our side: I am not guilty, and I take this far more seriously in 20 million different ways than they ever thought anybody would.
Q: It's a big issue in Hollywood.
A: I'm surprised that you think it's a big issue.
Q: Your husband isn't. He wrote a piece in the L.A. Times in which he said, "This verdict is not a victory for anyone in this business, a business where the climate of deceit and distrust, self-serving and self-seeking is high enough already ..."
A: I was sitting in a courtroom when this was all happening. I guess it is an issue. I'm so incredibly sad. It always takes the truth a little bit longer to cross the finish line. But God, it's just devastating for me to think that creative people cannot sit in a room and say anything to each other. I just wish it had been a legitimate team of moviemakers, not someone trying to be a producer and a director.
Q: The producer who sued you said: "This case should send a message to actors that when they commit, they commit."
A: I don't know what message he's going to end up sending because I didn't commit to anything. That's why I don't see the importance of this case. I know where you're coming from, but I just see this as a gigantic publicity stunt for a movie. These people were the only ones who spoke to the press during the trial. We didn't speak. In fact, when I first got to court and saw all the press, I honestly thought they got the wrong courtroom and were there for Rodney King.
Q: How shocking was the verdict?
A: It was devastatingly hurtful, but it wasn't shocking because of the plaintiff's lawyer's opening argument, when she said to the jurors: "Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Now we all know what it feels like, since we were in school, for the pretty girl to get everything she wants." I knew right then, the case was never going to be tried, I was.
Q: What was it about Boxing Helena that initially interested you?
A: Mainly what I thought to be, then, the sincerity of this girl, Jennifer Lynch. I felt some compassion for her. She put on this act of being this girl who really wanted to get this film.
Q: Why do you say it was an act?
A: I would like to think it wasn't, but look what's come down. It was both her and the producer who did this.
Q: Have you seen the movie she finally made?
A: We saw it with the jury.
Q: Did you feel it vindicated your decision not to do it?
A: Let's just say I made the right decision.
Q: Your legal fees must be...
A: Astronomical. Don't even know the amount yet.
Q: With you and Alec married, can they go after his money?
A: Absolutely not, cannot touch him in any way. I make my own money, I pay my own bills.
Q: Okay, let's move on to a happier topic. What was your wedding like?
A: It wasn't crazy, we didn't do anything outlandish. It was a Cinderella, magical afternoon. Alec took care of everything. He wanted it to be for himself and I was all for it, because I had no idea how I wanted to do it, and it's very important that he now has a wonderful memory for himself. The press actually was wonderful.
Q: How would you distinguish your first marriage from your current marriage?
A: The first marriage was about protection and not seeing clearly. The second one is about as much clarity as one could have right now. I didn't instantly fall in love--though I fell in love rather quickly. But this was about having gone through a lot of things together, having seen the worst and the best parts of each other. This is about being in love and being attracted to this human being, really loving him, who he is.
Q: How nervous were you the second time around?
A: Not for a moment. Alec had wanted to get married four years ago. He wants a family so badly. He wants everything yesterday.
Q: Do you want a family?
A: I do, definitely.
Q: You're almost 40, does that concern you?
A: I know women who are having babies at phenomenal ages and are not having any trouble at all. As long as I'm healthy I'll have my own kids. But we also want to adopt.
Q: Does turning 40 make you nervous careerwise?
A: If you know how short a stop this life is, I don't have time to think about that. If you look at people, they don't change that much over the years, especially from 30 to 40. I don't put that much emphasis on five or 10 years.
Q: Meryl Streep has said that movies usually call for one aspect in women--their sexuality. Having a brain doesn't help an actress.
A: I can't believe that she said that, because she's been a very brainy actress.
Q: Which shows you how cynical she has become.
A: That's very sad. I think beauty has its place, but at the same time, look at all the people in movies today, it's not all about beauty. And it's not all about sexuality--which, coming from me is a pretty big statement. My whole career has been somewhat that way so far--but nobody knows me in this world yet. Women are cynical about being used as sex objects. Which is a shame, because it's fun to use your sexuality. But there are very few parts written for women, period. It's all action heroes, it's men... it's a man's world, and it's a man's world here in Hollywood, too.
Q: How competitive are you?
