The extraordinarily beautiful, tirelessly stylish Elizabeth Hurley clears away several misconceptions about her--that she started out a model, that she goes to parties minus underwear--and also talks about her new movie, Permanent Midnight, her relationship with Hugh Grant and her just-wrapped movie with Matthew McConaughey, Ed TV.
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Most people seem to think they know who Elizabeth Hurley is. I thought I did until I read up on her for this interview. When I actually looked at where she's come from, I realized that a lot of what I'd simply assumed about her simply wasn't so. Perhaps you, too, are confused about who Elizabeth Hurley is. In fact, how could you not be? She holds a half dozen jobs. She's the fabulous-looking Estee Lauder model. She's Hugh Grant's longtime girlfriend. She's the actress who starred as a go-go spy girl opposite Mike Myers in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. She was the producer of Grant's medical thriller Extreme Measures. And she's the international party girl who gets gussied up to the nines and appears regularly in paparazzi shots and gossip columns.
The truth is, Hurley has always been an actress first. As soon as she got out of high school in London, she did commercials to put herself through acting classes. At 21, she made her big-screen debut in Bruce Beresford's segment of the directors' gallery multipart 1987 film Aria and got parts in TV series like Inspector Morse. At 22, she won raves for playing a thom-studded English rose living in Nazi Germany in the BBC's Christabel, Dennis Potter's adaptation of Christabel Bielenberg's memoir. Her career was on the upswing. And not only that--she'd fallen in love with Hugh Grant, her costar from a low-budget Spanish movie she'd made the previous year. Nevertheless, she decided to pack her bags and head to Hollywood. For two years she slogged through auditions, but when the most notable result of her efforts turned out to be the role of a terrorist opposite Wesley Snipes in Passenger 57, she headed back to England.
That's where everything really began. In 1994, Hurley accompanied Hugh Grant to the London premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral wearing a low-cut, form-hugging, held-together-with-safety-pins Versace number that caused a publicity sensation second only, perhaps, to Marilyn Monroe's upwardly mobile flounces over the subway grating in The Seven Year Itch. Within a year, Estee Lauder made a multimillion dollar offer for Hurley to be their new face. Then came a deal with Castle Rock that allowed Hurley to expand the London-based production company she ran with Grant. There was even a Hollywood acting gig in the works, Dangerous Ground with Ice Cube. Things looked grand for Hurley. Then the bomb dropped. On June 27, 1995, Grant was arrested off Sunset Boulevard for hiring a prostitute to give him sexual services in his BMW. The scandal swept right through the tabloids and out into the mainstream press like a Malibu brush fire. Still, the Estee Lauder and Castle Rock deals held. So did the Hurley-Grant relationship.
As I rap on the door of a suite in one of Manhattan's quietest, most expensive hotels, all these images of the celebrity Hurley are running through my brain. Then the real Hurley greets me, invites me inside and welcomes me with great verve, impeccable good manners and what feels like completely unforced warmth. She is tawny, slim and come-hither in a sleeveless blouse, narrow slacks and sandals, and her voice is rich and plummy. Instantly liking her, I tease her about the Nabokovian pseudonym she's registered under, and, using the fictional code name (not Lolita), I ask, "Shall I call you L---?" Hurley laughs and fires back, "Sure, and I'll call you Baby." Fine with me.
After raiding the minibar and ordering enough room service dinner for four, we settle into a big couch and I begin by asking her if she had any inkling what kind of fame she was jumping into when she fastened those Versace safety pins four years ago. Laughing, then downing a bracing belt of her alcoholic beverage, she declares, "That dress was a favor from Versace because I couldn't afford to buy one. His people told me they didn't have any evening wear, but there was one item left in their press office. So I tried it on and that was it. So much for career machinations and forethought."
"Surely you must have known that gown would raise a few eyebrows, though," I say.
"Virtually everything that's happened in my career has happened inadvertently," she replies. "I've never understood all the attention. Never."
Hurley's ease of tone as she says this doesn't lead me to believe she's being anything but honest here. Still, the sheer volume of press she generates--most of which includes photos of her at some event--makes her claim of inadvertence seem rather disingenuous. I ask how it happens she's always dressed cover-girl ready in furs, diamonds and risque gowns. When I proffer newspaper clippings and photos testifying to her status as a brilliantly strategic show pony, she rolls her eyes and shakes her head in wonder, then finally says, "I love glamorous women. Hugh adores glamour, as well. I'm completely behind women dressing up and looking as good as they can. I could go out in a gray frump's frock, but I suit orange much better than I suit gray."
