With three new films, Lauren Holly looks poised to break out of her TV show "Picket Fences" and into big-screen stardom. Here she gets frank about her relationship with Jim Carrey, confesses that she thinks she looks like an alien and notes, "These movies could all bomb--then I'll be thankful I'm on the series."
__________________________________________
I'm waiting to meet Lauren Holly at a Brentwood restaurant not far from the home she shares with Jim Carrey. Given her status as Cinderella of the moment--as if it isn't enough to be in love with her Dumb and Dumber co-star and have a regular role on "Picket Fences," she's just finished three new movies: Sabrina, Beautiful Girls and Down Periscope--I half expect her to show up in a tiara, with animated birds swarming around her. Instead, she turns up in a denim jacket, brown satin miniskirt, killer legs, newly blonde locks, and a friendly, if no-nonsense, attitude that says she's a whole lot more than someone's princess.
DENNIS HENSLEY: Most TV actors are lucky if they can squeeze one film into their hiatus. You just did three. How did that work?
LAUREN HOLLY: It worked because I had a great team behind me and understanding producers. It was definitely exhausting. I won't say, "Oh, it was nothing," Once, I worked on "Picket Fences," took a red-eye, got off the plane, went directly to work on Sabrina. got on a plane, flew back and did another scene on "Picket Fences." I think there's a reason people don't do a full season of TV and three movies.
Q: What's your character like in Sabrina?
A: I'm a wonderful girl from this very wealthy family--I'm a sweet, politically correct pediatrician--the perfect match for Greg Kinnear, His family is happy that he's finally settled for someone like me, but then he gets distracted by Julia Ormond, who plays Sabrina.
Q: What is it with Julia Ormond? In every movie she's got guys fighting over her.
A: Look at her. Do you know I never met her? Isn't that bizarre? Whenever I worked, she didn't.
Q: Was it intimidating working with heavy hitters like Sydney Pollack and Harrison Ford?
A: I have a loud personality, maybe borderline obnoxious--I'm always joking around on sets. But on that set I was Miss Observer, like, "Don't speak--if they notice you're here, they may realize you're the wrong person."
Q: Most of your Sabrina scenes are with talk-show host Greg Kinnear. How does he do in his big-screen debut?
A: I think people are going to be surprised. When I first heard he was cast I said, "What?" but that was quickly followed by, "Oh, Sydney Pollack picked him, so there must be something to it." And when I met him, I immediately saw the qualities. He definitely has that smooth-talking, good-looking, charm guy down.
Q: What was Harrison Ford like?
A: I now have a crush on someone for the rest of my life. He's just a great example for all up-and-coming stars because he's such a hard worker, a completely dedicated family man, so proud of his children and wife--just an all-around gentleman.
Q: Which of your acting rules are you the most proud of?
A: I feel really good about Beautiful Girls.
Q: Have you seen it?
A: No. So we may need to erase that.
Q: Who, besides you, are the Beautiful Girls?
A: Uma Thurman. Rosie O'Donnell, Martha Plimpton, Mira Sorvino, Annabeth Gish and Natalie Portman.
Q: Don't tell me-- you didn't meet any of them, right?
A: I didn't meet Martha or Uma. [Laughs] All these cool chicks I'm not meeting! But I loved the movie. The story is a high school reunion. Matt Dillon and I were high school sweethearts. I moved away and married a rich guy, had a child, and moved back only to start up an affair with Matt. I'm not considered the nicest person--I drink. I'm a bit of a manipulator. It's a very different part than I've ever done before. I get to swear on-screen. It's great.
Q: What words do you use?
A: Fuck and stuff.
Q: As a verb or as an expletive?
A: Actually, both ways.
Q: What was Matt Dillon like?
A: Handsomest man on the face of the planet. I told him so. every day. He's about to be a huge star all over again.
Q: Did you go to your own 10-year reunion?
A: No, and I still get beat up over it. This very weekend, there's a mini-reunion of my closest core group of friends from high school and I'm get-ting shit because I'm not going, but I can't. And my 10-year reunion, I was working then, ton. I would have gone if I could. Are you kidding me? I'm from a very small town.
Q: What were you like in high school?
A: I wasn't one of the hot girls, that's for sure. I was kind of loud even then, always joking around, and I was a big flirt. I had this pact with my girlfriend: we were going to be the only virgins. I found out later that the basketball team had this bet that they'd be able to get me.
Q: They never succeeded?
A: No.
Q: Who cracked first?
A: I did.
Q: Did you make it out of high school with your pact intact?
A: Made it out of high school, yeah.
Q: College?
A: I'm not going to tell you about my first time.
Q: OK, just give me a Siskel and Ebert assessment.
A: Thumbs up. Very thumbs up.
