Talking with... Jennifer Tilly

One could call actress Jennifer Tilly a madcap. She seems reminiscent of those runaway heiresses in the great screwball comedies: flighty and finicky and definitely fun. It wouldn't have surprised me if she had cartwheeled into New York's Universal Pictures' conference room, in which less than a dozen interviewers were gathered to question her, wearing a flesh-bearing bandage of an outfit and impossibly thin stiletto heels. But she didn't.

Instead, the olive-skinned Tilly made an unassuming entrance in a sedate but stylish two-piece purple ensemble. But make no mistake, it is clear from the minute she opens her sulky mouth that this is indeed the Jennifer Tilly who boop-boop-ee-dooped her way to a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway and slunk her way around and atop Gina Gershon in the lipstick lesbian noir Bound. She's also appeared in, among others, The Getaway, Made in America, Liar Liar, and, most memorably, The Fabulous Baker Boys, where she sang an endearingly off-key rendition of Candyman.

In person, she is articulate, incisive and completely aware of the business she's in and how it perceives her. She's also wickedly funny and interview-savvy. When one interviewer's tape recorder clicks off, she pauses until the tape is turned over, remarking, "I'll stop talking until you turn it over. I don't want you to miss one golden word." Then there's the laugh: three deep and husky ha-ha-has. With her infectious and energetic charm, she could damn near sell anything, including her latest film, Bride of Chucky. In it, she plays white-trash hot mama Tiffany who is turned into a doll and becomes Chucky's main squeeze. Chucky gets lucky indeed. "They were after me for a really long time to do the movie. Of course, I thought I had better things to do. It turned out I was wrong. (laughs)"

PAMELA'S FILM AND ENTERTAINMENT SITE

(PV): So how did a girl who grew up poor in rural Canada come out to Hollywood and make it big?

JENNIFER TILLY (JT): Meg [her sister, also an actress] and I, we marvel about that sometimes. We'll be sitting at the Grill, eating a hundred-dollar lunch and she'll say, "Remember when we were young and we were so hungry? Look at us. We're in Beverly Hills wearing designer clothes eating big, expensive steaks." And I get really embarassed ‘cause I don't like to be reminded of that. Like, I got mad because she was really famous before me, and she would do all this press talking about how we grew up in a farm with chickens on the porch. And I'd call her up and say, "I don't want people to think I gew up with chickens on the porch. Maybe I want them to think I was a debutante." And she's going, "But it's true." (laughs) Then there's other things, like we get together and we discuss things that we don't want people to know because, obviously, a lot of our history is the same. In the beginning, she didn't want people to know our ethnic makeup because she thought that would be really limiting. So I was fine with that. I don't mind people knowing what my ethnic background is . I'm half-Chinese and then a whole lot of white. (laughs) I'm pretty sure I'm one-eighth Indian but everyone says they're one-eighth Indian. (laughs) But I think my grandfather is half-Indian on my mom's side. Then I didn't want anyone to know our ages. So sometimes we get together and try to get our stories straight. Not that we don't tell the truth. . .

It's funny because [Meg] did a movie where she played Faye Dunaway's daughter. She goes, "Jennifer, I think Faye is just like us." And I said, "What do you mean?" She says, "I'm pretty sure she's half-Chinese!" (giggles) And I said, "What makes you say that?" She goes, "‘Cause look at her eyes!" I don't know, she could be right. Meg's very intuitive. But of course you wouldn't think that Faye [was half-Chinese] because she's got all that fabulous blonde hair but, you know, it's probably not real blond hair. (laughs) You know I saw a picture of Gwyneth Paltrow in her high school yearbook and she's a brunette! Wouldn't you think that Gwyneth of anybody would be a natural blond?

