Alicia
Silverstone has a "Blast"
BEVERLY HILLS -- Alicia Silverstone proves
she is anything but "Clueless." After
experiencing overnight fame as the ditzy but lovable
Cher, Silverstone wishes to be taken seriously as an
actress. The 22-year-old ingenue said she never wanted to
be famous, emphasizing her career goals led her to accept
the role of tough cookie Eve Rustikov in "Blast from
the Past."
"I don't think it's a question of too soon,"
Silverstone said of her fame. "I think it's a
question of it's not a nice thing to have happen. I just
don't think it's fun. I never walked around going, 'When
I grow up, I want to be famous.' That's just such a
shallow thing to want to be. If you want to be that, you
need to figure out what's wrong with you first, not in a
bad way, but just deal with yourself. All I do is I love
acting because there's exploration, there's character
discovery, all these things that as a 12-year-old, my
brain needed."
In a chocolate brown ribbed sweater over a dark brown
miniskirt, Silverstone flips her long blonde hair to make
a point at the Four Seasons Hotel. Since her success in
"Clueless," Silverstone has struggled to find a
follow-up role with the same sheen. Columbia/TriStar
signed her to a two-picture deal as a producer, but the
"Excess Baggage" project she helmed brought in
disappointing box office. Silverstone said she enjoyed
her role as a producer despite the media scrutiny.
"It's the most positive experience I've ever
had," she said. "I never thought about it being
negative for a moment. Siskel and Ebert gave it two
thumbs up, and that's about the only press I was engaging
in, so I was excited about that. I had a great time
making the movie, I learned so much. I thought we did an
amazing job with all the given stuff. Everything's a
compromise, compromise is the beauty of it all. So I'm
very proud of what we made."
A native of San Francisco, Silverstone became legally
emancipated at age 15 to work the hours required in the
thriller "The Crush" as Darian Forrester .
After appearing with Liv Tyler in a memorable
"Aerosmith" video, she followed up that
sexually-charged role with a similar turn in "The
Baby-sitter" in 1995 before hitting paydirt with
"Clueless." For "Blast from the
Past," Silverstone enjoyed the bittersweet nature of
her character, Eve, who appropriately enough falls for
Adam (Brendan Fraser) despite initial misgivings.
"What I think is really important about Eve, the
neat thing to me about this whole development of a
relationship with Eve, at first everything he says to her
that is nice, it's the last thing in the world that she
wants is to be in love," says Silverstone.
"Because she knows if she's in love, she's going to
get screwed. And that's the end of the story. So she's
one of these modern-type girls who goes around going,
'I've got to survive. I've got to make enough money. I've
got to do this.' And she's very successful getting by,
and she looks great doing it."
The New Line comedy, directed by Hugh Wilson, stars
Brendan Fraser as a young man who lives his whole life in
a bomb shelter before venturing forth at age 30 to find a
bride. Under instructions from his eccentric parents
Sissy Spacek and Christopher Walken, Fraser discovers
it's a braver new world than his insulated upbringing
sheltered him from. The clash of cultures between the
gentlemanly Adam and the street wise Eve leads to some
romantic complications before the couple can create a
truly nuclear family.
After "Past," Silverstone will blast off with
more romantic comedies in two upcoming roles. For Kenneth
Branagh's "Love's Labour's Lost," Silverstone
enrolled in singing lessons to strengthen her vocal
harmonies. The film, which began shooting in England in
January, also stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Lillard.
After that, Silverstone will take a turn at black comedy
with "Stand by Your Man," where she will play a
Southern girl who falls in love with her dream man, who
unfortunately happens to be a murderer on death row. As
Silverstone's opportunities increase, she said she relies
on the director and the script to choose projects.
"I'm sure it will get scarier and scarier as I learn
more and more," she said. "But it's not scary
when you know what your role is, like in this particular
instance I was able to give input, and I was able to work
on my character. My character, I was so into, that I
liked it a lot. So I kind of knew there wasn't much room
to derail. Hugh [Wilson] was cool. He is unbearable when
you're shooting a scene because he laughs through the
whole damn scene. It's great."
Written
by Nina Davidson, ©1999 Hollywood Online Inc.
Designed
by Sara Shuman, ©1999 Hollywood Online Inc.
http://www.hollywood.com
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