Kristy Swanson: One Cool Customer

More than one casting director has said that Swanson often seems ill at ease during the auditioning process, so I ask if that's a difficult time for her. "Auditioning? Auditioning can be tough. Very tough. Especially now that I'm older. Competition is stiffer." I ask who else she's in competition with, but Swanson prefers not to get into this. "I don't really pay attention to that," she says. "I don't usually go to see the movies I audition for." But aren't there obvious names that she's in competition with? She thinks. "The obvious ones would be--all the actresses in my age group." She pauses. "Those would be the obvious ones." I wait. Like? For instance? "I don't really want to say their names," she says. Okay. So are there roles she's tired of seeing come up again and again? The girlfriend? Sex object? Damsel in distress? "Mmm..." she says.

As she reaches for another cigarette, I say, "You don't really seem to enjoy the whole celebrity thing."

"I don't consider myself a celebrity at all. I just love what I do. I'm not an actress to be famous." But does she understand the American fascination with celebrity? She got a taste of it when she co-starred with Luke Perry in Buffy and the rumors abounded that they had an affair. "It's really about him," she says. "They naturally assumed we were having a romance. But nobody ever asked me. Nobody ever asked Luke... If I go to a screening where paparazzi are taking pictures," continues Kristy, "I get uncomfortable. Why do they want my picture? Why are they yelling, 'Kristy, Kristy, over here!'?" That's what they do for a living, I remind her. "The whole experience is so horrific," she says. But you're expected to pose a little, I say. That's one of the rules. Surely she knows this? "Uh-huh," she says, unconvinced. Speaking of the paparazzi, I ask whether it's true she once had an affair with Alan Thicke. Swanson appears visibly unhappy and says, "No." I tell her this strikes me as a surprising reply, given that there were paparazzi snaps of the couple out on the town. Her response? You guessed it:

"Mmm..."

The celebrity game may get much more intense for Swanson. I think about warning her, but I have a pretty clear idea by now that she can take care of herself. When I observe that she has smoked as many cigarettes as I have, she says, "Don't mention that in the interview."

"What?"

"Smoking."

"Why not? I just saw you put down at least half a dozen cigarettes."

"Nuh-uh," she says. Then she smiles: she's kidding. "Only when I'm working. Nobody's perfect." Though it's remained hidden till now, she does have a playful side to her personality.

As if she's feeling confident that she's shown me she never has to answer a question unless she wants to, Swanson suddenly offers, out of the blue, to tell me the only unsolicited story of the day. It's about her next movie, John Singleton's Higher Learning. "It's about going to college, getting out in the real world," she says. "He deals with Campus Crusade for Christ and skinheads and the feminists and the gay groups and rape and it just kind of covers everything. It's about our generation.

"Right now John has me reading [The Autobiography of] Malcolm X," she says.

"Because when I first met with him a year-and-a-half ago..." She pauses, then confesses, "This story makes me look like a fool." I shoot her a look that says, So spill it. "We were talking and he was like, 'Where are you from?' and I said, 'Orange County,' and he started laughing. He said, 'I'm from the hood,' and all that shit. I got mad and gave him the finger. I felt like he didn't like me. And he was wearing this necklace of this three-dimensional head and I go, 'Is that Sammy Davis Jr.?' And he fell on the floor, he was laughing so hard. He goes, 'You don't know who this is?' and he gets the guy at the next table--'Who's this, who's this?' The guy goes, 'That's Malcolm X.' And John says, 'That's Malcolm X, Kristy,' and I said, 'Who's Malcolm X?' I was so embarrassed. I mean, it just wasn't taught to me in school. I heard about Martin Luther King and George Washington and all those guys, but I'd never heard of Malcolm X. But he forgave me." So what character is she playing in Higher Learning? A naive white girl from Orange County? "Yes!" Swanson says with a laugh. "I'm playing Kristen, from Orange County. He wrote it as a joke. For me! He's like, 'You're the real thing!'"

As we part I can't help wondering whether Kristy Swanson is about to become Hollywood's idea of "the real thing" as well. Time will tell.

Joshua Mooney interviewed Daniel Waters for the March Movieline.

FIRED BY KRISTY SWANSON:

ONE MAN'S STORY

Yikes! I've been sacked by Kristy Swanson. Impaled by Buffy herself. Made mincemeat of by Mannequin Two. After 10 years of bringing forth pearls from the murky oyster bed of Hollywood, after palavering with Burt and Kirk and Eddie and Meg and Greta and Adrian and Joel and Emma and Kenneth and Lara Flynn, after all that, what do I get? A cold backhand from the mall doll of Mission Viejo. My dismissal occurred after the first of what were to be two interviews. Our get-acquainted chat, while pleasant enough, did not yield the kind of juicy fruit we word pluckers are fond of. So at the end of that session, hoping for some galvanic responses, I suggested a game of fill-in-the-blanks. I encouraged Swanson to answer as quickly as possible, and to say the first thing that came to mind. I said, "At night I like to get into bed and curl up with..." and after much thought, she said, "Richard." I said, "My favorite time of day is..." and Swanson, again after much thought, replied, "When Richard comes home." I said, "Sometimes I catch myself fantasizing about..." Guess what she said? Since the Richard who figured prominently in this, and most other segments of my chat with Swanson, is an agent at a big talent agency which represents Swanson, I thought, here's a possible angle. Dating at the office. Love and work. So I called Richard at CAA. His secretary warned me that he might not want to talk to me about Swanson, but lo and behold, he returned my call. He listened to my first question and told me he didn't wish to be included in the story. "Fair enough," I said and hung up. I guess it was later that night that Swanson got word of my journalistic sleuthing, and it so upset her that she clamored for my dismissal. Now, I'm not sure what Swanson thinks journalists do all day, but for future reference, let me point out that one thing we do is pick up the phone and call people we consider relevant to the story we're working on. It's sorta, like, part of the job. And these people we call, most of whom are grownups, can either respond or not. Some people think that Swanson may be on the verge of stardom. While we wait for that to happen, her minions might want to explain to her the difference between a star and a supernova.

________________

Jeffrey Lantos

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