La Belle Michelle

Michelle Pfeiffer is a woman of great reserve and few words. Her appearance too, is deliberately understated, when she comes to meet me in Beverly Hills last week, dressed in a pair of jeans and a baggy top, with barely a trace of make-up.

About to turn 50 next week (April 29), she is taking ageing very much in her stride. After sizzling onscreen for nearly thirty years, she’s back, once again playing the seductress of a younger lover in “Cheri”, the adaptation of Colette’s novel.

She speaks so softly, I have to lean in to catch what she’s saying and she kicks of by telling me how she hates the term “cougar”.

“ It’s just so predatory, you know? No one makes any comment about Harrison Ford being with someone thirty years his junior,” she says. “The term sugar daddy is kind of sweet, but this word “cougar” for older women with younger men, well I just think it’s really ugly.”

The younger man she stars opposite in “Cheri” is the very tasty Rupert Friend, boyfriend of Keira Knightly. Before filming began, Pfeiffer and her screenwriter husband David E Kelley went out to dinner with Friend and Knightley.

“ David, he feels the same way about any man whether it’s younger, older. It’s my work and it’s the beauty about being married to somebody who’s also in the industry - he handles that pretty well. Doing those sex scenes thoug , it’s crucial to have a sense of humour and thankfully my leading man in is pretty funny!”

Before meeting Kelley, on a blind date in 1993, Pfeiffer had a string of failed relationships with a number of actors, including Val Kilmer. By the time she met Kelley, she had decided to try to adopt a daughter on her own.

“ The thing about men, the big secret about men,” she laughs, “is, you have to pick the right one. If you don’t pick the right one, there’s not much you can do. It took me a long time to figure that one out and I am glad I did because I did pick the right one”.

Kelley, whose grandparents came from Ennis and which they have both visited, has been a very successful television writer for many years, having created the big hit “Ally McBeal” and “Boston Legal”. The couple have a 14 year old son, John Henry.

“ Maybe one of the reasons we’re successful as a couple, is we actually have very little to do with each other’s work. He’s so busy and I’m so busy and when we are finally together at the end of the day, we are usually talking about some issue with the family. There are times when I’ve really wanted his input, when I’ve been really conflicted about whether I should do something and I can hardly get his attention. But I can get his attention when it comes to the kids. It’s kind of hard to get his attention when it comes to my work and I’m sort of the last to know what he’s doing.”

The couple lives in San Francisco, a city she adores. Outside of acting and parenting, which she says is “the most humbling thing I’ve ever done”, Pfeiffer is a passionate oil painter.

“ I started painting when I was in sixth grade. I like to do figure and portrait painting. What I’ve done throughout my life is paint intensely for a year and then leave it for five or ten years before coming back to it.

Then about 15 years ago, I decided that I wasn’t ever going to leave it for that long again so I’ve been painting fairly consistently since. I’ve studied at different places, and I wish I’d spent more time studying because I think that I’d certainly be a lot better than I am. But I really enjoy it”.

Is the public ever likely to see her work? Her answer is emphatic and the loudest yet.

“ No! Not if I can help it, no.”

Pfeiffer in person is such a contrast to the scene stealing roles she has played in movies like “The Fabulous Baker Boys” where her sultry rendition of “Makin’ Whoopee” won her an Oscar and “Scarface”, where she played the jaded cokehead mistress to Al Pacino

“ I’m probably different with different people, I think. I am not that trusting, in general. It’s my weakness, if you will. It takes me a long time to get to know people, or actually probably more accurately, to let people get to know me.”
As she approaches her half century, Pfeiffer still looks like she could command any role. The only regret about what might have been in her career is that she didn’t try to develop her singing skills.

“ I used to think when I was little that I could sing and then I was made fun of and I never sang again,” she admits ruefully. “When I was in my early twenties and studying with an acting coach, the late Milton Katselas, and he didn’t like my speaking voice so he sent me to a voice coach to work on my speaking voice.

“ Well, we started working on my singing voice and then I auditioned for “Grease 2”, never expecting in a million years I would ever get it. But, I’ve often wondered if I’d got more support when I was younger, could I have gone in another direction, because I do really, truly love to sing.”
And what terrors do turning 50 hold for her?

“ The good part about turning 50 is, it’s really not such a big deal. You spend so much time sort of dreading it and there’s just so much talk about it and then it comes and it goes and it’s over. Something for me that’s been incredibly liberating, is really letting go of the need to stay young forever, the need to be perfect. I think I’ve become more forgiving of those things”.