Alicia Silverstone: The Crown Princess of Young Hollywood

Silverstone covers her eyes with her hands, lets out a wail and shakes her head.

"After he left, I was like. 'God, I was mean to him,' when, actually, I was fine. But that's the thing: I always feel like I'm not being nice enough. Leo, who gets this stuff--and worse--happening to him all the time, was, like, 'Get over it, Alicia. You were a little bitchy, but you just have to be clear with people tike that and get it over fast.' He told me this story about some guy who came up to him and said, 'Weren't you some guy in some retarded thing?' These people are so unclear. I mean, if I weren't in act¬ing and I saw Michael Jackson, I'd go up to him but I'd at least have my thoughts together before I opened my mouth."

It sounds to me as if she's having a bumpy adjustment to being recognized, sought after, desired. "Desired," she says, repeating the word, rolling her eyes, laughing now.

"Come on," I remark, only half-jokingly, "didn't The Crush win you an MTV 'Most Desirable' Something-or-Other award to prove you're the sexiest thing in movies?" Silverstone, suddenly unamused, clarifies the mat¬ter like a shot. "I didn't win 'Most Desirable Female,' Janet Jackson did. I won the better awards: 'Best Villain' and 'Breakthrough Perfor¬mance.' When I noticed that John Malkovich from In the Line of Fire was in the 'Villain' category with me, though, I thought, 'This is pretty interesting.'"

I ask whether getting up onstage at the MTV Awards, and suddenly being so instantly recognizable to so many people so early in her life, has thrown open to her the doors of the best clubs. 'The only time I go out is if I'm specifically invited to a party. Like, I was invited to Tori's birthday at the House of Blues last May, but I haven't been back there since." That's Tori Spelling--don't you know?--the mention of whom makes me wonder whether Tori's producer pa, Aaron, didn't ask Silverstone, post-_Crush_, to play a role in one of his glossy teen sex soaps, like "Beverly Hills, 90210" or "Models Inc."? "He did," she says. "On 'Beverly Hills, 90210,' when he needed a new girl, he asked me. I was so flattered. I've seen him in his little blue robe with his little cigar and he is so cute, but I just didn't think it was right for me. I don't know if he drinks or not, but he seemed really drunk at Tori's party and--[though] he already knew I wasn't going to do it--he said, 'I really want you to be in my show.' I think it would have been real¬ly detrimental because I want to do [feature] films. Also," she says with a shrug of her shoulders, "I just don't think that there's a lot of acting going on in that show."

Wasn't the offered role the replacement for Shannen Doherty, which Spelling reportedly had at one point also approached Drew Barrymore? "I'm sure he asked her first," she observes of the actress to whose pouty looks hers have been compared. The com¬parisons, she admits, "used to be a thing with me because, work-wise, Drew Barrymore isn't somebody that I look up to. I was kind of disappointed to be compared to somebody who is nothing like me."

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