Q: Tell me about your third new movie. Down Periscope, with Kelsey Grammer.
A: I play the first woman ever assigned to this submarine. It was a hard shoot be-cause we started on the water, so every-one was looking for-ward to getting back to the soundstage. But then that turned out to be a nightmare be-cause these sets were like tubes. It was very hot, everyone was in every single scene and I became so thankful for Kelsey Grammer because every single time he was just [ready] out of the gate. I think that's television, you know: you're used to having to be completely prepared. You don't have much time, and you just do it.
Q: Speaking of television, how much longer do you plan to stay on "Picket Fences"?
A: I don't know. A lot of people have been asking me that.
Q: Are they like, "When you gonna dump the TV show and concentrate on movies?"
A: Right. But I'm not there. You know, these new movies could all bomb--then I'll be thankful I'm on the series.
Q: You did a few commercials when you were starting out. What were the products?
A: One was Wesson oil.
Q: I thought I detected a little Wessonality in you.
A: And I did one for Cabbage Patch dolls.
Q: Did you have to give birth to one?
A: No. but it was running at the same time as my Wesson oil, where I was supposed to be 12 or 13--and in the Cabbage Patch dolls spot, I was a young mother. Go figure.
Q: You also did a little modeling, didn't you?
A: Very little. When I was 18, I did Crochet Fantasy. In fact, I was on the cover of Crochet Fantasy and the cover of Knitting World at the same time.
Q: Sounds like you touched off a veritable bidding war in the handicraft industry.
A: Basically, yes. Ford, Elite, all the big agencies were freaking out. In fact, from what I heard. Linda Evangelista and Cindy Crawford got nervous. It was big.
Q: What did you think the first time you saw yourself on the big screen?
A: That I looked like an alien. I still think that. I've just got this weird forehead. On Down Periscope, everyone was going to dailies every day. I went a couple of days and then David Ward, the director, said. "Why aren't you going anymore?" and I said. "Because I look like E.T."
Q: One of the newspaper ads for Dumb and Dumber featured you with a bubble coming out of your mouth saying, "I like dumb guys." Have you ever dated somebody really dumb?
A: When I was in college, I met this model, the handsomest thing I'd ever seen. At Sarah Lawrence, it was a very "in" thing to sit in the dining room and discuss politics or what you're reading. Everyone was in a discussion about war and then he started talking about what happened in World War III. I was mortified.
Q: Did you kiss him?
A: I don't think so. I'm pretty forgiving, but...
Q: While we're on kissing, congratulations to you and Jim on winning Best Kiss at the MTV Movie Awards for Dumb and Dumber.
A: Thanks. It was kind of cool, being a couple and winning best kiss.
Q: Were you a couple when the kiss in question was filmed?
A: We were becoming a couple. That wasn't our first kiss.
Q: Did you know in advance that you won?
A: Yeah.
Q: Did you have to act surprised?
A: No, but I was surprised when Jim said that I was the sweetest girl in town and that, at the risk of sounding medieval, he'd slay any dragon to win my favor.
Q: What did you say?
A: Well, I don't know if you remember the kiss but he kind of swallows my head, so I said. "That really is the way Jim Carrey kisses and you should see the way he makes love."
Q: Speaking of which, two of my friends wanted me to ask you how big it is.
A: [Laughing] Let's just say, you don't see me going anywhere.
Q: Does it bother you that there are all these women lusting after him? I mean, even Liz Smith has been commenting on his buff bod.
A: Yeah, I've got to start carrying weapons. [Laughing] No, it doesn't bother me at all. I'm not a jealous person and I'm kind of fatalistic about it--if somebody wants to stray, they're going to stray.
Q: Are you ever troubled when the media speculates about your relationship?
A: Jim's fine but I get very upset that they're always writing about us as "on-again. off-again, on-again, off-again"--like we're this flaky Hollywood couple that just breaks up and gets back together all the time. There was a brief moment at the beginning of the relationship, where we were both like, "Wait a second. Is it real? We met on a movie." So we took a step back, but since then we've just been solid. I care about him a great deal and I know that he cares about me. We've been together for close to a year-and-a-half now.
Q: A couple of years ago, you divorced actor Danny Quinn, Anthony Quinn's son. How long were you married?
A: Two years. I had been with him for a long time, though. Then we got married and then we broke up.
Q: Will you get married again?
A: It will take a lot because it's a scary thing, I mean, I want to be sure. Marriage is a real thing--I take it very seriously. God help me if I turn into, like, Liz Taylor or some-thing. So maybe I'll never get married again. It would have been a lot easier just to break up than go through the divorce.
Q: Was the divorce a particularly rough one?
A: Yeah. Definitely painful.
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.
__________________________________________
Denis Hensley interviewed Gina Gershon for the September Movieline.