PEOPLE Magazine, May 27th 1985 -- Discussing
her earlier films of Vision Quest and Gotcha.
"I am the virgin de-flowerer of Hollywood. I break in all the boys"
referring to Matthew Modine in Vision Quest and Anthony Edwards (ER) in
Gotcha.
"Teens aren't just interested in getting laid. I won't believe that's all they're interested in. I have four younger sisters and they're sick of being shown how they're supposed to react in bed. People over 30 are interested in sex too, but they get real movies about it." -- Fiorentino, then age 27.
"I go to bed with men, not boys."
Following excerpted from NBC.
Linda Fiorentino, the star of the enormously popular movie Men In Black, came out acting a little upset. It seems that before the show, Jay went to her dressing room to say hello. When he walked into the dressing room, Linda was completely naked! As Jay apologized profusely, Linda commented that most people have to pay $8 for such a peep show. Linda grew up in an Italian family of eight, and had to learn some tricks to get noticed. For example, she learned how to say the alphabet backwards incredibly fast. Sometimes her uncle would bring her to parks and bars, and bet strangers that his niece could perform this act. Jay put this story to the test, and timed Linda’s alphabet performance. Linda was able to recite the alphabet backwards in under four seconds! Jay wondered how Linda felt about being in such a popular movie. Linda replied that she deals in reality and that she’s actually homeless, seeing as all of her possessions are currently in a storage facility. Jay quipped that he knew plenty of men who would be happy to take her in. Jay then asked Linda how she met the director of Men In Black, Barry Sonnenfeld. Linda replied that she met him during a game of poker. In fact, according to Linda, it was because of the poker game that she got the part in Men In Black. During the game, she got Barry to bet the role and she won the hand! Linda then admitted that she hates auditions, and has to find inventive ways to win highly contested parts.
"Men will think that I'm going to say no to them: 'She'll never go out with me. She wants a movie star or some rich guy.' That's just what they perceive. Men don't approach me. So I have to be the aggressor, I guess."
"I would like, right now, I would like to do maybe a
smaller romantic comedy."
Deseret News
By Chris Hicks
"Chain of Desire" Reviewed -- 2/25/1994
CHAIN OF DESIRE: Linda Fiorentino, Malcolm McDowell, Grace Zabriskie, Seymour Cassel. Unrated, probable R (sex, nudity, profanity, vulgarity, drugs, violence)
There's a good idea floundering about in "Chain of Desire," a too-obvious metaphor for AIDS — and ultimately, literally about AIDS — that follows the motif of "Slacker," "Twenty Bucks" and, going even further back, "The Yellow Rolls Royce." What those films have in common is that the story moves from character to character, focusing on the next person in the link rather than on any central character. The linking device for "Chain of Desire" is, essentially, sexual contact — though that link seems to be broken a time or two, thereby making the film's conclusion superfluous. "Chain of Desire" begins with singer/exotic dancer Linda Fiorentino, who gets mysterious phone calls entreating her to call back . . . calls she chooses to ignore, of course. After she has a one-night stand with a married painter she meets in a church, the film follows the painter and we meet his wife. The next day, the painter's wife is sexually harassed by her employer and quits her job. Then the former employer has a kinky fling with another woman (Grace Zabriskie), who later tries to excite her sexually repressed husband (Malcolm McDowell), who is actually homosexual . . . and so it goes. The film is salacious, of course, though the sexuality is well within R-rated parameters, but it is also dreadfully dull. None of the vignettes here seem to have any point and they aren't amusing or dramatic enough to be in the least bit compelling. In fact, the entire film was so dull and pointless that I walked out after an hour, and I'm told it didn't get any better after I left. "Chain of Desire" is not rated but would get an R for sex, nudity, profanity, vulgarity, drug abuse and violence.
Bodily Harm -- Gregg Henry, Daniel Baldwin, Linda Fiorentino. MPAA Rating: R Brief Nudity, Violence, Adult Language, Adult Themes.
1 Hr. 31 Min.
Linda Fiorentino is a detective investigating serial murders and her ex is the main suspect.
