Natasha Richardson: The New Natasha

Tales from the set of Rob Roy, the intimate historical epic that Neeson is shooting in Scotland opposite Jessica Lange, Eric Stoltz and John Hurt, have suggested that Richardson and Neeson can be a formidable force, a flying wedge with a very sharp blade, when it comes to protecting each other's interests. Does Richardson pipe up when she feels that her husband isn't, say, being handled the way she thinks he should be? "If I felt something was intruding on him and he was being used in some way," she says, "or that his good nature was being taken advantage of, I might say something to him. We do take a strong interest in each other, not just in terms of career choices. But we're two actors and, contrary to what people think, that makes you each other's harshest critics."

Perhaps because Neeson is considered by some to be more easy-going and less articulate than Richardson, there are those who view her as domineering--the bad cop to Neeson's strapping, good-natured good cop. As someone who, perhaps, reminds her husband that he is entitled to movie star treatment. "God, it's that bad?" she says, wide-eyed, when I mention this to her. "What Liam and I have very much in common, having been theater actors, is that we don't have to be pampered. The truth is that there are some things that bug him that wouldn't bug me at all and I'm like, 'Why are you upset over that?' And there are some things that would bug me that wouldn't bug him. All actors have things that intrude on their work, which is so dependent on mood and concentration. If there are things that get in the way, distracting you, that can be incredibly frustrating. Certainly, he's very laid-back and I'm much more energized. He can let things wash over him and I'm more vulnerable. I can get affected by little things."

Such little things as? "I'm too critical of myself," she asserts. "I'm working on that because if you're too critical, it means you control things too much and that's not interesting. Sometimes you just have to do it. I've been working in the last couple of years on just doing it, not trying to come down so hard on myself when it doesn't happen the way I want it to happen. Without sounding too weird, I feel that whatever pain I've been through in my life enables me to connect with somebody else's journey and to be able to share that with an audience. To unzipper myself emotionally. That's what it's about for me."

Does Richardson, despite her career ambitions, want to raise a family with Neeson? "I know too many people who do it successfully to believe it's not possible for actors to raise wonderful families," she says. "Of course, it's tough for women because it means taking at least a year out, but I would very much like a family. I just hope they're not actors, that's all."

How does Richardson, who grew up surrounded by actors, view actors? "We aren't to be trusted. The fundamental thing about actors, apart from the selfishness, is that we are deeply insecure people. Very insecure, very vulnerable. Acting is a glorious, wonderful, terribly spoiling job and it's sometimes glamorous. I love glamour. I think there should be more of that, because that's what it's all about. I think we actors should try to stop pretending to be Mr. and Mrs. Joe Normal."

And how does she view her interior self, her deepest, non-actor nature? "I'm a helpless, helpless romantic in a lot of areas," she answers, immediately. "I like my home to look nice. I love beautiful things. I like to take care of my friends and my family and cook them a good meal. I like to make sure people are taken good care of. I love to read and to see movies and to totally zone out by traveling somewhere wonderful. I'm also somebody who's very good at trying to take care of people and at organizing. I like to make sure that everything's right."

Coming from such a famous family, I wonder whether Richardson was ever awed by someone else's fame. "I write fan letters all the time," she says, laughing. "I was about seven when I wrote my first one, which was a fan letter to the Queen. I used to have a long list of heroes in my little diary, ranging from David Cassidy to Harrison Ford to Illie Nastase. I sometimes write to actors if I really admire their work, because I've been on the receiving end of some of those and it means an enormous amount. I recently wrote to Tommy Lee Jones about his work in my father's last film, Blue Sky, because I found it so moving."

Although Richardson has made her mark playing tortured and intense, she strikes me as someone who should try daffy. After all, onstage she has played the old Grace Kelly role in a stage version of High Society. Besides, she shares with her mother an almost comical gravity, so where is Richardson's Morgan!, the screwball comedy that put Vanessa Redgrave on the map? "I do have a daffy streak," she says. "I remember being offered The Favor, the Watch and the Very Big Fish with Bob Hoskins and Jeff Goldblum, but only pending a meeting in Paris with the director practically on the basis of, you know, 'Be funny,' which is the most horrible pressure to be under. I was trying to think of jokes on the plane, like, 'Did you hear the one about . . . ?' It was different when John Irvin offered me Widows' Peak, because that was a cool, arch femme fatale, so my points of reference were Claudette Colbert, Grace Kelly and a little bit of Glenn Close's voice. But I would love to do something like Carole Lombard or Katharine Hepburn."

Richardson obviously knows that few people would peg her for a closet madcap. To stir such things up herself, she took a comedy project that she is developing to writer-director Nora Ephron, who, she says, was "almost tempted, but she has so many other projects. You never know, though, it still might happen." Something more certain to happen is that next summer she and Neeson will reunite with their Anna Christie director on a movie they are developing based on Emile Zola's tragedy Therese Raquin. Few laughs are promised, but, as Richardson puts it, "what an incredibly passionate love story. Who could believe it was written over one hundred years ago?"

Yet, although producers and directors appear to be quite interested in the love story of Natasha and Liam, Richardson has a clear fix that they should not become the Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton of the '90s. "We have to be really careful about the projects we decide to do together," she reasons. "We can't do every movie together, nor do we want to do every movie together. We're both aware of how special it is to work together and that we do seem to have this chemistry that we might not necessarily have just because we're a couple. And a lot of people want to exploit that. We would like to, on and off, be able to do that for a good many years of our lives. So, the stakes are quite high in choosing what we do and don't do. We don't want to blow it."

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Stephen Rebello interviewed James Woods for the November Movieline.

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