Melanie Griffith has weathered her share of storms in both her professional and personal life, but she's always managed to stay afloat. She's currently sailing calmer seas, thanks to great reviews for her last two films, a killer role in her next, Crazy in Alabama, and a bash-proof love affair with her husband, Antonio Banderas.
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Once Melanie Griffith slithers down comfortably at our patio table at Santa Monica's Ivy at the Shore, she locks those azure eyes on me and declares, "I have on way too much makeup to be comfortable." Whiplash slim, and looking like a full-on movie star in black cigarette pants and matching jersey, Griffith, 41, dabs off coats of paint that had earlier been applied for this magazine's photo shoot. When I tell her I hope she's ready to expose as much of her soul as she has her face, she purrs, "I've only gotten busted when I've tried to lie."
What could Griffith possibly lie about, anyway? After all, virtually every move she's made has been reported, analyzed and, mostly, criticized since actress Tippi Hedren, of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and Marnie, gave birth to her in 1957. Griffith grew up largely on Hedren's ranch, a sanctuary for abandoned circus animals and exotic pets. At 17, she found her way into acting and was so ferociously, effortlessly sexual as Monroe-worthy teen mantraps opposite Gene Hackman in Night Moves and Paul Newman in The Drowning Pool that Hollywood dubbed her "the Lolita of the 70s." Offscreen, Griffith played Lolita, too; she'd already shacked up with serial lothario Don Johnson as a 14-year-old, and in 1976 married him, but they divorced a year later. At 24 she wed again, this time to Scarface heartthrob Steven Bauer. These were years of partying hearty, but in 1984 she made a stunning return to form as the hilariously deadpan porn diva in Body Double. Her equally showy turn as a volatile seductress in Something Wild two years later crystallized her screen appeal: vulnerable, endearing, turbulent, playful, dangerous, bursting with life.
In 1988 the Academy recognized Griffith's talent with a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance in Working Girl. At the time, she had just come out of rehab for alcohol and cocaine addiction and looked ready to compete alongside Jodie Foster and Michelle Pfeiffer. But then her reputation soured when she not only remarried Johnson but made luckless career choices. The Bonfire of the Vanities tanked. Two movies she made with Johnson--_Paradise_ and Born Yesterday--bombed. Just as the town looked all set to embrace her anew for her piercing, lovely, Oscar-worthy work as an aging, small-town beauty in Nobody's Fool, the focus went onto her personal life yet again when, in 1995, she left Johnson for the very married, three-years-her-junior heartthrob Antonio Banderas, whom she had met while costarring with him in the comic misfire Two Much. An international scandal erupted. The press devoured them both and took bets as to how long they would last.
Griffith and Banderas withstood the firestorm, married, settled down and gave birth to Stella, now two, who joined a blended household that includes 13-year-old Alexander (son of Steven Bauer) and 9-year-old Dakota (daughter of Don Johnson). And now, after some time off, Griffith is back--yet again--in grittier, edgier roles in less commercial films. The result? She's heated things up with a vengeance. She delivered a tastily self-satirizing turn as a big, glam movie star in Woody Allen's Celebrity and won terrific reviews for playing a scary outlaw junkie in Larry Clark's Another Day in Paradise. If the prerelease buzz holds true, she may cop strong reviews for playing a husband-decapitating '60s-era Southern sexpot who hits Hollywood and lands a guest spot on Bewitched in Crazy in Alabama, which marks her husband's directorial debut.
STEPHEN REBELLO: A lot of industry people are saying Crazy in Alabama could be your comeback.
MELANIE GRIFFITH: Comeback? Jesus, did I go somewhere? I haven't been working as much as I'd like, but part of that was my choice because I told my agent I needed to take some time off to be with Antonio and our baby.
Q: But you have to admit the films you've recently starred in have done more for you than most of the movies you've made in the last decade.
A: I don't care if people say I've made some poor choices in my career. I've put my family first and that's how it should be. But I also have to say that I've changed agents three times in the past ten years. I left Nicole David right after Working Girl, which I never should have done, and I'm back with her now. After Nicole, I went to ICM but left when I learned a script I found for myself was given to another actor. Then I went to CAA with Antonio and, honestly, though I adore Rick Nicita, all the work I got was because a director like Woody Allen, who cast me in Celebrity, or Adrian Lyne, who put me in Lolita, specifically asked for me. Besides, [agents] get a bigger commission from someone like Demi Moore at her $12 million than from me at my $3 million. What can I say? Sometimes this town can be really mean and cruel. All people think of you is that you're as good as your last movie.
Q: Do you feel there's been less for you to do since you passed the 40 mark?