Hurley seems to believe her film career is just as "inadvertent" as her celebrity profile. "I get roles more because of chance than because of clever calculation," she declares. "For instance, thanks to Austin Powers I'm earning more money acting than I have before and getting better scripts. But that film was not what I feel comes naturally to me. I'm actually a more melancholy, more serious actress. I mean, in England I got known for very sad, dramatic, quite heavy emotional BBC dramas. But my goal is always: better films to act in, better directors, more varied movies and roles."
Hurley's role in this month's Permanent Midnight would seem to be more like the somber, dramatic fare she feels instinctually drawn to. An independent film based on the autobiography of real-life Hollywood writer Jerry Stahl, who slid into the drug world while scripting episodes of Moonlighting, Midnight is dark and not a little harrowing. Hurley plays a TV producer married to Stahl (played by Ben Stiller) who can't cope with his heroin addiction and finally leaves him. "My jury's a bit out on this one," she admits. "It was a short, sharp shoot and they didn't have a lot of money. But I admire Ben Stiller. He has a very intense, difficult part and I learned a lot from him. When I read the script I thought, 'How is he going to make this part charming?' But he is quite a charming person to begin with."
Hurley has also wrapped Ron Howard's Ed TV, in which she plays a vixen who cozies up to Matthew McConaughey in his one-man version of MTV's The Real World. How did she get the plum part? "I didn't read for it, but I had a great chat with Ron Howard, and 10 minutes later was offered the job. I'm a big fan of Ron's. All of his films have a big Hallmark quality stamp on them. It's not a big role, but it's a good one. We never really know whether my character is just manipulative or genuinely likes Matthew's character. I think it's both." What did she think of McConaughey? "Matthew is really great in this," says Hurley, beaming. "And he looks so gorgeous and sexy, even though he plays this normal guy-next-door who suddenly gets catapulted to massive celebrity status."
Hurley meets regularly with Hollywood casting directors in her search for roles. It's been said, for example, that she was taken seriously for the part of Matt Dillon's fashion-plate girlfriend in In & Out (which Shalom Harlow got), and that she badly wanted to audition for the part Gwyneth Paltrow played in A Perfect Murder. Any of this true? Hurley nods yes to In & Out. About Murder, she says, "I really would have liked to have been seen for A Perfect Murder, but, then, I love the original movie and Grace Kelly in it, so, I mean, 'Nein, danke.'
"I did an audition with Harrison Ford, who I thought was fab, for Six Days, Seven Nights," she continues, unprompted. "I really liked the script and thought there was a good girl's part." What about the rumor that she was up for the part of Emma Peel opposite Ralph Fiennes in The Avengers? "I met with the director [Jeremiah Chechik] and, a year later, he made the film with Uma Thurman. I think they needed a big star. I didn't think the script was that fabulous--I would have preferred it to be sillier, more retro. In fact, I think they should have Austin Powers'd it. Besides, it's very hard for an English person to actually want to step into Diana Rigg's shoes. But I can't tell you the number of people who've come up to me since and said, 'You should have been Emma Peel.'"
If Hurley were to star in an all-out romance, who would she choose as a costar? "I'd love to work with Johnny Depp," she answers quickly, "because obviously, I'm going to choose boys who are pretty, but who also are talented and look quite naughty." Anyone else? "Don't laugh, but I've always thought Warren Beany was fab, too. For other reasons, I'd like to work with Sean Penn."
How does Hurley cope with the rejection that goes along with being a film actress? She looks me dead in the eye and says, "Listen, having sat in twice on the audition process from the producer's side, I've crossed quite a lot of people off my hate list for not giving me parts. When people gave a part to another girl, but said to me, 'Oh, it's no reflection on your ability,' I used to be, like, 'Yeah? Crap!' No more."
When Hurley talks about being a producer, she knows whereof she speaks. She was a very hands-on producer of Extreme Measures, niggling over locations, costumes and script changes. Though deftly made by Michael Apted, the film caused only a few ripples at the box office. Was this because star Grant had been dragged through the tabloids? Hurley laughs at the idea and gives me a playful shove. "I would doubt it," she says, "though we never did an opinion poll. Thrillers that do well tend to be Mr. Evil versus Mr. Good, but it was my passion to make the issues more gray and to have an inadvertent hero, something I love in literature and films. We knew it would be a hard sell from the beginning."
Hurley has now produced Grant's new film Mickey Blue Eyes, which is likely to hit closer to what audiences hope for from the actor--he plays a charming Manhattan art dealer who gets unwittingly embroiled with a Mafia chief (James Caan) when he romances the capo's spoiled daughter (Jeanne Tripple-horn). Did Hurley deliberately choose a romantic comedy to play to Grant's core audience? She shakes her head. "It's just that, of the movies we were developing, this was the one that was ready first. If we'd had a drama ready, we would have done that. [But] Hugh's biggest strength is doing exactly what he does in Mickey Blue Eyes. What he does so very well, and which is very rare in this day and age, is that he's a very skilled comedian who is also extremely good looking. How many of those can you count? It's very difficult to find in an actor and it's very difficult to find writers who can write like that and wittily. Romantic lead roles tend to be for girls--Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts."
