Not long ago, Jennifer Love Hewitt was just another one of the teens on TV's Party of Five. Then her screamfest I Know What You Did Last Summer hit the screen. Now, fresh out of high school, Hewitt has two new films - Can't Hardly Wait and the upcoming sequel to Summer - and Hollywood just wrote her a $500,000 paycheck for a pitch she'll develop and star in.
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"How beautiful is it that bubbles are flowing over us?" says Jennifer Love Hewitt as we stroll through City Walk at Universal Studios, where bubbles stream Lawrence Welk-style from one of the shops. The actress, known best for her role as Sarah on TV's Party of Five, describes the Technicolor tourist trap as one of her favorite hangouts--a fact that attests not only to her age, 19, but to a naturally gregarious nature that goes great with the bubbles. No wonder she prefers to be called Love.
"I love it when people say, 'We love Party of Five,' she tells me. "That means the work I'm doing is worth something to somebody else." Where does Love's eager-to-please demeanor come from? Maybe the South, where she was born--at the age of 10 she moved with her mom from Texas to Los Angeles with the sole purpose of getting into showbiz. Or maybe it's because Love knows just how hard it is to get a big toe in Hollywood's door. She's often erroneously thought of as an overnight sensation. The truth is she's been paying her dues for years.
Right after her move to L.A. she did a few dozen commercials, then was cast in Disney's TV series Kids Incorporated, which led to three more series, two albums, and finally Party of Five and yet another album. Before last year's scream of a hit, I Know What You Did Last Summer, she appeared in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit and _House Arrest _with Jamie Lee Curtis. Come to think of it, Love's lack of ego probably comes from not having enough time to develop one.
Love's workload won't be letting up anytime soon, thanks to the current craze for all things teen. She recently finished Can't Hardly Wait, a high school graduation comedy; she's wrapping up I Still Know, the sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer; and she's just sold her project, Cupid's Love, about a wedding planner who grows fond of the groom, in which she'll star.
DENNIS HENSLEY: You usually play sweet but cutely sexy characters. Do you ever get scripts that call for a straight-out babe?
JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT: Yes. But I don't think anybody would believe me as a very sexy person, so I'd be wasting my time. I'm one of those people that if it came down to comparing me to Marilyn Monroe or Gidget, I'd always be Gidget. Sometimes I wish I was just a little more "va-va-voom," but I'm not and that's fine.
Q: But your character in Can't Hardly Wait is described as the "dream girl."
A: She's a dream girl who doesn't think she's a dream girl.
Q: Were you anybody's dream girl in school?
A: I was completely unpopular. I had a really rough time in junior high school.
Q: Were you acting at the time?
A: Yes and my teachers didn't like me because they thought I was ruining my education, even though I was learning much more through work than they could ever have taught me in school. The kids just thought I was some freak and tried to beat me up. I used to get Coke thrown on me. I recently saw two of those girls at a 7-Eleven.
Q: That must have been delicious.
A: It was really cool. I went in to get a Slurpee and they were standing there. I got that old fear back, like, "Oh my God." Then they came up to me and they said, "We just love Party of Five. Would you mind signing something?" And I said, "You know what? I'm sorry, I can't. I have to go. Really nice to see you. Bye-bye." I wanted to say something really mean, but why go to their level?
Q: People magazine covered your high-school graduation. Was it weird having them there?
A: They're very nice, but I wish that maybe I'd done it differently. I was really worried that a lot of the other students felt as if they weren't special on their graduation day because, you know, I had a camera crew there.
Q: Were you surprised at how well I Know What You Did Last Summer did?
A: Absolutely shocked. I thought it would be a cute movie that maybe a couple of people would see.
Q: What advice did your Party of Five costar, Neve Campbell of Scream fame, give you about starring in a horror film?
A: She said, "You'll never be as tired, but you will never have so much fun." And she was exactly right. People sometimes try to make it competitive between me and Neve, because they assume we go out for the same things. But I could not be more proud of a fellow actor than I am of her. Neve is a very good role model. She makes good choices and she does everything with a lot of heart. She continues to be nice to people and she doesn't complain, ever.
Q: Did you get along well with your Summer costar, Sarah Michelle Gellar?
A: We did. Sarah and I are two completely different people who happened to mesh pretty well together. She was the firecracker of the group and I was the nurturer. I'd take people chicken soup if they were sick. Sarah's the one who kept everybody pumped up with her jokes and her personality.
Q: Did you ever get annoyed that your cleavage was in every frame?
A: There was a joke on the set about how we were going to have to rename the movie I Know What Your Breasts Did Last Summer, because there was a pair of them flying around in every scene in the movie--it was either mine or Sarah's. When I saw the movie I had to go home and look in the mirror again and go, "Maaan! What is going on?"