MARRYING CHUCKY, VOICING TIFFANY

I had some stereotypical view of Chucky from when I had. . .I had never seen any of the Chucky movies and I was just like, "I don't think so." (laughs) My manager said, "Well, just have them send you the script and you can see." He was saying that I should meet [producer] David Kirschner and look at the Chucky dolls cause they were really horrifying and everything. They sent over the script and they also sent over a tape that Ronny Yu directed [called] The Bride With White Hair, which was a really cool film. I read the script and I thought it was really funny, I thought it was amusing and it made me laugh. I was also very intrigued by the idea that they wanted me to play this part so I thought, Well, obviously they're not going for. . .a stereotypical horror film. It seemed like they had a sense of humor about themselves and they wanted to play it a little tongue-in-cheek and I just thought, Hmm, if I do this Chucky movie, I'll reach a whole new audience. (laughs) What audience I'm not quite sure. So I said that I would do it. Also they offered me a lot of money. (laughs) Actually, the clincher was I found out a friend of mine really wanted to do the film. So I was like, If she wants to do it, it must be a very cool project so I said I would do it. She was saying it would be really great to have a franchise and I thought, That's true. Usually you don't get to have a franchise until you become Bruce Willis. I just like the idea of being Jennifer Tilly with a franchise. And actually I've done the hard part because in this movie I play Tiffany, who's this white trash, trailer park girl then I turn into a doll. So I was out there for a few weeks playing the live-action Tiffany. After you become a doll, it's really easy. I did the whole movie in two days on a soundstage with Brad Dourif. I felt really good after I finished doing the live-action Tiffany because all the hard stuff the doll has to do: sex scenes, explosions, she gets burned alive, she has all these stunts where she's flying through the air. I thought, Oh, how relaxing [that] I'm sitting at home with the remote control watching TV, eating a Hostess cupcake while everybody else is doing night shoots working for another two months. It's a very easy gig, voiceover.

This was my very first voiceover film that I did. When I went in, it was really fun because they. . .brought on Brad Dourif, who is an Academy Award nominated actor such as myself. This is where all the talent goes. (laughs) But he was used to doing Chucky and I was a little intimidated by him at first because I'd seen him in Mississippi Burning and he always plays these weird, freaky people. He's a very intense guy. In the beginning, he was trying to get his Chucky mojo going so he was like (makes growling sounds) and then I'd come in and he's like (pauses then growls again). So as soon as we got started we had so much fun because Don Mancini, the creator, and David Kirschner and Ronny Yu [were there] and they really encouraged us to improvise a lot. So if I'd go down one road, [Brad] would just follow me and it would turn out to be a dead end and we'd both come running back. We were allowed to overlap and work with each other. The thing that's so great about when you do [voiceovers], it's really fun because you just go with it. When you're doing a film, when you're shooting, it gets very repetitive. You do the master and the two-shot and the close-up and the over the shoulder and the [other] over the shoulder and you have to match. But it. . .was a wild sort of energy working with. . .Brad. Since then, I've done some other -- I've tried to answer your question and I just suddenly remembered it (laughs). After Bride of Chucky, I started doing some other voiceovers and I realized it's not all as fun and easy as Chucky. I just finished doing Stuart Little, that was fun. But the first thing I did after [Chucky] was called Bartok the Magnificent and I play a slug. (laughs) Voiceover is like this whole new realm of characters for me. The great thing about voiceover, too, is that you can eat as much as you want and [not have to] squeeze into your costumes or worry about your camera angle. [But it] was a totally different technique. I realize that when you're not acting, all you have to do is listen to your voice and I was obsessing about how stupid my voice sounded. (laughs). You ever stand in a room and listen to yourself just talking? You get very self-conscious.

BECOMING TIFFANY

I saw drawings of the doll, I didn't actually see the doll. I saw the doll once I started acting, doing the live action. They created the doll before they cast me. . .which I thought was odd. My makeup people were really peeved. They were like, "I can't believe we're trying to make you look like a doll. We should be doing it the other way around." The doll has this ratty blond hair with black roots. Of course, the hairstylist wanted to do something fabulous with my hair so we came up with this rationalization. We said when she becomes a doll, it's like Howard Hughes, she gets a little crazy because it would obviously be sort of traumatic to turn into a doll. When you're a little crazy and you're a little stressed out, you let your looks go. So we said her hair would be a little more wild and we ran that by David Kirshner and Don Mancini and they were like, "Sure. Fine. Whatever." So we used that rationalization for other things. They wanted me to wear these green contact lenses and they hurt my eyes so badly; they were about half an inch thick. So I said, "My idea is the doll has green eyes so when my spirit goes into the doll, she's looking at the world through the doll's green eyes. Also, the green sort of symbolizes something supernatural is happening." And they're like, "So the contact lenses are hurting you?" And I'm like, "Yes." (laughs) But I think that's the cool thing about this horror film. You're talking about a little doll running around with a very large knife. You can't say, "Wait a minute. Wouldn't her eyes be green?" That's the least of your worries if you're looking for realism.