A: I'm extremely competitive with myself. But I'm not actively competitive with other women in the business. Which may have been a mistake. I've never had someone in my life, agent or otherwise, fighting for me.
Q: Demi Moore has said that there are too many good actresses to fill the few great roles for women, so she has to go out there and fight.
A: That's a great attitude and she is right. I just don't know how you do that. The smartest thing you can do in this business is get connected with a great agent to help you. Get connected with people who will form a family around you, or a moat.
Q: You're obviously talking from a longing, since you've changed publicists and agents quite often.
A: Sometimes it takes 25 doctors before you find the one who can save your life. My agent now [Andrea Eastman] is a fighter. She knew the game was about fighting. I never knew there was a game.
Q: How do you think people perceive you?
A: That's a very hard question at this point in time. If that many people read and believe what they read, then I must not be perceived very well. I am constantly shocked by some of the things people say about me.
Q: Are you in the process of reinventing yourself?
A: Is every question going to be this fun? I just never think these thoughts. Reinventing myself. I'm not really doing that.
Q: Cosmopolitan once quoted you as saying: "I don't really live in a time zone. I don't abide by the rules here on Earth." Do comments like that add to the perception that you're a bit wacky?
A: We all have bosses and there are certain rules you have to live by. This may be a funny thing to say, but people didn't think Thoreau was very wacky, did they? I read a play called The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail and he just says it so perfect, it's like the clock--I just never lived too much by the clock. I don't live by a lot of society's rules, I can't pattern myself after the herd. There's so little time. What were you doing 10 years ago? God, it's scary. Ten years from now I'm gonna remember sitting here. And it's going to feel like six months ago.
Q: Does that depress you?
A: No, it excites me to death. It frees me.
Q: Looking back, are there things now that you would have done differently to have changed parts of your life?
A: What it is, it is. I don't look at the past and say, God, if I only...
Q: You don't think about turning down films like Sleepless in Seattle or Basic Instinct!
A: When I read Basic Instinct, it was just something I was not interested in doing at the time. I just didn't care about doing a highly explicit sexual piece which I thought it would end up being, and it did. Sleepless in Seattle, that was really early on. Nora Ephron was not even attached to it. It wasn't like Meg Ryan was hired the next morning--this movie went through some real changes. The Sleepless in Seattle that people saw, I never knew anything about it! There was a whole other Sleepless in Seattle happening! [Laughs]
Q: Last time we talked, you said The Marrying Man with Alec had more problems than the Book of Life. Does it still rank as the hardest film you've ever done?
A: [Laughs] Yeah, yeah. But the funny thing about it is that this film seems to be the basis for all of the bullshit that's out there. And when I say bullshit, I mean false, unbelievable stories. This was a Disney film, and the irony is that all my life my favorite films have been Disney films. But two wonderful things happened in my life out of that: I got to sing and I met Alec. So Mickey Mouse means a great deal in my life.
Q: The press was pretty brutal with you and Alec.
A: This is another subject that's been talked to death. It was all about deception. I've heard so many awful quotes from "a source, a crew member." How we fucked in our trailer and they tape-recorded us, and my washing my hair with Evian, and the Brazilian psychics that I go and see. Things that are so unbelievably untrue. I've never washed my hair in a trailer before, not in Evian or any other kind of water. I don't know what "psychic" means. The only psychic I have in my life is God, if He's a psychic. I've never dealt in psychic phenomena. I don't know how they make this crap up.
During The Marrying Man I had to go down to Brazil, and this guy printed in an article that Disney threatened to charge me $85,000 a day for this trip to see my psychic. In actuality, before the movie started, Disney said I'd have two weeks off. So I decided to go out of the country, to Brazil. I didn't want to tell Disney who I was going to see, because it was in my best interest not to. I was going to see a man named Mauricio de Sousa, an animator who's known all over the world. I had written an animated film that he loved so much that he was going to help put it into production. He came to California to meet me and in return I said that one day I would go to Brazil, and this was when I decided to do this. It became a smear campaign against me. And the crew had no idea what Disney was doing to Alec and myself.
Q: Disney's Jeffrey Katzenberg was quoted in Variety as saying: "I love my job, and, with the exception of Kim Basinger, most of the people I work with."