A: Hollywood is interested in 27, not 40. It's something I never wanted to believe was true. And I don't understand why that should be. As you get older, you get better as an actress. I have. I'm serious about my career and I want to be working until the day I die. How can anyone not admire Susan Sarandon, Glenn Close, Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, who are hanging in there? These women know that it's very tough to get good work and to continue to make a lot of money. Meg Ryan is also great in movies and I'm happy for her. Want to hear something funny? People are always coming up to me saying, "I loved you in When Harry Met Sally..." and "You were so great in City of Angels." I've signed Meg Ryan's autograph more times than I've signed my own. Anyone who comes up to me and says, "Sleepless in Seattle is my favorite," I'll just go ahead and sign Meg Ryan so I won't disappoint them.
Q: Do you ever compete for roles with close friend Sharon Stone, who's only half a year younger than you?
A: Fuck no, we don't get the same offers. I did test for Casino, though. But Sharon did something much better than me, and she was great in that film. I really love her, but she's a much bigger star than I am. She's way ahead of me.
Q: Granted, you've been held back because you wanted to raise a family, and you did the agent shuffle, but do you feel as if there's something else working against you, that perhaps you've gotten an unfair shake in Hollywood?
A: I've always had to prove myself, even today. It goes way back. They didn't want to meet me for Working Girl. I tried so hard to get that role that I had to fly to New York on my own dime to even get a meeting for that movie. Thanks to [director] Mike Nichols, who supported me, I won the role. When I didn't win the Academy Award, though, I remember feeling really horrible because I wanted to win so badly. But you really have to play the Hollywood game--schmooze, do the parties, kiss everyone's ass and all that shit. I didn't do that.
Q: Have you received any memorable career advice from people who've been in the business for the long haul?
A: After Working Girl Jane Fonda called me and said, "You were so good in that film, how did you do that?" All I could think was, fucking Jane Fonda is asking me how I did that? Somehow, the topic went to the subject of career longevity and she said something I'll never forget--she said, "You'll go up and down a million times. Don't worry about it. It's just the way the pendulum swings. You have to try and find the smartest people in town that can possibly be your friends and ask them for good advice."
Q: You've talked a lot about roles you've wanted but couldn't get, which I find interesting considering how you're known around town for having turned down several very plum roles.
A: True. Bernardo Bertolucci asked me to do The Sheltering Sky, but I was pregnant with Dakota--I wasn't going to have an abortion to do a movie. Basic Instinct I passed on. Can you believe I said no to the great role Geena Davis ended up getting in Thelma & Louise? I read it and just thought it was wicked and that those two women were bad. I was offered the role of Harrison Ford's girlfriend in Six Days Seven Nights, but I though it was a gratuitous scene, and I think it involved nudity. I wanted more than anything to work with Jim Brooks and Jack Nicholson on As Good As It Gets but I got pregnant with Stella. I begged Jim to wait until I had my baby but he couldn't. In the end, though, no movie rates anything near what it's like having Dakota and Stella to love.
Q: Madonna and Sharon Stone have both talked about what they went through emotionally when they turned 40. Did you feel any anxiety about it?
A: It was really hard a couple of months before my birthday. Age had never meant anything to me, then, all of a sudden, it did. Now it doesn't mean anything to me again but back then it really freaked me out. Around that time I was also thinking, "Why don't I have a job?" and "Why didn't I get called about this film when I know many other actresses at least got to meet for it?" After my agents said, "They didn't want you" and "We couldn't get you a meeting," I got weird and depressed.
Q: Weird and depressed enough to get a little hooked on collagen injections and trips to the plastic surgeon?
A: Adrian Lyne asked me to gain 10 pounds before I started Lolita, which, on top of being tough on my ego playing the mother role, made me feel like a complete porker. And I think everybody in town has had collagen put into their lips, which I did do at one point, but I don't have now. Jesus Christ, I mean, yes, I had my tits done after I had my second child, but I didn't make them bigger. I just had them put back to where they were because after you've had children, your body changes.
Q: Jeez, I've never heard you be so brutally honest.
A: I have to tell you something that really made an impression on me. When my friend Jamie Lee Curtis was filming Trading Places in New York she was dating Michael Riva, Marlene Dietrich's grandson. Marlene let Jamie Lee live in her Manhattan apartment that had been shut for 12 years. Jamie Lee called me the minute she moved in and said, "You have got to come over and see this now!" I did and it was amazing. Every window had gauze over it, all the light was filtered, so that no matter where you sat you were "lit" and looked beautiful. The bathroom was filled with those incredible old lipsticks that stained your lips red and face-lift tapes with little needles attached that looked like they'd make you bleed. There was also a whole bunch of opium cough syrup that I wanted to try even though Jamie Lee said, "Are you out of your mind? This stuff is from 1930."
This was during my real drug period. My point in telling you this story is that the house made me realize fame passes so it's important for women in the movie business to be brutally honest with themselves. Figure out if you want to have a family or if you only want to have a career like Katharine Hepburn. If you don't make that choice, you wait too long to have a family and start getting bitter if you don't. I've seen a lot of people blame not having a family on their career, and then, when their career's not working, they get fucked up. So, I look at all the lines on my face and go, yes, my face is changing, but it's changing along with what I've experienced in my life. How could I have added any depth or richness to my work if I hadn't lived and enjoyed a real life?
