Movie stars are such babies

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio feels like she did in her high school days in Illinois, USA. She is standing in the dusty street outside her Umbrian holiday home, waiting for Colin Firth. When she finally sits in the car beside the tall Brit, it doesn't take long before they discuss their mutual passion: Italy! The Italians! The food! Here culture still blossoms, not least the cuisine. "No one would sprinkle parmesan on a Spaghetti al Vongole in this country" says Italian by choice, Colin Firth. But we are not here for the food. Conversation first!

C: When Vogue asked me who I'd like to talk with, you were my favourite choice.

M: Then we have nothing more to say to each other...(Firth is surprised). We know each other so well, almost like an old married couple.

C: And we have a lot in common. Our profession force us to live a nomadic life. In spite of this we are family animals - with the never ending problem of uniting private life and professional life [i.e.] preparing for the next film.

M: What trade show today any consideration for family life? Few employers care about ones wishes to spend time with the ones you brought into this world: live with them, eat with them. That's why I now have a manager who is a mother herself, who share my experience. One project a year is just right for me. I want to be there for my sons.

C: That's uncommon in our profession. Most people raise their children in between work.

M: When did we really get to know each other?

C: I have no idea, but 1999, when we played a married couple in My Life So Far, we already knew each other since ten years or so.

M: Good qualification for portraying an old couple...

C: I think I first saw you when your husband Pat brought you to England - to introduce you to the posh London society. (Exaggerated British:) My lady, have we really been properly introduced?

M: Pat got me rooted in London. That was the easiest solution. One must start somewhere, then the rest follows. At home, as well as in society someone must take the initiative, only the important thing is, that it's not the same person who runs everything everywhere. When it comes to our private life Pat is the shepherd and I'm the sheep. He has made a Londoner out of me.

C: And Livia has almost made me a real Italian. I feel quite at home with my wife's family. Los Angeles was never an option to us.

M: Life is very easy in the U.S. but once you've been away, it's difficult to return. I see the extremes much more clearly - in show business as well as political life. That president! How can George W. Bush undermine the Kyoto Environmental Agreement, when he actually is the leader of the country that is the biggest polluter? Besides, I cannot for anything picture myself living in an American suburb, discussing the latest on wallpaper patterns with my interior decorator.

C: But haven't the fact that you turned your back on America damaged your career? You been nominated for an Oscar, you've worked with Tom Cruise, Kevin Costner...

M: Professionally, it was a mistake to move to London. But I love the city. One must choose, I cannot always have all I want. These days I enjoy work more; everything is so easy. People bring me coffee. I needn't do anything. I have my private sphere in my trailer, where I can do my yoga exercises. But I cannot expect this when I get back home to my sons Declan and Jack, who are just four and eight years old.

C: Luca is now six months old.

M: And you get any sleep at all these days?

C: He must have Chianti in his veins. We've been lucky, he's slept nights since the beginning. He gets everything but eating and sleeping done for him. Just like actors. On set stars are like babies. You are told when to get up...

M: You don't even dress yourself!

C: That's right, you really don't need to get dressed, cause when you arrive on set, you'll be pampered and clothed.

M: The only thing you need to do in the morning is to pour water over your head...

C: ... and then blow your hair dry. You get your face painted. It's really pathetic. You are told what to eat . You are shown where to stand, what to say and how to say it. In the evening it's the same thing, only reverse.

M: One are not even suppose to hang ones clothes in the closet...

C... just drop them.

M: I started off as an stage actress, and at the theatre everyone tend to their own clothes, and in the Mastrantonio family that's common practice (she says, looking like a Nanny). That is the least one can do. Actors constantly get acknowledged if they are independent and do simple things like that: "Oh, you're so refreshingly common". Makes you wonder, if it's abnormal to be nice [on set]. Back in the real world you don't get any compliments just for saying "thank you". I often ask myself; who is the child and who is the grown up? 

C: (with mock indignation) Why don't my wife like it when I don't hang my clothes in the closet? Should I ask for my agent, he'll come at once. I'm not a person with allure, but that's how the industry works. They dance around you as if you were the Golden Calf. But when you get home, and you have a hungry baby who is crying, you have to be active. Then you cannot call your agent to say: " My kids behaves impossibly, do see to that it stops!"

M: Parents are servants.

C: Still, I've arrived at a point where I find family and social life more important than work.

M: Having a family toughens you. After having my second child I worked in John Sayles' Limbo, playing a highly-strung ex-singer, who had settled in Alaska. In this grand setting she has a fit of hysteria. Sayles never rehearses, so he just said "action" and fifty pair of eyes turn towards me. All I could think of, was: 'Why doesn't somebody give this madwoman a slap on the face to stop her screaming?' I can weep at the snap of a finger, but as a real life mother, I find that my feelings are rather irrelevant most of the time, and that experience was hard for me put aside while playing this scene. Since then I sometimes find work hard, especially when I play brittle, sensitive women. I've distanced myself from that kind of self-centredness you need in this profession. I think more and more often: 'You can't do this, it's too ridiculous, too absurd.' A role like the Fisher Woman Linda Greenlaw in The Storm strikes me as just right for me. She is also a woman who can hide her emotions depending on circumstance.