A: Did he say that? "With the exception of Kim Basinger." That's amazing, because I never really talked to Jeffrey Katzenberg. He honestly thinks I was the instigator in this whole thing, when in reality all we wanted to do was make a good film. That hurts me, that's very shocking. Do you have a copy of that? Jeffrey Katzenberg is a very powerful, very talented man. That's what's so unbelievable about this, how someone could try to destroy your career, your life. Why would I be somebody that he would want to pinpoint as hating? I don't hate him. I don't mean to sound like any damn Mother Teresa, God knows I have my ups and downs. But I'm actually very shocked by you telling me that. That's pretty much slander, it really is. When did he say that?
Q: A year or so ago.
A: Oooh. Wow. Maybe I was out of town working. That just makes me want to throw up.
Q: How was it doing a remake of The Getaway with Alec?
A: It was heaven. From top to bottom. We went back to the Jim Thompson book. When you see the [original] Ali MacGraw/Steve McQueen one, it's sort of a cult thing because they were together, too, at the time. As a couple they were interesting--you knew they went home together and you wondered if they fought and things. I don't rub Ali MacGraw's nose in it. Yeah, she was just the girlfriend, but she never claimed to be anything else. They focused on McQueen and the caper, the Sam Peckinpah violence. They never focused on the relationship. This one is totally about the relationship. It's about trust, it's about you are my partner and you're also my wife and what happens in this process? It's very volatile, it's violent, it's incredibly, insanely erotic.
Q: So there were none of the problems you experienced on The Marrying Man?
A: I was scared to death before we started. I knew if we got through this we'd get through the rest of our lives together. Emotionally, we had to go to the end of ourselves as actors. And we were very grown-up, very adult about it. On the day that we had to do a real volatile piece with each other, Alec would peer into my trailer door and say, "I love you, okay?" And I understood. Between "Action" and "Cut" he wasn't Alec, he was my co-star.
Q: You shot the film in Arizona. Were the umbrellas out? Did you get called a temperamental diva protecting herself from the sun?
A: That happened on The Marrying Man. But I'm allergic to the sun. I've been through biopsies and the whole nine yards. For The Getaway I had to wear a thick jelly to protect any part of my skin that was showing.
Q: Were the biopsies cancerous?
A: Beyond. Right after Never Say Never Again I came home with my first husband and he had been a surfer, so he had terrible skin problems, there were skin cancers all over his body. So I went to the clinic with him one day and I met a doctor and he was looking at the top of my lip. He asked me if I felt anything when I put my finger there and I said that when I touched it it felt as if I had a pin in my finger. He looked at it and said I needed a biopsy to check it out. It entailed three nurses to hold me down. They stuck a long needle up under my lip. I promise you, I've had the worst menstrual cramps where my back went out, but this--in my life--I'm talking about just so much pain. I cried out of my mind. Literally. And then they lasered off the part between my two peaks. And when I came back in five months he had to laser the other side off again. And he told me if I ever let myself see the sun again I'd be back in there. So would you carry an umbrella with you? You understand?
Q: Let's get back to what you think about your films and co-stars. What comes to mind when you think of Robert Redford and The Natural?
A: Very giving. A great experience because he was very knowledgeable about Hollywood. I loved the part and Barry Levinson. That was one of the truly brighter moments in my career.
Q: Richard Gere in No Mercy and Final Analysis?
A: I met Richard on No Mercy and we had a good time. It was an excellent script which was just destroyed along the way, and TriStar didn't market it properly. Final Analysis did not end up happy for Richard, who was the executive producer. He had creative differences with the director. In the end there was a lot of animosity between a lot of people and with the studio. I was in my own world for that film. I never saw it.
Q: How many of your films haven't you seen?
A: Most. You want to be great and lately there've been some real disappointments and you wonder where it all went wrong.
Q: Charlton Heston in Mother Lode?
A: Oh, you're just pickin' 'em out of nowhere, huh? I can't remember why I ever did that. Charlton Heston was a nice man. It's like working with Moses. I felt like a tiny girl around him. He wasn't real. It was one of those fantasy times.
Q: Burt Reynolds in The Man Who Loved Women.
A: He was the easiest person to improvise with. He had the quickest wit I'd ever seen, and he was trying to do something serious in that film. Blake Edwards just called me and asked if I'd do it, which was great for me because I had never done a comedy in my life.
