Lauren Holly: On the Brink

Q: How does spending time with Jim's daughter, Jane, make you feel about the prospect of having children of your own?

A: It makes me realize I'm not ready yet. I don't want to do that quite yet. Jane's mom is a really good mom and Jane does so many things so well--I'm always saying, "Who helped you do that?" and she's like, "My mom." You have to have that time. When I have a child, I really want to be a mother to that child. Until then I'm not going to. It's perfect now because I get to spend time with her. I get to buy her little presents. She's a great girl.

Q: What girlie things have you rediscovered since you've started spending time with her?

A: Dancing to pop music tike Ace of Base. We dance together.

Q: Who were your teen idols?

A: OK, ready? Bobby Sherman. I had Bobby Sherman love beads.

Q: He was hawking love beads?

A: Oh yes. And David Cassidy, Gregory Harrison and Randolph Mantooth. Those are my dudes.

Q: What was your first impression of your dude Jim Carrey?

A: I didn't know anything about him except I'd seen a commercial for "In Living Color." Then, when I went to meet him about a role for Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, I was shocked because I thought he looked like a GQ model--I didn't know he was handsome or tall or anything like that. So I saw him for 20 minutes, and that was that. Cut to a year-and-a-half later; I saw him again, about Dumb and Dumber, and I got a crush on him. I remember one night I was watching "In Living Color" and my best friend called me up saying, "Turn on your TV right now. This is the guy you have a crush on?" Jim was doing Venus De Milo or whatever in that little bikini thing!

Q: Is it true that a mutual friend had predicted you were going to fall for him?

A: Tom Shadyac [the director of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective] did. When I was offered Dumb and Dumber, Tom said, "You're going to end up with Jim. I know Jim, and now I know you, and you guys are going to be together." And I was pissed. I didn't speak to him for a week, because here he was saying that I was going to have an affair with my co-star. Later, he sent us flowers with a note that said, "I told you so."

Q: Did you ever ask Jim to come home in Val Kilmer's Batman suit, just for kicks?

A: No, but it's something, isn't it? It was really amazing to watch the growth of the Riddler from the first day when Jim tried to spin a cane and I thought, "Oh my God, every window is going to be broken." I mean, for months he had the cane in his hand no matter what. Well, except for may-be sometimes.

Q: Did you have fun at the Batman Forever premiere?

A: It was fun. I wanted to call my family and say, "Guess what we're doing today?" I'm very close to my brother, and he and his best friend from college came out for it. Jim went so far as to dress them both in his clothes, these cool black jackets and cool shirts. They claimed they got girls because of it.

Q: You had another brother who died in a fire when he was 14. How did that loss change you?

A: The way it changed my life is I will never be 100 percent happy again. I just won't. There's always that catch--I think about him all the time and I think about what he would look like. He would have just turned 18. It will make me sad forever.

Q: Has seeing how fragile life is made you more likely to take chances?

A: I think the opposite. It's made me feel more vulnerable. I worry about things now. I'm not sure what I would do without my parents or my grandparents--I'm like, "Please, God, don't let anything happen."

Q: As I was talking to people about you, the word that kept coming up was "nice." As in, "Lauren's a nice person."

A: I love that. I love that more than anything I've ever heard. See, I got goose bumps. I want to be a nice person, more than anything else, to tell you the truth. I think there's a lot more to gain if you're nice than if you're bitchy.

Q: Do people kiss your ass a lot more now?

A: I guess I notice a little difference. The weirdest thing for me is that people know who I am.

Q: Joan Rivers outside the Golden Globe Awards notwithstanding.

A: Ugh. One of my most embarrassing moments.

Q: Were you mortified?

A: I didn't know what to say. When she said, "And you are?" I said, "Lauren Holly." That still didn't ring a bell, so I started giving her my résumé! I was lucky she didn't let me go on--I probably would have gotten to the Wesson commercial.

Q: You said earlier that you met Jim for Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. What role were you up for?

A: I was offered Courteney Cox's role and I passed on it for a lot of reasons. It's not like I was a big star, but I thought, "Is this the one that I go through hell on with the scheduling of the series?" I didn't think so. Those things always work out. I get other people's cast-offs all the time.

Q: What was your worst audition?

A: Sister Act. I get this call: they're having trouble finding the young mousy nun so they want me to go in. "But isn't this singing?" I ask. "Yes, they know you don't sing." I go in, read the scene, it goes well and the director says to me, "Will you sing a song for us?" I said, "Sing? I don't sing." "No. no, no. Lauren, it doesn't matter that you don't sing. We just want to see if you look like you can sing--do the body movements and the facial expressions and then we'll dub it." So I closed my eyes and belled out "Happy Birthday" as loud as I could and I tried to put all the feeling and body movement into it. When I finished, I opened my eyes. I've never seen such looks of horror as there were on their faces. Then I heard someone in the back of this group say, "Wow, that girl's got balls." [Laughing] It was horrible.

Q: If you could be a man for one day, what would you like to experience?

A: What it's like to have a penis.

Q: If you could be Jim Carrey for a day...

A: That would be fun because I would get to see what goes on in that head.

Q: What did you think of Newsweek doing a cover story on how much money he's making?

A: I guess it's news. I mean, it's kind of like Monopoly money in a way. It doesn't seem real. We don't really spend it.

Q: What's your biggest extravagance of late?

A: I bought shoes that cost $300.

Q: What's the poorest you've ever been?

A: How does six months of working the night shift in a canning factory, while living in a pup tent with a hot plate on the shore of a lake with a bar of Ivory soap, grab you? Is that poor enough?

Q: Where was this?

A: In my hometown. It was near my grandparents' house, so I could go in and shower. I was intent on saving money for school, and I was so broke, but I didn't want to live at home either.

Q: Where's the strangest place you've ever seen your image?

A: Playskool toys made this little woman cop doll with red hair which was an exact copy of my character on "Picket Fences." I mean it was obvious. That was weird.

Q: Do you own one?

A: Yeah, on a shelf in my office I have a little Mask guy, a link Riddler action figure and my little cop doll.

Q: Do they all get along?

A: Yeah. [Laughing] But she rules the roost.

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Denis Hensley interviewed Gina Gershon for the September Movieline.

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