Q: Did you mature early or late compared to girls your age?
A: Early, at about 12. I woke up one day and I thought, "T-shirts will never be the same for me." It took me a very long time to get used to. For the first two or three years, I wore huge sweaters and didn't even want to be a part of what was going on with me.
Q: Like they were just visiting.
A: Right. And then I just kind of accepted them as a great accessory to every outfit. I was like, "Who needs a necklace when you have those?"
Q: Have you ever written a fan letter?
A: Yeah. To Johnny Depp. He's my favorite. There's a whole Johnny Depp story. He came by the Party of Five set specifically so that I could meet him because our lighting guy knew him and told him that I was a fan. It was one of those days when you just show up in your sweats and no makeup and I just looked hideous. So I'm in my trailer when the wardrobe girl goes, "Johnny Depp is standing right outside." I looked outside and sure enough he was there. I threw myself on my trailer floor screaming hysterically, "I can't meet him! I can't meet him!" So I ran right out, right past him--screaming-- and I locked myself in the makeup trailer. Afterwards, I couldn't believe I'd acted that way. I was so humiliated. Then, Columbia [Pictures] got me premiere tickets to Donnie Brasco and I waited so long outside the theater to see him that they gave away my seat and I couldn't go to the movie. But I called out to him as he was walking in and he turned around and looked at me and waved--it felt like it was in slow motion. So while the movie was playing I went to where the after-party was and I said to the guard, "This is the situation. I have to meet him. It's been a whole adventure." So the guard took me in and I got to meet Johnny. And he knew exactly who I was. He was like, "Thanks for all the sweet things that you've said about me." Then he called me one day on the set of Party of Five just to see how I was doing.
Q: What does his voice sound like?
A: Butter. Then after my graduation, I got this basket of the most beautiful flowers you've ever seen with a note from Johnny Depp saying, "I know how hard it is in this business to do what you did. Congratulations. I'm very proud of you. All my love, Johnny." He's such an angel.
Q: Scott Wolf played your love interest for quite a while on Party of Five. Isn't there something almost inappropriate about being a teenager and getting paid to make out with a guy who's over 10 years older than you?
A: It is weird but I decided to look at it as if I was doing justice for every other 16-year-old who's ever wanted to kiss a 28-year-old. Scott's a good kisser and very nice. It was wonderful. It's not as weird now, but before I turned 18, we'd be in the middle of a make-out scene and my 10 1/2 hours would be up and I'd have to go home.
Q: What's your fantasy Party of Five episode?
A: Bailey and Sarah get married. I just wanna wear the dress.
Q: On the show, Scott cheated on you and you didn't take him back. Would you do the same thing in real life?
A: Yeah. It's funny because that actually happened at the same point in my life that we were filming that stuff so it was very therapeutic for me.
Q: I take it it wasn't with your current boyfriend, Will Friedle from TV's Boy Meets World. How did you two meet?
A: We were set up on a blind date almost three years ago and he never called me afterwards. So I called him because I decided it was the '90s thing to do. He had another girl at his house. Then he came in to audition for the lead in this movie that I was doing, Trojan War, and he got the part and that was it.
Q: Did you get together during the movie or after?
A: After. I was dating Joey Lawrence at the time of the movie. Actually, my first kiss with Will took place in the movie. I thought Will was a wonderful human being, but I didn't really look at him in a romantic way because I had a boyfriend. But when we did the screen kiss, we were standing on the back lot of Warner Bros, and he just looked perfect in the moonlight and I just knew it was going to be sweet. And we kissed and it was one of the most unbelievable kisses I'd ever had.
Q: Did you keep blowing the takes so you'd have to kiss again?
A: [Laughs] We did it like six or seven times. It was great.
Q: So did you break up with Joey to go with Will?
A: No. The polite way of putting it is that the business got the better of our relationship. The one thing that I'll always be grateful for is that I got to see a much different side of Joey than what people think, and if he called me and said that he needed something, I'd be there in a heartbeat.
Q: I always see Joey at this sushi place in the Valley.
A: That's all we used to do, eat. When I went out with him I gained, like, 13 pounds.
Q: What's the most outrageous thing you've ever done in pursuit of a crush?
A: Gotten on a plane and flown to where the guy was just to be near him for 24 hours. I had other things to do, and I just dropped it all because I wanted to be near him. I was on the plane thinking, "I've seen one too many John Hughes movies."
Q: So you weren't already seeing each other?
A: Not really. I just said, I have to come visit. And it paid off.