HOLLYWOOD -- What's an alleged brashy bitch doing in a confirmed riotous comedy? An uncharacteristically perky Linda Fiorentino says matter-of-factly that she's just making a living. She might add giving herself a tremendous career boost, too, since the Tommy Lee Jones-Will Smith sci-fi funfest is headed for hitsville. Co-star Fiorentino plays a Manhattan medical examiner who teams up with Smith and Jones to battle the forces of an unwelcome alien. The climax suggests two things -- the sequel might be called Men And Women In Black, and one of the women will probably be Fiorentino. "I like that last scene," she says referring to the battle sequence, which involves her character. "It means I might have another job." There were times in her erratic career when she thought she'd never work again. Would you believe one of those times was during her first film, Vision Quest, with Matthew Modine. "Yeah," says the 37-year-old. "I cried every night. It rained every day during the shoot, and I cried every night because I thought the movie was terrible." She chuckles at herself. "Then After Hours came along," she says of her scene-stealing Dominatrix role in the Martin Scorsese film, "and I said, 'Okay, I'll try it again.' " Twelve years later, Fiorentino has had as many good reviews as bad, but she's mostly remembered as the heartless sex kitten in The Last Seduction and as a no-nonsense interviewee who can be as nasty as she wants to be with unsuspecting reporters.
Despite her shiny disposition on this occasion, Fiorentino lapses into terseness when it is suggested to her that a sly agent must have talked her into the Men In Black movie. "Do you think," Fiorentino snorts, "anybody could tell me what to do?" The answer is as obvious to Fiorentino as it is to the unfortunate who asked the question. Her next picture, an untitled heist movie formerly called Body Count, is back-to-the-edge basics for the actress. But, again, she stresses the coincidence of it all. "I don't think in terms of changing my image, going from comedy to femme fatale," she says. "I think in terms of whether or not I'm working. Everything else is extraneous to me. "I'm kind of specific. I'm on the set, and it's 'Where's my mark and what time is lunch?' " You must have the power of your own destiny. "There are so many misconceptions," Fiorentino says. "First, everybody thinks you're a millionaire -- I'm not. Second, they think you have this control -- I don't." Fiorentino laughs devilishy. "What I think is this," she says. "There is only the next job, or your last job. "And also, be careful of your choices, if you do get to choose, because whatever it is will haunt you on cable for the rest of your life."
Tuesday, July 1, 1997
Battle of will Fiorentino uses charms on Men In Black co-star
By LOUIS B. HOBSON Calgary Sun
BEVERLY HILLS -- Every man in black needs a woman in white. In the science-fiction comedy Men In Black, which opens today, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones play a pair of special operatives monitoring alien activity on Earth. The two dedicated men are so busy helping humans forget about their very close encounters with these aliens that the poor guys have no time for romance. It's not for want of trying by Linda Fiorentino, who plays a New York, white-smocked coroner. She is constantly coerced into performing autopsies on aliens. She flirts outrageously with Smith, who becomes totally flappable in her presence. He's undoubtedly seen Fiorentino's brazen performances in such films as The Last Seduction and Jade, where Peter Berg, Chazz Palminteri and David Caruso learned quickly how convincing and forceful Fiorentino's advances can be. "I have this screen image of being a man-eater. (Director) Barry Sonnenfeld told me to play it for all it was worth if that meant getting Will off-guard even for a moment," recalls Fiorentino. "Will is the master of improvisation, so Barry wanted to see how he would react to an aggressive older woman." Fiorentino says the camera caught a few of Smith's disbelieving looks when she turned on her charms, but they're fleeting moments. "Will recovers very quickly and then the scene is his. He comes up with the most incredible lines, and his body language is so hilarious it took everything I could muster not to break up." Fiorentino says Smith drove the continuity people crazy on Men In Black. "Will would never do the same thing twice. It must have been a nightmare in the editing room. He really is a comic genius. This is what it must be like to work with Robin Williams." Fiorentino is less effusive about Jones. "Tommy Lee Jones is a dedicated, focused actor. If you don't believe me, ask him." Fiorentino, 37, finds it amusing that she became a sex symbol five years ago. "For a screen vixen, I had the strictest of upbringings. "I was raised in a Catholic home. "I always thought my five sisters were far more attractive than me. "I was actually shocked to discover that people found me sexy." Fiorentino says the great irony of her new screen image is that "in real life, I'm the shyest person I know, yet on screen, I play these wild sex sirens. "It's confusing for men. Most of them expect me to be really aggressive and, when I'm not, they're disappointed."
