The Flint Beneath the Shimmer

None of this is to suggest that MacDowell is a prude. I've heard, for instance, that in the privacy of the Qualley family ranch, indoor clothing is, well, optional. True? MacDowell grins radiantly and says, "I grew up in a house full of women, three sisters and my mother, and I vividly remember the freedom of being naked because we didn't have any guys around. We were always naked and, today, I just walk into the kitchen naked all the time. Luckily, my husband is the same as me. We're just comfortable with that and so are our kids. We're just, like, the Naked Family. Paul and I both having been models, you get a lot of freedom from changing clothes in front of other people. My son is nine now and I told him, if this is not normal, let me know, because I don't want you to grow up and say, "My mother walked around naked in front of me all the time.'" He said, 'Let's worry about it when I'm 10.'"

MacDowell doesn't come right out and say it, but it cannot have escaped her attention that her Michael costar John Travolta is reportedly earning well over $10 million, considerably more than she is. "If I have to choose between making good money and keeping my dignity," she says, "I'd rather have my dignity. And playing a great character would bring me more joy than all the money in the world. I fought for my role in Michael. I went and read for Nora [Ephron] and [producer] Sean Daniel when they weren't even sure they were going to make the movie. I meant it when I said, 'We'll sit here and read this whole script if you want to.' I really wanted this one, and it's hard if you come from that place when you're trying to get more money, because they know they have you. At one point, John [Travolta] asked me how much I was making, and I said, i don't know,' I remembered the figure as something close to what I've been getting, but that doesn't matter; I'm so happy doing this movie. It's not the sexy, strong, powerful woman role I mentioned earlier to you, but she's a complex, vulnerable person. Besides, I get to sing in it."

Surely such bravery must come in handy when working, as she is on Michael, with someone as legendarily complicated and confrontational as William Hurt. He is, as I understand it, the primary reason I was barred from a visit with MacDowell on location. What's his deal? "William's been misjudged by so many people." she asserts. "It would kill me if anything I had to say about him came out negative, because he's done nothing but enrich me as an actress. He's definitely intense, but he's very vulnerable and sweet and kind and giving. He's completely devoted to the quality of work. I don't think he likes interviews at all, and rightly so, because he's been misjudged and mistreated for his personal life. He's been dragged through horrors."

If MacDowell is getting along well with the notorious Hurt, how did she do with the less notorious Michael Keaton on Multiplicity? "The movie's basically a fantasy, glued together by a strong, passionate relationship. I was much more comfortable than on Groundhog Day [with Bill Murray). I had a blast with Michael, because we both like to talk and we chitchatted like brother and sister everytime we had a break,"

Since MacDowell appears to have gotten on so well with some of the more prickly guys in the business--Bill Murray, Gerard Depardieu, Hurt and Keaton--could anyone accuse her of being a diva? "My husband would say yes," she replies, with a laugh. "I try not to be. I try to keep a handle on it. I like to be treated as one of the crew, one of the people making the film, not as 'the movie star.' However, I wilt break in line on the set when the food's on."

MacDowell certainly didn't have a blast doing Bad Girls, that misfired 1994 shoot-'em-up, in which she shared the screen with Drew Barrymore, Mary Stuart Masterson and Madeleine Stowe. When I mention the movie, MacDowell's eyes widen slightly, and she recalls, "I was taking a bath last night with my baby, and when we came out, my husband and kids were actually watching Bad Girls on cable. It was tough looking at it, because that was a movie on which I was basically just trying to survive. It was a hard situation--hopefully never to be repeated. I was living in a hellhole with roaches in the washing machine and no windows in the kids' room. Drew was a sweetheart, an amazing person. Mary Stuart was very smart and got out of there the first week, while I stubbornly said to myself: i can do this.' When the original director was replaced, I should have walked away from the movie. Either that or asked them to just haul off and shoot me. Just let me die or let me go home."

I notice that MacDowell has omitted mentioning one of her fellow Bad Girls, rumored to have been the baddest. "Suppose you team tomorrow you've snagged a spectacular role in a good film for a top director and your costar is Madeleine Stowe," I say MacDowell's face becomes masklike as she observes, "I want to be very cautious because people change. I don't know what her deal was or what was happening in her life."

Although one has to think that MacDowell could, if she chose, dis plenty of people, she seems constitutionally allergic to Hollywood gossip. She tells me that one of her ambitions is "never to turn up on 'Hard Copy.'" A few seasons back she sparked a stir with a much-quoted interview in the Brit publication Toiler, in which she admitted using cocaine back in her premovie modeling days of the early "80s. It was a period in which she was linked romantically with champagne heir Olivier Chandon, danced the night away at chic European discos, consorted with such fast-lane types as Princess Caroline, and appeared on magazine covers around the globe. Explaining the Tatler Hap, she asserts, color rising, "I am very passionate on the subject of how women have been taught that they need to perceive themselves as perfect, Barbie doll, flawless size sixes."

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