At 19, Jennifer Love Hewitt is having a remarkable career. She's got a killer movie franchise, a cool TV series and three CDs under her belt. She's even doing her first grown-up role in a film with Ben Stiller. And she'll soon be portraying Audrey Hepburn on the small screen. More remarkable than her career is her attitude--the girl called Love actually likes being a role model for young adults, and she's determined to stay someone they can believe in.
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There are still probably a few people over 25 who don't know who Jennifer Love Hewitt is. Though the fizzy, endearing, sought-after 19-year-old seemed to emerge fully formed out of nowhere at 16 the night she debuted as lovely, sensible Sarah Reeves on Party of Five, not everyone watches that hit show. And though her sleeper teen-scare flick I Know What You Did Last Summer nailed down the number-one box-office slot and stayed there three weeks at the end of 1997 before hooking in over $100 million worldwide, it was hardly Titanic.
But now that its been announced Hewitt will play the young Audrey Hepburn in a TV movie, and now that the sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer is about to come out, and now that Hewitt is making the jump to adult roles by playing opposite Ben Stiller in the upcoming edgy comedy The Suburbans, nobody has much of an excuse for not knowing who she is. She's Hollywood's sweetheart of 1998.
"Love"--the middle name was turned into a nickname at the suggestion of her mothers college roommate--is almost ubiquitous, and it's not hard to see why. She radiates healthy, sweet hugability, nicely leavened with a shot of melancholy, and she's so oddly free of the blatant narcissism that marks many actors in her age range that she leaves one room to love her back. Moreover, she's got a sexual vibe that's playful, wholesome and unthreatening. She's the hottie that young guys find approachable, and the looker that young women want to be or be friends with.
Hollywood itself hasn't warmed up to such an earthbound teen icon since Molly Ringwald. And now that Hewitt is attempting the transition out of her adolescent roles, the whole towns watching with fingers crossed to see whether she's going to live up to the claims being made for her by her formidably loyal admiration society of casting directors, agents, producers and studio bosses.
Why such claims for Hewitt? First of all, because she's not the latest model off the seemingly endless assembly line of fresh-faced, interchangeable, three-named dolls long on TV luck and brazen drive but short on experience. As a three-year-old, she vanished from the supper-club table of her parents in Killeen, Texas, only to be found in another room atop a grand piano crooning "Baby Love." At six, having studied tap, jazz and ballet, she worked the crowds at a livestock show in a pig barn singing "The Greatest Love of All." At nine, revved up by enthusiastic contest judges and talent scouts, she convinced her mother, Pat, a speech pathologist and audiologist, to head for good to Hollywood. They arrived on Hewitt's tenth birthday, and after less than two months in L.A., the ambitious little trouper, billed then as "Love Hewitt," landed a recurring spot on Disney's Kids Incorporated.
That led in short order to commercials, a dancing and singing stint for L.A. Gear in trade shows in Paris and Japan, and a dance workout video in which she practically out-twinkled the buffed-out Barbie doll star. In the next five years, the little phenom released her first CD, Love Songs; got cast as a regular on three short-lived TV series (_Shaky Ground, The Byrds of Paradise_ and McKenna); did a small bit in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit; recorded her second CD, Lets Go Bang (a self-titled third CD came later); and had her name linked (casually, briefly) with Joey Lawrence. Then, having affixed to her stage name that all-important, more adult-sounding "Jennifer," she sealed her teen-poster-girl fate with her debut as one of the well-heeled San Francisco lookers on Party of Five.
The petite showbiz veteran invites me to meet her one early evening in a private lounge in, of all places, the Beverly Hills Planet Hollywood, where, cross-legged before a low table, we merrily mow our way through hot hors d'oeuvres, a massive fruit platter, soft drinks and vanilla ice cream. Hewitt is so practiced and poised, so geared to teen-mag chatter, I realize she's not going to reveal the grit under that gossamer unless I pretty much cut through it. So I say, "You're absolutely the leading contender for the title Most Beloved Girl in Hollywood. Isn't it just a little confining? Do you ever have the slightest urge to shake things up the way, say, your Party of Five costar Neve Campbell did in Wild Things, by playing a druggy, scheming sexual carnivore?"
From the expression of horror Hewitt gallantly tries to conceal, I'm ready for the resounding No.
"I have this role model thing going on that's pretty important to me," she says, looking fresher and even more delicate than she does on-screen. "I like knowing that people look up to me. I know from being a teenager how hard it is to find someone you can look up to, put your faith, love and excitement into. The fact that kids do that with me is probably the greatest honor that I have, something I treasure more so than any success. I can't lie and say that I don't think about that when I pick a project. I like being a normal, approachable person and I like playing them, too. I would only do something edgy if it had a real purpose. Movies where characters do drugs, don't go anywhere, and don't realize by the end what a stupid thing they're doing are pointless to me. I don't get them. I'd only play an edgy, rebellious person if, by the end, you saw the life experiences that made her do what she did. It's human to make mistakes. Everybody does. That's something I'd like to play."
