Kim Basinger: Kim Confidential

Q: You told me your first marriage [to makeup artist Ron Britton] was about protection and your marriage to Alec was about clarity. That still hold?

A: I do believe that.

Q: Is Alec still your life's focus?

A: Did I say that? [Laughs] My family is the most important thing to me, hands down. It's a whole new ball game for me now.

Q: Is the passion between you as intense--or have you settled into a more married-life routine?

A: Alec truly thinks the focus is always with the baby. He went on the Rosie O'Donnell Show and said, "My wife and I are separating; she's fallen in love with another woman--a 14-month-old, bald-headed girl." The audience was so dumbstruck by his statement that we were splitting they didn't get the joke. The passion goes through different stages after you have a child. You have some great moments, you have some disagreements. We've been together seven years now and have gone through a great deal of ups and downs, which have made me a stronger and better person. We have the real foundation a partnership needs. We're very different in a lot of ways, but very much alike in the key ways. We're just normal people like everybody else.

Q: This is what Alec said about you: "There's a naivete about her. She just doesn't get it. And that's what I love about her." Are you as naive as Alec thinks?

A: I feel the same way about him. Our personalities manifest themselves so differently. Alec is gregarious, vocal, outspoken, and he sees my quiet shyness ... maybe I am very naive.

Q: What made you decide to do L.A. Confidential as your reentry to movies after taking time off to have your baby?

A: When I first read the script I said, "No, I don't want to do this." I just didn't see it. I wanted something like Jane Eyre. I'm my own worst enemy sometimes when I pick projects. God knows I've made some horrible choices in my life, and I've passed up really good offers that other people have become huge stars from. [Laughs] I read L.A. Confidential again at my then-agent's advice, and I saw what he was talking about. I was nervous meeting with the director, Curtis Hanson, because I had some questions about stuff in The River Wild _and _The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. But he had it in his mind who he wanted as the Veronica Lake character. It's a wonderful part for me because until now, dramatic, serious pieces have eluded me.

Q: Body Heat-type films?

A: Oh no, I did my 9 1/2 Weeks. I'm talking about what I call "Yea, My Lord" pieces that a lot of women are doing--which are very beautiful. All women want to dress up and do what Nicole Kidman did in The Portrait of a Lady.

Q: So in L.A. Confidential you get to play a serious party girl in a cast that includes Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito.

A: It's an amazing cast--those two, plus Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, David Strathairn, James Cromwell. Russell Crowe's one of the most talented people I've ever worked with. James Cromwell plays the bad guy--and I just loved him so much as the farmer in Babe that I hated to see him be bad.

Q: You had a major catastrophe when it came to making you into a Veronica Lake look-alike, didn't you?

A: Today you put highlights in your hair, but women in the '40s used to dye their hair solid. Veronica Lake, Grace Kelly, all those girls had really beautiful blonde silk angel-looking hair, but oh, what you had to do to get that! I've never dyed my hair, just put highlights in it, but I volunteered to let it be dyed. My hair rebelled. I was there in the sink with this wet hair and my head was burning. I asked if that was normal and they said yes, it's supposed to tingle. So I lay there for another four minutes and then asked them to rinse it out because it was burning so badly. It continued to burn. By the next morning I had blisters on my head and down my neck. I had to have wigs because my hair started falling off. Not out, thank God. There was no damage to the root. My hair was just breaking off in big pieces. In the last two scenes of the movie we cut my hair short. And at the end of the movie, I told the hair stylist to just cut my hair all off. I was kind of happy with the idea of just getting rid of that hair for a while. And oh boy, did I get my wish. I was almost bald.

Q: You said playing TV reporter Kitty Potter in Altman's _Ready to Wear _was the most terrifying thing you'd ever done. Why?

A: No script, no nothing. Fool for Love, which I did with Altman, had a script, and it was a wonderful part for me--it made a difference. [But on Ready to Wear] Altman took us all together and said, "We're going to go into these fashion shows in Paris and you are going to be in character and not come out of character even if you see somebody you know." I came from the fashion world and had people coming up to me and I had to be rude to them because the camera was on me the whole time. I felt so horrible. I was doing everything but slapping these people in the face. Plus it was on-the-spot acting. Altman would see someone and tell me to go interview her, and it would turn into these catty conversations as he would stand behind us roaring with laughter. Now we know how it all turned out--the film was just mashed into the wall.

Q: Did you ever know what the film was about?

A: No, I never knew what he was doing.

Q: How disappointed were you with The Getaway?

A: Truly disappointed, but what could we do when God chose to snow the whole nation in the weekend it opened--and it was the same weekend Ace Ventura, Pet Detective opened. We've been offered The Getaway 2. The Getaway where? God knows.

Q: For Alec it might be to get away into politics, though hasn't his liberal bent irritated an East Hampton newspaper, which wrote that he should get out of town?

A: He's so into politics, with his TCC [The Creative Coalition] organization, which he's president of in New York. The relationship he has with that paper puzzles me a little bit. They banter back and forth. I think Alec has just worn out his welcome with the column he keeps writing.

Q: Would Alec make a better congressman, governor or senator?

A: I don't really know, because he changes so quickly. As a kid he wanted to be president. He loves to write columns and sometimes I think he would be best doing that. Or maybe a radio talk show. He would love that, and he'd be great. I don't know where he might end up, but I wouldn't be surprised wherever it is.

Q: How might you feel about being a politician's wife?

A: I knew you weren't going to let me end it there. Oh God, I just plead the Fifth on that. Alec is always saying, "I can't do it alone." I go in my bathroom and lock the door and turn on my stereo real high. [Laughs]

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