Jennifer Jason Leigh: Fearless Leigh

Q: Critics first began to take note of you when you did Last Exit to Brooklyn, in which you played a hooker named Tralala.

A: I liked that movie--and Miami Blues, in which I loved working with Alec Baldwin, and got to improvise a lot. I did those films back-to-back, so I think of them together.

Q: And you played prostitutes in both.

A: But they were very different. Tralala was someone very split off and not in touch with her feelings at all. She'd been raised in a hellhole. To survive, she cut herself off from her emotions. And she envisions she is the queen of this neighborhood, that she is the best whore--the most beautiful, the sexiest, the best everything. Then she falls in love with this young soldier and it all falls apart. It scares the hell out of her because she had been so protected. So she goes into that bar and invites a gang bang so she can get her old self back. It's an attempt to salvage a self that didn't feel, that wasn't open and wasn't hurting and yearning. It ends up being a horrific, horrific rape, but she doesn't see it that way, she sees it as a desperate attempt to get herself back. It was very easy to play that scene, but it was very hard to watch.

Q: You had a meeting with Garry Marshall to play the hooker role in Pretty Woman that eventually went to Julia Roberts. But didn't you read the original script by J.F. Lawton, where she ends up being tossed out of a limo by the Richard Gere character, who then flings her $3000 into the street

A: Yes, I read the dark version. She was also a coke addict in that one. Garry wasn't interested in me at all. We had a very brief meeting and it was like, no, no, no. He actually said something so hysterical to me about the character--he said, "She's only been doing this a few weeks, so it's still a lot of fun for her." Yeah, it's a lot of fun getting into a car with a 68-year-old guy and giving him a blow job. Really exciting.

Q: While we're talking hookers, you played a phone-sex hooker in Robert Altman's Short Cuts.

A: I actually went to phone-sex places to see what happens. The first were really funny, but after a few weeks, it wasn't so funny. At one place there was a guy who was a heavy metal guitar player with a broken leg, playing a woman on the phone to make money while his leg healed.

Q: Some critics have said that if you'd varnished your characters a bit--made them less raw--you might have won an Oscar by now.

A: When you're doing a part, you don't say, Oh, I wonder if I'm going to win something for this. You're thinking, What does this person feel about herself when she wakes up in the morning. Or what did she dream last night? Or what will she eat for breakfast' You're trying to make that person as real, and true, as you can. That's what I'm trying to do. The other stuff, I don't think about.

Q: Most of the characters you've played could be described as being dysfunctional in one way or the other. Ever worry about being stereotyped?

A: Other people can concern themselves about that. My agent can, or my manager. I just go for parts that interest me, inspire me. Maybe there's something similar, but if I'm inspired to play that person I have to go with that. You have to be true to yourself on some level. It might not be the wisest strategy, but I'm just not a careerist.

Q: Isn't being in a hit important to your career?

A: Obviously it's great if a movie does well, that's terrific. But I never go into a movie thinking, "Oh, this is going to be a big commercial success." You can see that by my resume. I've done very few commercial films. But I'm really proud of the films that I've done... well, most of them.

Q: Which of your films are you most pleased with?

A: I really love Georgia. The whole thing was ecstatic filmmaking, though it took a toll on my health. Because I was playing a heroin addict I got down to 89 pounds, when I'm usually 105. I was emaciated and felt horrible, horrible, horrible. This character living inside me was like a virus, and like a virus it takes two or three weeks to dissipate before you come back to yourself.

Q: How much of the character you played in Georgia was culled from your sister, Carrie, whom you helped through some tough times when she was a heroin addict?

A: There are bits of Carrie in Sadie. A lot of the stuff like getting her to a hospital, being with her in the hospital, came from that. But [there's a big difference in that] Carrie has a tremendous singing voice.

Q: What kind of an emotional payoff did playing this spunout, expressive character have for you?

A: I got to sing, and I love singing, even though I'm not a good singer. I also liked working with my mom. I came up with the story, it came out of my head, and my mom wrote this incredibly brilliant script. It's great to see something you thought of made into a movie. The whole thing was magical.

Q: If you find playing a disastrously self-destructive character like Sadie "magical," is their any film you did that was difficult to do?

A: The character I played in Rush was obsessing about everything all the time and living in fear. That was a hard shoot. Very tough, on every level. It was the director's [Lili Fini Zanuck] first movie and she was very aggressive.

Q: How was making Backdraft, the only mainstream role of yours I can recall?

A: I love [director] Ron Howard, but I don't think I did a very good job on that movie. I didn't really know how to connect with that character, I didn't know what I was doing. But I tried hard.

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