Q: When you were going through puberty and working, did you ever worry about what you were going to grow into and if you'd still be cute when you were older?
A: Definitely. You wonder who you're going to shape up to be. I got really lucky, though, that through most of my puberty I was playing teenage angst characters so I got all of that stuff out at work. When I came home I was stress-free and relaxed.
Q: You live with your mother. What does she do?
A: She was a speech pathologist but now she helps me with all the things that I need help with. For 17 years she worked with chemically dependent and special children and she stopped her life because her little girl said, "Mom, I really want to do this. Can we go?"
Q: When you first arrived in L.A. as a child performer, did you feel pressure to succeed?
A: No. We only came out to California for one month to give it a try. Now I've been here for nine years. But before I went on my first audition, my mom and I did our secret handshake and she said, "You have to promise me no matter what happens, if you don't have a good time, if it's not fun, we go somewhere far, far away."
Q: Has the press ever torn you to bits like they've done with Tori Spelling and Alicia Silverstone?
A: Once [a tabloid] printed a horrible picture of me, deliberately shot from below, and said, "It's obvious that Jennifer Love Hewitt is hiding a 'Party of Five' in her skirt." I cried. Then I realized, This is a tabloid. What is wrong with me? Why am I crying? I'm fine.
Q: Do you feel pressure to be a role model for young people?
A: A little bit, but I love it. I think it's such a great pressure to have. It keeps you very safe. I'm pretty boring anyway. I like going to movies and painting and going to Chuck E. Cheese.
Q: I bought your latest CD and have been listening to it nonstop. You even threw in an Andy Gibb cover tune.
A: Thanks. I'm really proud of it. Singing comes from my soul and my gut, and there's nothing else like it. My radio is timed to turn on the minute I wake up and I listen to CDs every single day, all day long.
Q: I like to buy used CDs but I always hate to see my favorite acts in the $1.99 bin. I have this overwhelming impulse to rescue them from the riffraff of Poison and MC Hammer.
A: Rescue me. I'm sure mine are in there. [Laughs] That's the most depressing thing. I made that album so fast, and I had no time to do any promotion so it just went nowhere, which is why I'm not doing another album for a while.
Q: Before this album, you had a CD called "Let's Go Bang." Was that an invitation?
A: Yes. Everyone, please come. [Laughs] That title was a mistake. I loved the song and "the bang" was a dance. It was supposed to be like the "Electric Slide" kind of thing. It wasn't promoted so some people thought I was some perverted 16-year-old.
Q: What's something else you're good at that would surprise people?
A: Electronics.
Q: Could you program a VCR for a week from now?
A: Yeah.
Q: Wow. To tape more than one show?
A: Yeah.
Q: What's the most embarrassing way you've ever blown a take?
A: I have an incredibly loud stomach and when it growls, you think the ground's going to shake. In the middle of one of Scott [Wolf's] close-ups during a crying scene, my stomach just went berserk and we had to stop. I was humiliated.
Q: What's a message that was left on your answering machine that you played more than once?
A: Jamie Lee Curtis calling to wish me a merry Christmas. I died. She's a huge role model of mine. I thought, "I can't believe it, House Arrest has been over now for months and she remembers me." And now every Christmas I get a card from her. There's something about her that's magical. The moment she steps in the room the air changes, everything changes.
Q: What's your favorite souvenir from a movie set?
A: I took my character's cheerleading trophy from Can't Hardly Wait because I always wanted to be a cheerleader. I'm such a waste of a great cheerleader.
Q: What kind of role would you like to do that you've never done before?
A: A romantic comedy like Sleepless in Seattle or While You Were Sleeping. Just a sweet girl who wants nothing but to fall in love.
Q: Would you like to do a musical?
A: I've gotten offers to possibly do something similar to the Cinderella TV movie Brandy did for Disney.
Q: What movie inspired you when you were younger?
A: Sixteen Candles. I can't even tell you how many times I would stare out my window and dream about seeing the guy in the red Porsche waiting for me.
Q: Before you landed _Party of Five _was there ever a time when you thought it wasn't going to happen and you should give up?
A: Yeah, when I was 11. I lost a movie and it tore me to pieces. I was close to telling my mom to call the airlines and let's go home to Texas. But then I talked to my acting coach for three hours and he told me, "You have such a drive and such a love for what you do. Do you have any idea how miserable you will be if you don't do this?" The next day I was booked in another job and I got over it. Now, when I find myself getting close to those moments, I always think about that afternoon. And my coach was right. I do have such a love for it that I would be miserable if I was doing anything else.
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Dennis Hensley's novel, Misadventures in the (213), is available from Rob Weisbach Books.