The star of Verhoven's Starship Troopers is not the fly-by-night starlet some might expect her to be.
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Wait a second. What's wrong with this picture? Gorgeous, puffy-lipped, twentysomething, model-turned-actress Denise Richards arrives at her Starship Troopers premiere with...her father?
And then, on a Saturday night, it's out to the Kass Bah with... a girlfriend? "I have two cats," says Richards, "and according to a recent magazine article, most guys would rather go out with a woman who has two children than one who has two cats." Then again, I suspect most guys will have no problem with the cats after they see Richards's nude scene in Wild Things, a sweaty, erotic thriller that also stars Matt Dillon, Kevin Bacon, Bill Murray and Neve Campbell.
This is the film in which all of Richards's talents will hopefully be on display--as opposed to Starship, which, I gather, didn't tax her acting skills. "There were days on that shoot," she says, "when I felt like an ass trying to react to a big bug that wasn't there." All she saw and heard was director Paul Verhoeven, who was "off camera, jumping up and down, making bug noises." The only bugs in Wild Things were the mosquitoes of South Florida and the butterflies in Richards's stomach before the first day of shooting. Yes, she was intimidated by the brand-name cast. "I thought, How the hell am I going to do this? But they all helped out. Kevin, especially, had no ego."
So how hot is Richards's career right now? "Well, I still have to audition. And I've lost a lot of roles--including the lead in Armageddon--to Liv Tyler. People think we have the same look." Personally, I can think of worse fates, but Richards continues unloading: "I've been unemployed for two months. I've been doing a lot of kickboxing. Sometimes I worry I'll never work again." I suggest, "You could always go back to modeling." She straightens me out. "No, I couldn't. All those girls are 14!"
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Jeff Lantos