Hewitt's passion on the matter of being a role model--something most Hollywood actors young or old run the other way from--is considerable. "What I'm really happy with is the way fans feel able to come up and talk to me as a friend, as somebody that they feel really comfortable with," she continues. "Something that's been happening a lot lately is that people give me a hug, which is so nice and confirms a lot for me. I don't ever want to be above anybody else. Nobody's better than anybody else. People just have different circumstances and were put here for different reasons. What we all are is human beings and were all on the planet to try and figure out what the heck is going on here. That's the kind of work I want to do in movies, too--things that say, Lets be good to each other. It's a weird world and were all we have."
Hewitt's notion of being a populist celebrity extends right to her new relationship with MTV's Carson Daly. "He feels the same way I do when we go out--that it's sort of your duty to take the few seconds it takes to sign an autograph or say hello," she explains.
Since were talking about her romantic life, I ask, "How are things going with Carson on the whole?"
"I am very, very happy in my relationship," she says, and offers to share a poem she recently penned, perhaps inspired by her new beau. She recites:
"Enchanted by you.
Mesmerized. Living off your glow.
My heart searches for a place for you, but finds nowhere to go.
Kiss me once to bring me life.
Kiss me twice to bring me breath.
Shh! my love, don't say a word.
Just kiss me until death."
Having delivered the last line of her poem, Hewitt lets out a rip-roaring giggle. "Carson is great," she smiles. "We have a great time. The only bad thing about Carson and me is that he lives in New York, so we don't go out often. We're basically like an AT&T commercial, stacking up those free minutes on the phone. We've only been dating a few months, but we laugh a lot and there's a lot of support there. I don't believe the entertainment business is tougher on relationships because of separations or because of the pretty people it keeps putting in front of you. People make decisions. If you make the wrong choice, it has nothing to do with the industry and everything to do with you."
You might have to be as young as Hewitt to say what she says without being remotely disingenuous and still have people think you can see straight. But since showbiz youngsters regularly outdo their elders for cynicism, I find her attitude rather charming. Still, I can't help playing with her a little. "Love, don't you realize how far people have gotten in Hollywood being nasty and utterly disreputable?"
Hewitt's expression sobers as she observes, "I don't understand the whole philosophy in Hollywood--or anywhere else--of people feeling they have to be nasty to other people. I've made an absolutely conscious choice about this stuff. I see people surrounding themselves in a circle of me, myself and I, which gets old really quick. Because its around me all the time, I handle it by being really honest with the person who's doing it and saying, Do you know you're the most ridiculous person in the world? Look in the mirror, will you, and say, "Hi, I'm lucky!" I've had heart-to-heart talks with people I've worked with where I've gone, 'You should stop this. Smile. See what that feels like. Don't you see, you're so lucky?' "
"Do they ever say back, What fairy tale are you living in?"
"Oh, of course," Hewitt laughs. "But I'm happy in the fairy tale I'm living in. I'm not saying that every day pink clouds surround me and happy birds and animals flock to be near me. I have bad days like everybody else. I know what reality is. I just know that what I do, how I think, how I am makes me happy and gets me through life smiling. What's wrong with that?"
I can assure you that Hewitt's power of positive thinking gets tested by irritants on a regular basis. Half an hour ago, when she and I were walking up Planet Hollywood's stairs under the staring eyes of everyone in the packed place, a paunchy nimrod jammed his finger at her and bellowed--erroneously--"Hey, Scream 2 --all right!" Hewitt smiled so disarmingly at him, he turned instantly from a boor to a pussycat.
"With all the attention being paid to you now, do you ever think, Why me?" I ask.
"Absolutely," Hewitt answers levelly. "Since I Know What You Did Last Summer, suddenly the littlest thing I do becomes more important, more interesting, more special. It's overwhelming. I don't get it at all. I look in the mirror and, believe me, I see someone very average, and I'm happy with that. I know there are people that are prettier and more talented than me. But the other day at a photo shoot, I looked in the mirror and for once in a really, really long time, I went, You know what? Today, I look really pretty. I gave the photographer the biggest hug in the world and said, Thank you so much for making me feel pretty! I am incredibly insecure." Yanking back her long locks, she commands, with an infectious, full-bodied giggle, "Look at these ears--I mean, they are big. The right one flaps over and the left one doesn't even match it. And when I get flustered or something they turn bright red, which makes me even more embarrassed."
As long as were talking insecurity, I ask, "Do you think you're a good actress?"