Now that we're talking Hurley and Hugh, we might as well deal with the embarrassing episode of Grant's 1995 arrest. Hurley gained major points at the time for taking the high road when Hugh had taken a low one. She didn't leave him, and she didn't trash him in public. What motivated her loyalty? "I don't think you ever do anything in life, ultimately, for somebody else to condone or condemn," she says carefully. "When you're under scrutiny, it's often difficult to react how you would normally react. You have every columnist, TV commentator and goodness knows who else watching. It can be very difficult to actually remember what you're thinking inside." Did she talk with Grant about what happened and why? "If you know what something is--something unsaid, but understood--I've never seen the point in necessarily having to discuss that," she says.
They never discussed the topic? Hurley narrows her eyes. "Since my father died, [I've learned that] things that seem very, very important often mean nothing. And things you don't talk a lot about can mean more than anything in the world. I didn't have to talk to my mom and sister about our grief and pain about my dad. I've never felt I needed to wear my heart on my sleeve."
This may just be Englishness, but Hurley's reticence about how she and Grant managed their relationship in the wake of his indiscretion left the field open for endless speculation about what agreements they might have come to. There was talk, for example, that they might have resigned themselves to a purely business-oriented union disguised for practical reasons by surface romance. "Nobody ever really knows what goes on behind others' closed doors," Hurley remarks quietly at the suggestion. "It's silly for anyone to speculate or make assumptions on what goes on between us or anybody else, because they know nothing, really. Which is probably as it should be."
Meaning? "Meaning, whenever I've been tempted to dig beneath the surface with any of my friends, I have deeply regretted it. I actually don't want to know. What someone presents to the outside world is, frankly, what you should accept, because it's normally the most attractive thing. What you think you know, even about your closest friends? Bullshit. We're all freaks in a way."
Whatever the real dynamic between Grant and Hurley, they have worked it out together for 11 years now. What does Hurley think is the key to their compatibility? The actress likes this question and leans forward to answer, "It's quite tricky. People who don't know us might say that I make him look less stuffy, but it's not true. They'd probably say that he makes me ..." Suddenly Hurley has taken herself to her own dead end. "You know, I don't know," she concludes, sounding genuinely baffled.
Perhaps it all comes down to the mundane compromises of daily life? "Hugh is very tidy and I'm pathologically untidy," she confides. "I've always been that way. My whole family's messy, but with me, it's almost out of control. I'm physically incapable of picking up my clothes and I cannot put them away at night--I have to throw them on the floor. I can pick them up the next day, of course, but if somebody--well, when Hugh tells me to pick them up at night, it gives me a stomachache. I'm like, 'Look, if my bathroom's a mess, don't go in it.' We've found a way to deal with it, though. We don't share a bathroom and we have completely separate closets." On an even more basic level, is she still wowed by his looks after all this time? She smiles slowly, and says, "I'm not over it. I still see Hugh's beauty. All the time."
The long period of time Hurley and Grant have spent together naturally brings us to the issue of why they've never married. "Marrying someone is very tricky when you've been together so long," she remarks. "Would anyone do it? You're not marrying someone in the flash of passion and romance after 11 years. It's not exactly how storybooks go, you know? If we decided to have children, that would be different. Illegitimate children are not... well, I don't think my dad would have liked it."
Should famous, busy, rich people like actors have children? Hurley laughs, "No, they should probably be castrated. I don't go mad about babies, but I do like children--well-behaved children, that is. And we'd someday like to have them. Because I didn't grow up in a family with a lot of money, I'm more worried about having children growing up with a lot of money than with fame. I don't think I'd be where I am if I'd had a trust fund or cars bought for me. Everyone I know who's inherited money and had things paid for is around the bend, as far as I can see.
"I was very fortunate, and I didn't appreciate it until quite a lot later on, to have a great upbringing," continues Hurley, who grew up with her brother and sister in a middle-class home in the London suburbs, with an army officer father and an elementary schoolteacher mother. "Day after day, I hear horror stories about other people's families, but I just didn't have that. I now see what a gift it was to have been given a good base, to have had people who would genuinely sacrifice anything for me. Unconditional love makes the difference."
For someone with as proper an upbringing as Hurley's, the tabloid image she sees created of her life would have to be unsettling.
