Ashley Judd: Steel Magnolia

Q: You played Harvey Keitel's daughter in Smoke. Did you do much improvisation?

A: None. Paul Auster's screenplay had the little turns of humanity, of rage, of self-loathing, of debilitating grief. It was all in the lines. Solid scenes, extremely well written. All I had to do was fill it up with behavior. It didn't require any improvisation to get there.

Q: You've worked with legends like Pacino and De Niro, and with up-and-comers like Matthew McConaughey and Vince Vaughn. Can you compare the veterans with the newcomers?

A: It's very interesting to work with someone like Matthew or Vince--they're young to it and they're good. What they're doing is what the masters long ago perfected--they're just being themselves. That's why Matthew's performance A Time to Kill was so well received, and why Vince was so great in Swingers. They're on the right track. The guys who are evolved haven't evolved out of being themselves--they work with their currency, and your own expression is the most powerful currency you have.

Q: You said you didn't think your character in A Time to Kill was special.

A: It scared me for that reason. She didn't have the emotional volatility of a lot of the other characters that I've played. She is kind of the normal kid that I have come to realize my parents were when they were the age I was five years ago. This wasn't a person with a tremendous emotional dysfunction or any imperative mission. We make movies about extraordinary people, but she wasn't.

Q: You wound up living with Matthew McConaughey during filming--was this part of method acting?

A: No, it was about fun. It's not like we met, shook hands, and I moved in. We were seeing each other before we made A Time to Kill. The day I got there I went over to dinner with him and I never left until I had to go to L.A. to make Norma Jean and Marilyn.

Q: Are you still friends?

A: Oh yeah! Very good friends.

Q: How did it end between you?

A: It was two people who loved each other releasing each other. I realized that the woman Matthew ends up with forever is not going to be the woman with whom he went through this fantastic change. "Fantastic" meaning "related to fantasy." He was getting offers for extraordinary amounts of money before the movie was halfway finished. He couldn't help but know that there was going to be a very different landscape when he emerged from that movie.

Q: Last I heard you had split up with Michael Bolton. Can you talk about it or is it off limits because it's still too raw?

A: Off, but thank you for asking. In a way it's hard, because you love people and you think so much of them. I would love to go on, to talk about nothing but the men I love. But I'm not going to.

Q: Do you have a man you love now?

A: Yeah. Oh yeah. I'd say two. [Laughs]

Q: Your sister said she didn't worry about you professionally, but did worry that you were going to fall in love with every guy you acted with. Unfair comment?

A: Not unfair. I'm sure that's a valid concern to a lot of people on the outside.

Q: Why do you have this reputation for dating your costars?

A: Because people like you seem to put it out there. It's like this guy that I let carry me to my car the other night when I got mobbed--I was carrying my shoes in my hands, and this good-looking security guy asked if I wanted him to carry me to my car. What is that going to mean? That I have the reputation for getting so drunk I can't walk out of a bar? It's definitely not who I am. If anything, I'm a very straight drunk. If I get drunk you can't tell I'm drunk unless I decide to let you know I am.

Q: Do you ever get stoned?

A: I don't smoke. Never.

Q: What about cocaine?

A: Never. Never.

Q: You've said you studied articles in sociological journals about why people are interested in celebrities. What did you find out?

A: I was interested in why we elevate these people, the psychology of this adulation. But I didn't find out much. I experience it more firsthand. I choose to remain impervious. I feel a tug occasionally at trying to discourage people's inordinate attachment to what movie stars do. But I don't know that I can dismantle even one person's excessive and inappropriate and really just fundamentally impolite interest in what people like me do.

Q: What magazines do you read?

A: None.

Q: Do you remember the first time you saw Playboy magazine?

A: Why would you ask a question like that?

Q: Why not?

A: A stack of magazines under a bed rings a bell, but I couldn't tell you where. It's interesting because it's a maverick question. It's a curious thing to ask. And I'm very suspicious of Movieline magazine. They're very cutting and very spiteful. It's a very snitty, rumor-fueled magazine. I wonder what sorts of things they lead you to ask.

Q: They don't lead me to ask anything. They just like to have fun.

A: Oh yeah, a lot of fun ... at other people's expense. Whoooo! That's quality fun right there, friend!

Q: Back to your work. You played the young, pre-stardom Marilyn Monroe in the HBO movie Norma jean and Marilyn. You said about her, "Her life would have been unspeakably more tragic if she hadn't been famous.

A: And if she hadn't been physically beautiful, because that is such a commodity in this time and place. Then again, who is to say? If she had been ugly, she may have been forced to find a spiritual peace that she managed to dodge because she was constantly living with the transaction of her body.

Q: Your mother disapproved of your playing a nude scene in Norma Jean and Marilyn--how often do you have to deal with her disapproval?

A: Disapproved, approved, whatever. It disturbed her a little bit, but we're always going to upset our parents. That's part of our job as the next generation.

Q: Did your mother once take you to the UCLA Medical Center to hear about the effects that playing certain intense characters can have on actors' immune systems?

A: She's so full of shit. I happened to go with her and it's something I learned, so no big deal.

Q: And then you go on to play an extremely intense character in Kiss the Girls.

A: Actually, it was a moment of great vindication. On my birthday everyone was out here and Paramount let me screen Kiss the Girls. I had my friends, family, acting teacher. My mother asked him, "Do you think it's all justified what she puts herself through?" And he said, "Absolutely. Whatever it takes."

Q: Would you gain the weight De Niro did to play a part like Jake LaMotta?

A: Yeah, that part, that director, yes.

Q: You know what Olivier said about Dustin Hoffman after Hoffman ran for an hour to get his adrenaline pumping in Marathon Man? "Why doesn't the dear boy just act?!"

A: My response to that story is, When you're Olivier you have the right to say that to me, but you're not Olivier, so you don't have that right. Also, Olivier had his technique, God bless him, and Dustin Hoffman has his, and I have mine. And I'm with Dustin.

Q: What did you learn from Morgan Freeman?

A: It's so rich as to be almost beyond description and so basic as to be stupid sounding. It's also personal. Suffice to say, he is a hero. The gulf between how cool he is and the rest of the world is insurmountable. An abyss!

Pages: 1 2 3 4