"I don't know," Hewitt muses. "I do know that I'm incredibly driven and I love what I do. And I am a huge workaholic. If somebody needed me to work 24 hours a day for them, I would do it. My mom worries about me because I just don't relax. She's like, Take a break. Chill out. Eat some French fries. With my acting, I don't think I've found a comfortable place yet. I still feel, when I finish a scene, that I could have done better. I hope I always have a little bit of doubt there, though, because it keeps you on your toes. I don't study acting much because I want it to be natural and 100 percent from the heart, which is the only way to do anything. Also, I want to do it for myself and have no one else to blame but me.
"Believe me, if I could, I would blame other people, like saying, My acting teacher told me to do it that way. I think acting teachers and coaches come into your life to inspire you and to let you know that it's OK to need help. But you have to reach a point where you have to take chances, make mistakes and feel responsible for your choices, successes and failures."
Speaking of choices, Hewitt's made some downright risky ones lately, like choosing to play her idol, the impeccable, irreplaceable Audrey Hepburn, in an ABC biomovie. But first I'm wondering about her take on the movie just about to hit screens all over the country, the inevitable sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer.
"How have you avoided the dreaded syndrome known as 'sucky sequel-it is' with_ I Still Know What You Did Last Summer_?" I ask. My irreverent mention of the movie written by Trey Callaway and directed by Danny Cannon and set in a fisherman-terrorized summer resort cracks her up. "I'll probably be in I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, Part 85, when my grandkids are telling me, Grandma, give it up, you cant even remember your lines anymore. Just stop now! But, you're right--I have this huge fear of sucky sequel-itis, which, by the way, is a lot of fun to say. Sucky sequel-itis! I know what you mean. I always say, 'It's not going to be that good anyway, so I'll wait and see it on video."
Not that Hewitt's recommending we skip her sequel. "I came home one night," she explains, "and heard my mom go, The sequel script is on your bed. Let me know what you think. They had called me the week after the weekend I Know What You Did Last Summer made so much money, saying, Were going to do a sequel, would you like to do it? and I'd said, Absolutely. But when the script actually arrived, I took a shower, got ready for bed, switched off my room light and turned on my little book light, fearing the worst. Well, 20 pages into it, I turned back on my bedroom light. Forty pages into it, I opened the door. When I finished it, I went in and slept with my mom. Its the scariest thing I've ever read.
"Danny Cannon and I made a conscious choice that my character wouldn't be the same person you saw in the first movie," Hewitt continues. "We didn't want what usually happens in these sequels where you stop caring about the lead character--that makes for sucky sequel-itis. This movie is crazy and off-the-wall because my character is now completely paranoid, crazy in the head, and walks around her apartment with knives, freaking out at the slightest noise. The movie takes place in her head, and it's psychotic and horrific and bloody."
Since the movies setting is a Club Med-style summer resort and features an attractive young cast, could it also be described as fleshy? "I am scantily clad," Hewitt grins. "Not too scanty, mind you, but we definitely took care of the young boys. So, there's paranoia, violence, lots of blood, action and flesh."
And what's up with The Suburbans, a comedy-drama in which she plays her first adult role opposite Ben Stiller and Craig Bierko? "My character is a hot, sexpot record executive and why they cast me, I'll never know," Hewitt laughs. "But, hey, it's a movie. My character decides to find a one-hit wonder 80s band and bring them into the 90s with their 80s look and sound. Its cute and has a lot of heart in it. You know, I'm a big fan of actors in the 50s like Montgomery Clift and James Dean, and my costar Craig Bierko would have fit perfectly in that time because he has so much going on in his eyes, like they did. I told Craig, God, you're great now but I would have loved you in a war movie like From Here to Eternity or a movie about a bunch of jazz musicians in smoky cafes."
"Speaking of 50s megastar icons," I say, "how did you decide to play the great Audrey Hepburn in an ABC movie?"
Hewitt glows at the mention of her idol. "When I was growing up my mom said, You're going to grow up to be a great female, so you should see what a really great female is, and she put Breakfast at Tiffany's into the VCR. I'd never had anyone sparkle or mesmerize me the way she did. I'm not doing this to say, Am I not a great actress? or Don't I look like Audrey Hepburn? God only makes one Audrey Hepburn and we were lucky to have her on this planet. I could never be half of what she was. The movie is being made by a bunch of people who have a great love for her, and it's my way of giving her honor in a time when women really need another Audrey Hepburn to help them define who they're going to be. It's going to be a happy, positive, beautiful movie and, by the end of the two hours, you're going to be more in love with Audrey Hepburn than you were before."