Q: Sam Shepard and Fool for Love?
A: You can do all the commercial films in the world and then you can turn around and do a Sam Shepard play and it sort of puts you on another map. I adored [Robert] Altman--a gigantic gentle giant.
Q: Sean Connery and Never Say Never Again?
A: That was a toss-and-tumble mess. I had never seen a Bond film before I did it. The importance for me was in collecting a worldwide audience. But it wasn't a happy actor/director relationship. Sean ended up suing the company and took everybody to the cleaners. He was led astray and was out of his mind sometimes.
Q: Bruce Willis and Blind Date?
A: Blake Edwards asked me to do it. Bruce Willis was fine. It's amazing that that film comes back to me as one of people's favorite as far as rentals.
Q: Jeff Bridges and Nadine?
A: Robert Benton, who I adore, and his wife Sally were like family to me. He wrote Nadine for me, so he knew this character. Jeff's one of the best actors we have around.
Q: Mickey Rourke and 9 1/2 Weeks?
A: That movie was dangerous, but next to Batman it was my favorite, because of the challenge. It was the highest I've ever been as an actress and the lowest. I never stay in character--once the director says "cut," I'm outta there. But this character never left me. Treacherous, because you were on an emotional high or low every day. That's the film where I crossed over and thought of myself as an actress more than a movie star.
Q: Did you see the finished film?
A: Not from top to bottom. The films that I've seen are The Natural, because Robert Redford made me go to the opening because it was a benefit for Sundance, and I learned from that what a horrific experience it was to watch myself. And I went to the premiere of Batman.
Q: What'd you think of that one?
A: When I walked on that set, after Sean Young took a dive off a horse or whatever happened to her, I felt the thunder under my feet the first day, how big the movie was going to be. It wasn't a movie, it was an experience. I felt like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, wondering when I was going to land. Michael and Tim Burton were great; Nicholson was just Nicholson, we got along fine. The most important thing that came from it is my relationship to children now, and who I am to them. They could care less about Kim Basinger--when I walk into a children's hospital or a school, it's all about Vicki Vale.
Q: Any interest in reviving that character in future sequels if they asked you?
A: I haven't heard anything about Batman 3. But if Vicki Vale could continue, absolutely I would do it if I had a chance to reach as many children as the first one did. The second Batman was a much darker thing, so there wasn't much to capture the children.
Q: What interested you in doing the animated film Cool World?
A: That was such a sad experience. Frank Mancuso Jr. showed me what they planned to do with this film and I looked at my agent and said, "I want to do this film." I really loved the idea. It could have been ahead of its time. I thought we were making something special. What I heard happened is, when the studio saw it there was some deception between the director and the producer and somewhere along the way the animation got screwed up. When the studio saw it they didn't understand it and they cut an hour out of it. They lost the story, so it turned into a mess. I've never seen it.
Q: Val Kilmer and The Real McCoy?
A: That's another story, not a real happy one. The story we read and the film it ended up being don't match. What happened was the reediting of the project, because of creative differences between the lead actor and the director and [producer] Marty Bregman.
Q: The L.A. Times wrote that you seemed to be enacting the part under as much duress as your character. Any truth to that?
A: I read that review and said, Boy, you don't even know the half of it. To have unhappiness around you every day, it's very difficult to work. And Val Kilmer, who is a fantastic actor, just wasn't happy.
Q: What's the name of your character in Wayne's World II?
A: Honey Hornee. I never saw Wayne's World so I didn't know what it was about. But Dana Carvey just clean-called me and he was very sweet and sincere. He said, "We're really going to have fun, please do this with me." At first I said no, but he kept calling. It was just a blast. Dana's wonderful. It was a little gift to be given in the middle of the year.
Q: The Wall Street Journal reported a backlash against you among the people of Braselton. What's happening there?