At this point Griffith has to head off to another appointment, but it's clear this party is way too much fun to stop dead. She invites me to drop by her home the following morning. The Spanish mission house in Brentwood is beautifully and dramatically furnished in a style that whispers old, not Hollywood, money. In the big, warm kitchen Griffith is perched beside a countertop as a hairstylist fixes her tresses for a Jay Leno appearance. The place jumps with activity--phones ringing, Stella romping merrily, hired help running around. When Banderas saunters in, kisses his wife and greets me with a warm hello, Griffith lights up the room with happiness. After several "I love you, baby"s are exchanged, she reminds him to pick up her cherry popsicles at the market before he returns home from work.
Q: Is it true that Antonio fell in love with you nearly 10 years before you two starred together in 1996's Two Much?
A: The first time he ever saw me was at the Oscars when I was there for my Best Actress nomination for Working Girl. Antonio's film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, so he was also there. He told me that at one point during the night I walked right past him, but I didn't see him. Can you imagine? He said that was the exact moment he fell in love with me.
Q: Very romantic.
A: He's a very rare man. He truly loves women.
Q: He certainly looks happy.
A: I hope so. I love to be in love. I'm terribly romantic. I really need romance. Antonio has romance in his blood, so we're a match. More than anything, I want him and my children to be happy. And then me. There's nothing more important to me than them. We're a family now.
Q: The press really beat you two up when you first started seeing each other.
A: No kidding. In the beginning the press's treatment of us was devastating to me. I've realized now, though, that I don't want to go through life calling magazines and newspapers saying, "What you wrote isn't true, it's mostly from people who worked for us and got angry when they were fired." I'm too busy leading my life.
Q: Speaking of the press, I just read that last year you took Spanish classes, which made me wonder if you and Antonio have ever suffered from a language barrier problem.
A: You can't believe the misunderstandings we had in the beginning of our relationship! Once we were talking on the phone about God and religion and I said, "I don't think of God as some guy up there in the clouds with a big stick in his hand." There was this long pause before Antonio said, "A big dick in his hand?" I thought he must have been thinking, "Oh, man... American movie actresses." Another time, we were boarding a plane and the flight crew let us board first. We thought we were being very private and nobody was noticing us until other passengers boarded and said, "Hi Melanie," "Hi Antonio." Anyway, as this passenger with very gray hair happened to walk by, I whispered to Antonio, "God, I may as well just lean over and give you head," meaning, "We haven't been so secret, I guess." Antonio looked very confused, looked at the guy's gray hair and said, "Pigmentation?" I said, "What the fuck are you talking about?" Antonio, all innocent, said, "His hair. Pigmentation, right?" He'd never heard the expression "to give head."
Q: What was it like having Antonio tell you what to do on Crazy in Alabama?
A: It was fun. Antonio never faltered, even though the material's difficult. There was a time when, for personal reasons, I had decided I might not do the film. Danny DeVito had wanted to direct it and Sharon Stone had wanted to star in it. But Antonio had the confidence and he knew exactly how he wanted to make it. It turned out like a very American story, about justice, about the social conditions of our country in the '60s seen through a European's eyes. He was especially good at working with the actors, like David Morse and Lucas Black, the boy from Sling Blade. We all loved Rod Steiger, who said Antonio is the best director he's ever worked with.
Q: Is it true that you two will soon be working together on another project?
A: Yes. It's called Loving Lulu, and it's about a schizophrenic woman and the man in her life. It's a real acting challenge. The money's in place so it's a go.
Q: Any other projects you're working on?
A: Glenn Close is producing a movie that she's asked me to star in. It's about a couple who loses a child then later another child is left on their doorstep. I want Glenn to direct it, though.
Q: What do you eventually hope to get out of your career?
A: Joanne Woodward told me years ago that she had three dreams when she was very young: to marry a movie star, to have a beautiful baby and to win an Academy Award. She got all of those. And now, so do I, except for the Academy Award. But who knows.
Q: Do you have any other goals?
A: Yes, $50 million, minimum, in the bank. You see, I need to make $50 million in this day and age to make sure my children are set. I make good money and Antonio makes even more, but though I've made $50 million over my career, I don't have that in the bank now. Which made me think of how I can get it. When I was pregnant, I called Ralph Lauren and asked, "What can I do to look good?" He told me to wear leggings, some cool flats, and my husband's shirts and jackets. So that made me start thinking about designing my own pregnancy survival kit. I'm in discussions with people about it now. I can sell the clothes through, say, Kmart, so it's affordable to the average woman. If I can make $50 to $100 million, like these models do through selling their clothes at Kmart, I can not only secure my children's future but I can also help other people in the world.
Q: Sounds like you've got your future pretty well mapped out.
A: My career's hardly over yet. I want challenges. I want to work. If I can do one good movie or play a year, I'll be happy.
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Stephen Rebello wrote about Young Hollywood acting careers for the March 99 issue of Movieline.