BEING A SEX SYMBOL

It was sort of forced on me. (laughs) I don't really get offers that are traditional glamour girl roles. I think that people tend to cast me as more eccentric characters and I think it's because I'm more comedic. I think people would not buy me as the girl next door or the romantic girl or the attractive girl. I can be the scary girl, the attractive but scary girl like in Bound. Or I can be the girl that's maybe attractive but she's so loud and obnoxious that nobody wants to be around her, like Olive [in Bullets Over Broadway]. But I don't usually get cast as the pretty girl. (pauses) That's not true. That was. . .uh. . .I think it's just because I see myself as a character actress. It's actually very hard for me to get roles. (laughs) Believe it or not, because I think that I bring too much to the party. A friend of mine broke up with this guy -- I thought this was really mean -- she broke up. . .and she's kind of like me. She gave me this book, The Rules, and she had [a section] highlighted and with exclamation points, and it said, "Men don't like big, loud, knee-slapping women." And we were like, "Oh! That's our problem!" (giggles) So she broke up with this guy and he goes, "The problem with you is you bring too much to the party. It's a little overwhelming." And she goes, "And the problem with you is you don't bring anything to the party. Nothing." And I was like, Ooh! I just didn't want to be the guy on the other end of the line. I said, "That's a bit harsh." But I think that's my problem with acting: I bring too much to the party. If the tone is more Grand Guignol, I think I fit right in. If it's like the Woody Allen movie where everybody was larger than life or a movie like Bride of Chucky that's very campy in its sensibility, I think those are the kind of movies where I can really have a romp and a lot of fun. But I think movies that are kitchen sink dramas, I think it's kind of harder for me to play the kind of normal girl that you would meet at the supermarket squeezing the Wonderbread. (laughs) I think that those kind of characters are really difficult for me to play. Sometimes when I go in for auditions, they would be really astonished at me and they would say, "My God, how did you come up with that choice?" And I'm like, "What choice?" And they'd say, "Ninety-nine other women came in and they read it this way and you came up with this really bizarre choice." And I'd be so puzzled because, to me, that was the obvious choice. I'm not Crispin Glover going out of my way to be bizarre. To me, the skewed is the normal.

SPICE GIRLS

I'm a huge Spice Girls fan. My boyfriend is English and he sneers when they come on, he goes out of the room. I like all of the Spice Girls. At first, I liked Posh Spice because she's into designer labels. But it's funny because she never smiles because she thinks she doesn't look good when she smiles. I think she looks really cute but she doesn't look as elegant. She looks kind of like a little monkey when she smiles. When I was reading [the article], she said, "I don't look good when I smile." And I'm like, Oh, that's ridiculous. Everyone looks good when they smile. Then I saw her smiling and I'm like, Oooh, I see what she means. And I can really identify with that because I look really good when I'm sulky. So if you see me in still photography, I look very, very glamorous. But when you see me in a paparazzi picture, I look terrible. They get you from really bad angles, they do it on purpose. They love when your eyes are rolling up in the back of your head or when, for a second, you just forgot to suck in your stomach. (giggles) But when I smile, I look more friendly, less glamorous. It makes my face really wide. This fashion journalist said, "Jennifer, you don't have to smile. I see some of those actresses, they go through the press line, they hit the mark and they glare at the photographers, then they slouch over to the next mark, and glare at the [next] photographer. They're just fabulous." But when I get there, I'm so happy that people are yelling my name that I'm not only smiling but I talk, which is the worse because then your mouth is all twisted. (giggles) So now I smile when I talk through my mouth. (giggles) And I have one pose that looks good for me. So when the paparazzi's yelling to come over there, I go, "Wait a minute." And I have my pose and I hop over to the next one because I only have one pose that makes me look skinny. (giggles) And they're going, "Okay, bring your one pose over here." But when I see celebrities in paparazzi pictures, they look best when they're really annoyed. Those are the most attractive pictures. Or when they kind of have their hand up [in front of their face]. That's the coolest kind of picture. But I've never been able to do that, that annoyed thing.

Oh! The Spice Girls question! (laughs) I like Baby Spice. But what's with those ridiculous those ridiculous shoes they wear? I said to my boyfriend, "What's with those big, stupid shoes?" And he goes, "They're in fashion. Everyone in America will be wearing them in two years." And I said, "No! I don't think Americans would be caught dead in those types of shoes." Then I started to like Scary Spice. I think she's the coolest, she's like a really groovy chick. She's got all these piercings and everything and she's got really good fashion sense, like original fashion sense. But the one I like the best now is. . .ooh, my superficiality is showing. (laughs) Sporty Spice, I like her. I thought she was the one that didn't get enough press but now I realize she's low-key and she's her own person and she likes to wear all that sports gear and she's got lots of tattoos. And she helped break up Bruce Willis' marriage supposedly. So Sporty Spice is the one I like the best because I think she's the most unaffected of all of them. I never really liked Ginger Spice too much but I miss her now that she's gone. It's not the same without her. I wish those girls would just make up. (laughs) Life is too short.