Saturday, March 2, 1996
Forget the tough stuff Fiorentino doesn't need it
By LOUIS B. HOBSON Calgary Sun
NEW YORK -- Next time you visit the Big Apple and slip into a bar, pay attention to the bartender. He could be the next Bruce Willis. She could be the next Linda Fiorentino. "When Bruce and I were both struggling actors, we worked the same bar for a while," recalls Fiorentino. "It's a good thing I got a break because I was hopeless behind the bar." Fiorentino's big break came in 1984 when she was called to L.A. to audition for the romantic drama Vision Quest. "I knew nothing about auditioning for movies. The audition seemed like such a waste of time that I didn't think I could possibly get the part. "I left Los Angeles without telling anyone. The casting agents looked all over for me for four days. They finally got hold of me at the bar where I was working at 4 a.m." For then next 10 years, Fiorentino found herself cast in small roles in big pictures (After Hours) or big parts in small movies (Queen's Logic). In 1994, one of these big part/small movie roles paid off. Fiorentino was cast as a manipulative murderess in John Dahl's moody erotic thriller The Last Seduction. And last year, she starred as a psychologist with a secret life in the thriller Jade. Now Fiorentino is reunited with Dahl for the sci-fi thriller Unforgettable. She plays a scientist who develops a drug that allows the user to tap into the minds of people living or dead. "I'm not the least bit aggressive in Unforgettable. I know that's going to throw some people for a loop. Because of The Last Seduction, they just can't conceive that I need protection." Ray Liotta, who stars opposite Fiorentino in Unforgettable, says the actress is a bit of a nerd. "She's such an intelligent person that she always has a lot on her mind. You can see the wheels turning. Sometimes they turn faster than her feet and she bumps into things or trips over them." Since both Liotta and Fiorentino have established screen reputations for being intense and intensely sexual, she knows people will be waiting for a steamy sex scene in Unforgettable. "That scene was definitely in the earliest versions of the screenplay and the studio fought to keep it in, but Ray, John and I all agreed it would be gratuitous sex. "We didn't even shoot it. Now that was a disappointment. I was looking forward to the rehearsal and the shoot even though I didn't want the scene in the movie." Fiorentino is delighted with her new sexy image: "I grew up a pretty shy Catholic girl. I was the middle of eight children and I was really timid until I got out of college at 22." She shocked family and friends when she revealed in an interview last year that she would like to have a child but that she's not interested in getting married. "I'm a very maternal person ... I do want that child. I do want to be a mother, but I'm not actively trying to get pregnant. "I'm not pulling a Madonna or anything. I haven't taken out advertisements in singles newspapers or anything."
October 1, 1995
The Next Seduction Linda Fiorentino Talks Tough About Being A Woman In Hollywood
By BOB THOMPSON Toronto Sun
NEW YORK - By and large, the toughness of this place and its people is exaggerated. But Philadelphia - the birthplace of movie maneater Linda Fiorentino - that's a tough town. Raven haired, wirily-beautiful and ready-to-spar, Fiorentino is now fixed in many minds' eyes as the lethal and sexually-predatory Bridget Gregory in John Dahl's deliciously-evil The Last Seduction. With carnal glee, she portrayed a woman who plots to rob her husband (Bill Pullman) with the help of an easily-seduced good-hearted dupe (Peter Berg). In my mind's eye, the image that stays is of her throwing Berg against a fence and having her way with him. Bridget was, of course, a character. And Linda Fiorentino is a real person, a veteran of a decade of trying to get noticed in movies (Vision Quest, After Hours, The Moderns). But the 34-year-old Fiorentino will slap you around, figuratively, as part of her personal style. Asked whether she would have been ready for the attention if it had come 10 years ago (when she received good reviews for After Hours), she considers the question with initial distaste. "I can't predict what would have happened," she says, slowly warming. "I suspect that because I have 10 years of abuse behind me that I handle it a little differently, now. I'm more aloof than I otherwise would be, I'm more cynical." Define abuse, I say. Her eyes glint. "Abuse? For a woman? In Hollywood? Use your imagination!" she snorts derisively. Then she smiles, as if to say, It's okay. You needed that. "She's a tough chick. You met her, you know what I mean," summarizes supermodel Angie Everhart, who makes her `acting' debut