Just as I'm pointing out, "Wise women before you--Jodie Foster, Sharon Stone, Winona Ryder, Julia Roberts--have shied away from even remaking one of Audrey Hepburn's movies," Hewitt interjects, "I agree with those women. I would never remake one of her movies. I think Julia Ormond's great and I thought the remake of Sabrina was good, but I missed Audrey. I couldn't remake Breakfast at Tiffany's or Roman Holiday or any of them. But portraying the life that went into making those movies, yes. People should know how funny she was, how addicted she was to chocolate bars, how incredibly insecure she was about things like her teeth, how she made sure she killed any photos that were taken of her if she didn't like her ears, nose, nostrils. In the books about her, she talks about always wanting to play characters who were snappy, witty and on top of things because she didn't feel that way in life."
Saying this, Hewitt grows uncharacteristically still. "It's a huge risk that may end up to be a huge mistake," she admits at last. "I'll probably get slammed. In fact, I don't doubt it. But that want be the worst thing in the world. The deciding factor in my doing it was that I really hope that I'm the last person on anyone's mind at the end of the two hours. Hopefully, they'll at least think, I didn't know those things about Audrey Hepburn, who was so strong and cool and funny, then want to rent every one of her movies."
Already lined up for production after the Audrey Hepburn gig is Cupids Love, a project Hewitt originated, pitched personally and sold to New Line to the tune of $500,000. It's a romantic comedy in which shell star as a wedding planner who falls in love with a groom-to-be. "It restored my faith in studio executives that they treated me--a 19-year-old who'd never written or pitched anything before--with such respect," Hewitt says, with eyes brimming. "Thank God they picked it up. But I can't even go there or I'll start to cry."
Having discussed the state of the projects Hewitt has on her resume, I ask her about some that aren't on it. "Given your role model concerns, what were you doing going up for Lolita?" I ask. "I didn't believe in it, and didn't give it 100 percent when I went up for it," she asserts. Having heard that Hewitt, like so many other young actresses in Hollywood, went after the role of Juliet, I ask, "What happened with_ William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet_?" Hewitt explains, "Baz Luhrmann, a sweet man, said I didn't get Juliet because I wasn't contemporary enough."
When I ask how she thought the film came out, she adds, "The movie was beautifully and lovingly done, for what it was. But I love Shakespeare and I felt sad for two 11-year-old girls sitting near me that the modern version was their first experience with the story." The role in The Crucible Winona Ryder won? "I read for that a bunch and I would have loved to have done that. But Winona Ryder is a real class act, a great stoic beauty who makes amazing choices." The role in Brokedown Palace that Kate Beckinsale nabbed? "I read for that twice with Claire Danes and tried really, really hard, because I fell in love with the script and I have so much respect for Claire. I was heartbroken when they were either afraid to work out or couldn't work out the schedule with Party of Five.
How does Hewitt deal with the painful inevitability of Hollywood rejections? "There are so many actresses in my age group that have gotten parts that I've really wanted," she asserts. "But I just say, 'Isn't that great? Look what they've done! Whether its getting a part or being in a relationship with another actor, to be competitive is a choice. Everybody needs a competitive side but humans have to stick together, we're all we have." At that Hewitt bursts into self-deprecating laughter, saying, "That sounded so cheesy and Miss America. I'm a real cheeseball, aren't I? But its how I feel."
Cheeseball or not, Hewitt is fully aware she's entering a critical time in her life and career. "This year, I just started to feel like an adult," she tells me. "I think it was a conscious choice, like, Now I'm ready to grow up. I don't mean I'll stop going to Disneyland or eating at Chuck E. Cheese--that will never happen. I mean becoming a woman, being more responsible, being much more interested in the business aspect of things, being more and more conscious of my decisions. It's just this year I'm starting to figure out who I'm going to be. What I'm going to tolerate and not tolerate."
"With your priority on becoming a more responsible adult," I ask, "does that mean you and your mom may soon be living apart from each other?"
With an emphatic shake of her head, Hewitt swears no. "I have the best, most amazing mom in the world. I'd miss her too much if we didn't live together. We have so much fun going shopping, laughing, watching Rosie and Saved by the Bell. Even when I get another place, she will never live more than two blocks away."
Although Hewitt is nursing stitches she got at an emergency room yesterday when a ceramic mug broke in her hand on the set, and although she spent most of today in a photo shoot, before which she had a couple of business meetings and after which she came to talk to me, the girl is still so revved she's planning to head off to an evening concert with some of her costars on The Suburbans. As we say good-bye, I ask, "So, at 19, what can you say about where you'd like to be at the end of your big adventure?" Without a seconds hesitation, Hewitt answers, "To be 90, sitting in a chair, able to tell my grandchildren only great stories. And to have such great memories that I leave this earth knowing I had as much fun as possible and I did it the way I wanted to."
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Stephen Rebello wrote "When Actresses Get Ugly" for the October '98 issue of Movieline.