THE PLAY'S THE THING
I'm auditioning for Cabaret and I've been practicing my song all week. The next thing you'll see me doing is a play. I like theater the best because I feel like it's all your own work. When I started doing film, it was very disoncerting. When I felt I was doing my best work, it was a closeup on somebody else. (laughs) Wait, I don't have any lines but what I'm doing over here is important! I think I'm actually a better theater actress than I am a film actress. [In film], you have to tone everything down. If you're angry in a play, you just sweep over to the other side of the stage to show that you don't want to be near them. In film, if you do that, obviously you're out of the shot. (laughs) So you have to convey your dislike for somebody's company by moving your eyebrows a little, which isn't as satisfying. I like the big, I like to talk in a big voice and make big gestures and make big, sweeping crosses. So plays are more satisfying but, in a way. . . Our acting teacher once said to us that. . .if you're acting in your room in front of your mirror, you're not really an actor. An actor needs an audience to be an actor. So I took that and extended it logically. I thought, Well, if you're acting for 500 people a night, you're a little bit of an actor. But if you're in a film that reaches millions of people around the world, you're a very large actor. (laughs) Plus the pay is a lot better infilm. The times I've done theater, I've lost money. I did a play at the Joe Papp Theater and I think I was making $400 a week and it was costing me $3,000 a month to live here. It's satisfying but it's almost like a luxury that you can't afford, like going on vacation.

PV: Is that part of the reason why we don't see you in more independent films? Because they don't reach as wide an audience?

JT: I do a lot of independent films. I think the reason you don't see me in more independent films is because they never come out. (laughs) Or they'll go straight to video. When you put a lot of work and love into something and it doesn't come out, it's like having a baby that's stillborn. (takes a breath) Oooh, that was a terrible analogy. (gives an uneasy laugh) It's upsetting. I don't want to do independent films unless I'm positive they're going to find an audience because it's just too heartbreaking. Sometimes you'll get a script and it won't be quite up to par but you think there's something you can do with the character and maybe your friends are making the movie and you want to go off and have a creatively fulfilling experience, but then it's just too heartbreaking when it doesn't work out. Then I'll look back and say, "Well, the script was never really finished." So now unless the script is really, really good. . . If it's not there on the page in the beginning, especially for an independent film because you're working so fast and under such a tight budget, then it won't be there in the end. Whereas in a major motion picture, the script may not be there but they can gussy it up and you won't notice. It's like, "It doesn't make sense here, let's put in some really big explosions." (laughs) Or, "let's put in a great soundtrack people will go out of the theater humming." And it's true. My criteria for independent films for the script is a lot higher than for a major motion picture because you know the major motion picture will come out no matter what and find an audience. And if worse comes to worse, at least you'll be really well photographed. (laughs)

PV: What's more frightening for you: not shopping or not talking?

JT: (laughs) Oh, my God. [I] used to be on this set where there was no attractive man on it. So [my friends and I] would play this game: if you had to have a sex with the first AD [assistant director] or that grip there, which one would you have sex with? And it'd be like, Oooh, well maybe that grip there because he seems. . .cleaner? And that's sort of like not shopping, not talking. It's one of those horrible dilemmas. I think I could probably not talk for a while. . .if my credit card was not working. (laughs) I don't have to talk.

PV: You seem to handle the job of being a celebrity really well. How do you deal with it better than most other celebrities?

JT: I think I'm really lucky because I can fold it up and put it away when I'm done. I think it would be really hard to be someone like Madonna who, like it or not, has to be a celebrity all the time because she's so famous. I dated a guy who was an actor and he had this entourage just following him around all the time, always telling him how wonderful he was. I don't have anybody telling me how good I am. (laughs) I have to go on the Internet for that. (laughs) I think the point where you get really isolated and have everybody doing everything for you and have an entourage of people telling you you're great when you're not -- ‘cause you're not always good -- I think that's the point where you start to lose touch with reality and start making bad movies.

THE LAST WORD ON CHUCKY

The bad part about [Chucky] is that he's really, really short so whenever they cut to his POV, it was always that really unattractive low angle. Any actress knows. . .any actress when they see the camera on the floor, they go, "What's that doing there? Move it up!" (laughs) But if it was his POV, I would try to overcome it by taking Chucky and, like, putting him on a high shelf. I'd carry him around like this (holds her arms over her head) trying to get that good angle.