like $300 a week, or $413 a week or something, and just
   having the best time. This is why I started doing this.
   I had sort of gotten to a point where I felt numb. I
   didn't like work anymore. I wasn't being inventive
   anymore. I was sick and tired of movie sets. It was just
   an awful, awful embarrassing place to be if you're me.
   Not relishing every moment that you're on the movie. So
   I went away and found that I just worked so hard. It was
   the best group of people. It just rejuvenated me. My mom
   (actress Blythe Danner) came to visit. My parents (Danner
   and director/producer Bruce Paltrow) came for two out of
   the five weeks. I completely recharged. I was scared, you
   know? I thought, "Everybody's going to rip me apart," but
   then I thought, "I can't worry about it. I have to go
   back to the theater and I have to do this." I'm lucky
   that they didn't rip me apart.

Q: Is this going to be the standard remedy for you?
A: I hope so. This summer I'll probably be doing a film, so
   I don't think I'll be able to go back this summer, but
   the next summer I will.

Q: What was it that was tapping you out of the whole process?
A: Displacement. Another hotel room. Everybody thinks it's
   this great life, but I'm in another hotel room, having
   room service by myself. I don't know anyone where I am.
   Getting up at 5 a.m. and spending so much time not working.
   When you do a play, you go to work and you rehearse all day
   long. And you're working all day. In the movies, you go to
   work and you sit around all day. You work like ten minutes
   of the day over a protracted 14-hour day, so it just gets
   straining. It's hard to conserve your energy. It gets
   tiring. But then when I left the play and I went to do
   Bounce, I found all my happiness was in it again. So that
   was great.

Q: Do you ask your parents for advice on how to deal with
   these feelings?
A: Not really at this point because my parents were never
   like this. They're really helpful with light stuff, and
   they really ground me. They're really good and decent
   people. Really funny. My dad is the funniest person in
   the world. Yesterday I was doing a very tiring press
   junket, and every hour my dad e-mailed me. I have a little
   interactive pager, and every hour he gave me these
   hilarious pages where he pretended to be a journalist
   asking me these strange questions. He makes me laugh.

Q: What are some of the questions?
A: He works in one of my ex-boyfriends, into the thing, so
   he says, "Does the fact that you went out with x-person
   help you understand..." So funny.

Q: Since you brought it up, one of your quotes is that you
   actually get a kick when we ask questions about....
A: That is not true. I don't like it. But I don't dislike
   it either. But I just don't really talk about it. The
   guy asked me who I was dating and I was like, "Yeah,
   right." I just said it was funny, because my friend in
   England told me that they're linking me with all these
   different men. I was like, "I wish." But not really.

Q: How curious are you about publicity about yourself?
A: I don't care. I don't read it. I don't engage in it. I
   have no idea of what's written about me. I don't read
   anything. I don't read any clippings about me, nothing.
   So I have no idea.

Q: Is that more amusing than anything?
A: No, not really. It's stupid and it's irritating, and
   they never get anything right. It's just dumb. It's
   just a waste of time. I think, "What person reads about
   themselves everyday. This is so unhealthy." So I just
   stopped doing it.

Q: Does it seem like a different identity?
A: Yeah. It does.

Q: If you see yourself in magazines, how long does it take
   you to just have the restraint to keep going, forget
   it, don't even look?
A: I don't read entertainment magazines at all. But if I'm
   reading a fashion magazine... I'm not Mother Teresa. I
   don't have that kind of Zen Buddhism restraint. I'll
   see what it is. If I come across something by accident,
   I'll look at it because I'm curious. But I don't think,
   "Is this right or wrong or what does it mean?" I just
   look and keep going. But I don't read the tabloids or
   the New York tabloids or the entertainment magazines. I
   just skip it all.

Q: Do you read the reviews?
A: Very rarely. I read The New York Times review because I
   read The New York Times everyday. If it was a bad review
   and I knew it was a bad review, I wouldn't read it.
   Because it's one thing if you're doing theater and you
   can actually do something about it, incorporate it into
   your performance. But if it's a film and someone doesn't
   like you... I've never read a review where they say,
   "This woman is a bad actor." A critic who just doesn't
   like me, who has it out for me. First of all, that's not
   film criticism. It's not constructive and it doesn't help
   so I just don't. I really don't read reviews. Except for
   The Times.

Q: What do you read? Had you read the Ripley book?
A: I hadn't. And Anthony Menghella asked me not to.

Q: Really? Why?
A: He completely reworked it. Marge is not likeable in the
   book and it was very important for him that that not be
   in my head, because his vision of Marge was of such a
   good and kind person. I just don't think he wanted that
   in my brain.

Q: The costumes in the picture were really extraordinary.
A: Ann Roth is really an amazing designer. I had worked
   with her before, so we have a good relationship. There
   are just certain things that I would just say, "Ann,
   no way. I'm not wearing that." My favorite costumes in
   the movie are costumes that were her idea. The pajamas
   and the sweater that I'm wearing when I'm writing the
   book. The leopard coat and hat in Venice. I had little
   collaboration really. I would say, "I prefer this to
   that." But that's not really collaborating.

Q: The leopard coat and hat -- that was so unexpected.
A: Yeah, I know.

Q: You see the strength developing there, too. No one
   wanted to give her her strength.
A: Right, that's true. It was so sad. It was so tragic
   in a way to play her, because here is this woman who's
   so good and so magnanimous, and she is so concerned with
   how other people are doing and making other people
   comfortable. And the lesson of the movie, for her, is
   that that doesn't mean anything. You just see her
   getting the life squeezed out of her until she's become
   this completely other person who's crushed. It's like
   her light has gone out. So that was really sad for me.

Q: The light does go out for her, but do you think she ever
   gets it back?
A: I think she gets it back in a long time. But she's
   forever damaged by the experience.

Q: What about working with Matt in the character?
A: It was great. He's so incredibly focused and he takes
   himself so seriously. He's so committed, he's so
   concentrated. He had to be on this special diet because
   Anthony saw the character as very thin, and didn't want
   him to have any bulk. So while in Italy, while we were
   going out at night and drinking wine, he was eating a
   steamed chicken breast in his room, alone and then
   running 10 miles on a treadmill. It was very tough. For
   6 months he did that. I couldn't have done that, I don't
   think.

Q: It takes a certain courage to play a character like that.
A: In what way? Because he's such an outsider?

Q: He's a bisexual type, and Matt is a big star.
A: But his sexuality has nothing to do with his personality.
   That's the thing that people have to be really careful of
   and not say, "He's a gay serial killer," because his
   sexuality has nothing to do with what he does. His
   sexuality is one thing. He's wanting to be a part of
   something and wanting love so badly that he gets himself
   into this horrible situation that he can't get out of.
   But it's not because he's bisexual or because of his
   sexuality. I just think it has nothing to do with the other.

Q: But it has to do with his complicated feelings.
A: That's true, too.

Q: Since we're already into the OscarR season, do you have a
   particular performance or Oscar winning film in the past
   that you loved?
A: You mean as an audience member?

Q: Yeah, but if you want to say your own, that's OK.
A: Oh, no. It was a while ago, but Annie Hall is my favorite
   movie. And that won Best Picture in '77, I think.

Q: What was it about that film that you just loved?
A: I just think it's brilliant. The screenplay. I love
   Woody Allen. I think he's really funny.

3 January 2000