A: That's something I'm going to address publicly on local television for the people of Braselton. It was all a matter of bringing a dream to a table. I didn't buy the town, I just searched for two years to find the money so a corporation could buy this town. A company in Chicago bought it and I only was going to be the supplier of the dream. And by the way, let me correct this, there never was an idea of a "Kim's Wood"--I don't even know what that means. A takeoff on Dollywood I guess. My dream was for artists--record people, movie people--to make a major career center on the East Coast. An auditorium for artists to play their new stuff, and an in-house radio station. There's a hungry crowd down there in Georgia. It wasn't a stupid dream. Unfortunately, at the time the economy was going straight down and dreams became expensive. So today it's in the hands of other people.
Q: Is the dream dead?
A: It's dead. Totally. It's really a horrible story.
Q: Didn't you put your brother Mick in charge of developing the town?
A: Yes, my brother's very involved there. Only I'm not involved with my brother, and haven't seen or talked to him in three years. I plan to address why the communication stopped. I gave him a good two-and-a-half years to come clean and say how we've not spoken, because I did not any longer want my name associated with Braselton and I felt it being misused. So now is the year I'm going to have to make a break from all of it. I really do love the people there. Braselton is a beautiful area and it needs to be preserved and I pray that people do right by it. It's not a nice story, this story about Braselton. That on top of this other stuff that's been going on these last three years, it was just one more thing I probably should not have gotten involved with. But I have no regrets, I learned a lot.
Q: You've obviously been learning quite a bit on your life's journey. What's the best thing about being who you are?
A: That I'm truly loved by someone and by people around me who will help make this ride through this short time we have on this planet much more peaceful for me.
Q: What's the best meal you've ever eaten?
A: I have a woman who does my body makeup, and she loves to cook for me, all vegetarian everything. We'd sit around my trailer during a film and, like, if we were going to go to the electric chair what would we eat as our last meal? I put down everything Southern that my mother made for me: black-eyed peas, turnip greens, cornbread, fried corn off the cob, pumpkin pie and German chocolate cake. [Laughs]
Q: How long have you been a vegetarian?
A: With the exception of tuna sushi, which I've had a problem giving up, I've been a vegetarian for as long as I can remember.
Q: What's the best hotel you've ever stayed at?
A: The Savoy in London.
Q: Where's the best place to go to get away from it all?
A: Home.
Q: The best car you've ever driven?
A: BMW, the old ones, 1986.
Q: What's the best song?
A: "What a Wonderful World," Louis Armstrong.
Q: Best concert you've been to?
A: U2 in Madison Square Garden.
Q: The best movie?
A: Tie for three: Song of the South, Amadeus and Being There.
Q: The best year of your life?
A: This past year.
Q: What's the most romantic experience you've ever had?
A: My wedding to Alec.
Q: The best love scene you've ever played?
A: In The Getaway.
Q: The best love scene you've ever seen?
A: Don't Look Now, Julie Christie.
Q: Who's the best kisser?
A: Oh Lord. You know that.
Q: How does Alec compare as a kisser to others you have kissed?
A: Oh God, that is not a very nice question! [Laughs] I love to kiss Alec. To me, kissing is the most important part of sexuality.
Q: There's talk about Alec getting involved in politics. What's the story?
A: He's involved in local politics in New York out in the Hamptons. He campaigns for certain Democrats. He's very politically-minded and wants to help people in a community. I want him to be happy, but I hope that he would not pick politics for himself.
Q: What do you think of his films?
A: I don't really see his films and he hasn't seen mine either. I know it's weird, but we live through it, I know what he's experiencing.
Q: If an alien spaceship landed on your porch and signaled for you to come, with Alec being in the other room and you had to choose, would you go?
A: Is it for a short ride or forever? [Laughs] I'd know in my heart what was going to happen, so I would go. Alec knows me and would be shocked if I didn't.
Q: He'd have the memory of you.
A: Oh, that's a terrible thing.
Q: Well, you've given us a tabloid headline: KIM WILLING TO LEAVE ALEC FOR ALIEN.
A: Oh God! Oh God! If that would truthfully happen I think I'd have faith that Alec would come later to meet me. That's a fun question.
Q: Your last words in our previous interview were that you had no regrets, "This is not a boring life I live." Still feel that way?
A: Ditto.
Q: Last words?
A: Let me tell you this, and I mean this with my heart, God knows everything, and in the end, no matter what you go through, this life is a lot longer than you think. Our stop here is short in comparison to where we're headed.
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Lawrence Grobel interviewed Bridget Fonda for the November 1993 Movieline.