I ask her to comment on some of the lively press clippings, specifically one claiming that she showed up at this year's Cannes Film Festival with white see-through pants that exposed her lack of underwear. "What can I say?" she says. "There are very few things that annoy me anymore, but this happens to be one of them. For almost two years after my dad died, I stopped reading or listening to all this stuff, because none of it seemed important anymore. Everything pales next to losing someone like that. I found I was putting way too much wasted energy into idiotic things. Now I'll be reading the paper and suddenly there will be this bit cut out and I'll ask my assistants, 'What did you cut out?' And they'll say, 'You don't want to know.' They keep a file in a locked cabinet in my office in England. Just occasionally, if I'm still in there at midnight or something, I'll look at that locked cabinet and think, 'Should I?' Recently I got very naughty and started reading and listening to this rubbish again. I wish I hadn't."
Was this rubbish perhaps about the post-wedding party of her best friend, millionaire playboy Henry Dent-Brocklehurst? Tabloid coverage of that event noted, among other things, that Hurley was wearing a red slit dress that left her leopard panties exposed. Hurley jumps to her own defense. "I asked every single person at that party, 'Did you see anything?' and they said, 'Absolutely not!' I'm forced to conclude that someone was lying on the floor taking a picture from below. What's annoying about the tabloid gossip is that I'm sure people who don't know me must think I'm a complete idiot."
Ah, but doesn't she take any credit for being someone who knows how to maximize her entrances and exits? At this she snaps back with a dazzling, knowing grin, "I don't have to do that by showing my underwear. This is all a load of rubbish. It's like being at school and hearing two girls being mean about you in the bathroom. Only it's an entire nation saying something which is almost always untrue, almost always exaggerated, and with a horribly vicious slant."
Well, then, let's go for broke here: what about the rumors that Hurley and Dent-Brocklehurst have had a secret love affair? "Absolute rubbish," she declares. "Henry has been my best friend for years. I adore him. Aside from Hugh and Katie, my sister, Henry is my biggest confidant in the world. We've never fancied each other even remotely. It wouldn't occur to me to have sex with Henry. Absolutely not." And the rumors of a boyfriend she purportedly sees in L.A.? At this, Hurley looks titillated. "That's an actual rumor?" she asks. "Absolutely fascinating. Tell me more." She leans forward as I recite all the names and locations involved, and she hangs on every detail. At the end, she looks me in the eye and declares: "On my father's grave, I deny that." Then, tossing back her head and laughing, she asks, good-naturedly, "Got any more rumors? Like 'I heard about you and your brother?'" More quietly, she says, "Really, having been the brunt of gossip, I find it less fun now. Even when it's about other people."
Hurley well knows that all this gossip comes with the territory, but she knows where this territory begins and ends as far as she's concerned. She's filed strategic lawsuits and she's won a number of them. She and Grant have used the reward money to fund an entire island preserve for nearly 30 chimps that have been either abandoned by irresponsible owners or abused by circuses and zoos, which, Hurley informs me, do things like amputate the animals' toes so that they can wear roller skates and addict them to heroin so that they don't bite. "My mother has always loved chimps and so do I," says Hurley. "On the island, they won't be as cute and cuddly, they'll revert to more instinctual behavior, but that's how it should be." And that, in case anyone's wondering, is why Hurley and Grant's company is named Simian Films.
Even less fun than gossip is another problem celebrity has brought on. In her office there's also a file labeled, simply, "Lunatics." "That's so if I'm ever found with a knife in my back, the girls can give the police this file to check out straightaway," she says drolly. "There's this one man who is absolutely obsessed with writing to me. He always starts his letters in a normal way, like, 'Dear Miss Hurley, I've been a fan of yours for a long time. I watched Christabel in 1988' and so on. Then he goes into the graphic stuff, like, 'Oh, and by the way, I've just wet myself and there's wee soaking through my pants and there's wee on my bed and there's wee down there.' But he always ends with, 'Anyway, nice talking to you. Yours sincerely.' He writes me often with his urinary tract problem."
I've been in Hurley's hotel room for hours by now and it's time to conclude our conversation, but this isn't quite the note to end on. I opt for a mood of candor and I admit to Hurley that for the longest time I thought she was a model who only started making movies recently, an error many Americans make. I ask her if she finds this common misconception about her irritating.
"The whole thing with modeling for Estee Lauder--no one could have a better, nicer modeling job--happened with absolutely no effort on my part," she says. "I'd never thought or dreamed about modeling. But in a large measure modeling has eclipsed and overtaken everything for which I've been working and slaving for so long. It just sort of engulfs it and sweeps it away. And now I have to deal with that, which is so strange." As I'm picking up my things and trying to figure out whether that's Hurley's English way of saying, yes, she's irritated, she polishes off a tube of Smarties and pops off the plastic stopper. At the door, she cocks the tube to one eye, peers at me as if through a telescope and says, "Goodbye, Baby!" Guess she's not that irritated.
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Stephen Rebello interviewed Antonio Banderas for the August '98 issue of Movieline