C: Aren't we always balancing on the edge of absurdity? Very few are, like sir Lawrence Olivier, able to turn his craft into work of art.

M: Unfortunately, quite often people with weak personalities goes into filming. But those who need therapy ought to seek professional help instead. Emotionally unstable persons may be damaged, but acting on stage, where you rehearse day after day, is different. It's like a steak, which may take hours in the oven before it's ready to serve. Filming is more like cooking in a micro-wave oven.

C: And that's why one develops better, as a human being, working in the theatre.

C: Do you really want more than two children?

M: If we had started earlier, maybe. I'm from an Italian-American family of six children. We [Pat and M] would not at any rate have an only child, like some sort of third spouse.

M:Since you bring it up; were you present when Luca was born?

C: Yes. What about your husband?

M: He wiped my sweat off with a tiny handkerchief (touches her forehead, makes a theatrical face and groans) - and did nothing else! Maybe he couldn't, but the experience brought us closer together. He was allowed to cut the cord, though.

C: I was asked to do that also, an unforgettable experience. Friends of mine had warned me that being present when your child is born may cause sexual problems.

M: Why?

C: Seeing your wife give birth may alter your erotic image of her. Instead I find conception, pregnancy and birth all part of the same erotic sensation; an erotic cycle which is closed by the birth of a child.

M: How beautifully phrased!

C: Will you - for the sake of work - take the risk and have a cosmetic surgery done?

M: You mean, when I find that a 42 year-old woman cannot find work in Hollywood?  I don't have the market value I use to ten years ago. In one way it's sad. On the other hand it's a relief. One gets around unrecognized. A face lift is out of the question. I take care of my skin and my teeth, that's all. What about you?

C: Some dieting (which of course is difficult here in Italy). The alternative is to give up romantic roles, gorge myself for five years and then return [to the screen] ready for fat character roles. I have recently discussed this with Rupert Everett. Rupert will wait for another ten years and then [accept fate and] take over [the Brit actor] Robert Morley's character roles. I will not get a face lift either, when my cheeks starts to fall. Sorry. I'll go for characters who requires hanging cheeks.

M: Many of our colleagues doesn't seem to develop. When you think of it, the time between 'Action!' and 'Cut!' add up to just four hours in some actors life. It's like learning to cook only to get to boil water. How can a person in this situation mature through work?

C: I have somewhat of a psychological theory about this. Those who step into the lime light early and become famous very young, may not get much chance to develop their personalities further. More or less all great actors I know of, are fixed in the public mind at the age they first became famous. Take Marlon Brando for example. A 65 year-old, who's career peaked when he was about 25. He is still like a teenager (?) and can be quite entertaining. Or the old pop groups, behaving like they were still living in the 1960s. On the other hand, those who have a hard time at the beginning of their careers, will have time to mature.

M: Like Jimmy Carter.

C: How did you come to think of him?

M: He failed when he was president, because he could not be the person people wanted him to be.  He got caught in the political mill and grounded to pieces. He was always just 'the peanut farmer', never interested in coming into prominence. Instead he engaged himself in greater issues, working mainly behind the scenes and became a successful negotiator. Qualities like these doesn't interest people, especially since he didn't buy into the glamour of power. One can only achieve personal growth by living through life's ups and downs. Only then do you develop stamina.

C: Warren Beatty once told me of another kind of presidential psychological character. He spoke of Bill Clinton and his obliging charm, which Warren - to a degree - understands. President Clinton was always in the limelight, gave speeches, was photographed. There were people who offered him all sorts of advice: on how much teeth he should reveal when smiling, or the appropriate colour of his ties...All professions, where you constantly have to think of how you look to get ahead, will influence your self-confidence, and severely affect you as well as your family.

M: It's good that we're so normal!

C: We are both married to persons who keep us grounded. And I have friends who - like your husband - take every chance to poke fun of my vanity and my focus on little things. That strengthens ones character.

C: How do you show your children the importance of having courage of their convictions?

M: By the way we live. Pat is the most courageous person I know. It' may be as simple as apologizing when you're wrong. When we are in America, and something goes wrong, everyone disappears like cockroaches when the light is turned on.

C: And I always thought the Americans lack of irony was their serious flaw. This fatal earnestness! There are exceptions, of course... like the Jewish, Italian and Irish humour on the East Coast.

C: Did you experienced any racism among the different ethnic immigrant groups, while growing up 
in America?

M: Of course. Being a well behaving Italian girl meant I never dated the Irish boys three blocks down the street.

C: You are a trained lyric soprano and opera singer. How come you change to acting? Was it after your stage debut as Maria in West Side Story?

M: I found I could express myself more freely through words and discovered my own personal music in them. Compared to words is the voice a jealous lover: you cannot smoke, or drink, or stay out late.

C: You mentioned earlier how you prefer black, when everyone else changes to yellow. Is black your favourite colour?

M: Yes, since it's so practical. Dark spots don't show as much. Besides, it's the only colour that looks good on everyone.

C: During the press junket for the film Bridget Jones's Diary, I suddenly felt like dressing in something red, and wore a cherry-red sweater. Today I see it's all wrong. But: too late. There will be tomato-pictures of me circulating out there for at least a decade. 

© Copyright of Vogue (de) 2001