opposite Fiorentino in William Friedkin's Jade, the latest by-the-book psycho-sexual thriller from million-dollar screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct). In Jade (opening Oct. 13), Fiorentino plays the title character, a professional psychologist who leads a double life as a call girl to wealthy and powerful men. Chazz Palminteri is her husband, an influential attorney, while David Caruso plays her ex-lover, a D.A. who suspects she may be a psycho-killer. She's ostensibly playing another sexual predator. But Fiorentino, who describes the experience of playing Bridget as "therapeutic," concedes that Jade wasn't quite the same personal catharsis as was The Last Seduction. "The aspect of living a (sexual) fantasy life (in Jade) appealed to me maybe, but Bridget represents the side of all women that we'd like to enact at one time or another," she says with a throaty laugh. Rarely has a character so insinuated herself on a person's life. The Last Seduction - originally made for U.S. pay TV and then deemed marketable as a theatrical release - hit big late last year, and grew hot with an Oscar scandal. Though most agreed Fiorentino's performance was Oscar-worthy, Academy rules prohibited nominating any film that had appeared on TV first. Eventually the case was taken to court, and the producers lost. Still the heat was there. "I first figured out something was going on when I went to the doctor's office for an insurance physical," she says. "I'm sitting in the waiting room and saw my picture in about five magazines, and I said, `I think my life just changed.' I mean, I only read magazines in doctors' offices, that's how nuts my life has been. People I knew were telling me what was going on, and it was like, `Oh really? I gotta go.'" Fiorentino, who was married to director John Byrum, has allowed that she broke up with someone before Last Seduction hit. Do men treat her differently now? "I don't know, I've been working non-stop, but I'm taking time off. I intend to go out and do a little survey," she says with a mischievous smile. "I've been in hotels since last August. I'm living in one now. I don't meet many people. You (journalists) are the only people I've met all year," she says in a mock sobbing fit. Poor girl. What's amazing for a nice Catholic girl is how uninhibited she seems about sex, even to fellow actors. "When I found out she was playing my wife in Jade, I went to see Last Seduction," says Palminteri.
"My reaction was `I gotta start working out, big time.' On the day we'd shoot a love scene she'd be completely uninhibited - the clothes come off, whoosh!" "I'm not sure I am free or uninhibited," Fiorentino says. "It's part of the process. After the fact, I freak out. At the end of the day... Oh my God! But if you walk on the set and you're inhibited and freaked out, it affects everybody on the set." Has that ever happened to her? "Well, on The Last Seduction (during the "fence scene") there was kind of a role reversal going on. Usually it's the actress who's saying to the director, like, `I don't wanna do this, it's pornographic, and blah blah blah and I don't want to take my clothes off and my thighs look really fat...' And in this case, Peter Berg was doing that. "John Dahl was freaking out saying `You talk to him, Lin.' I said `C'mon, we're losing the light!' and threw him against the fence." There's little doubt the direct connection between Fiorentino's brain and her mouth has something to do with her slow progress in Hollywood (she frankly hates the place). On the other hand, spontaneity is the basis of her appeal now. "I try to let anything that's going on into the process," she says of her approach. "I don't pretend there's not a crew, I don't pretend I'm not having a hard time with this person or a great time with that person. It's all me."
Change Of Pace - Linda Fiorentino softens her tough image for her role in Unforgettable
By BOB THOMPSON
NEW YORK-- Rough and ready, right? That's Linda Fiorentino, right? She's tall, dark and aggressive. She's got attitude and she knows how to play it, right? Uh, right. The vision survived as Fiorentino's focus of recognition until she was reintroduced as the clawing, gotta-have-it, chain-link fence temptress in John Dahl's The Last Seduction. Uh, right. Shortly after, there was her sex-obsessed shrink in Jade, a critically blasted thriller written by Joe Eszterhas and starring David Caruso. Uh, right.
But wait, we've got it all wrong. Linda Fiorentino is not crudeness personified and she's not just another Sharon Stone-type specialist in sluts 'n' nuts. There is more to her than meets your eyes -- her long and tallness -- and ears -- her growling throatiness.
Just ask Linda Fiorentino. "I just don't get a lot of these stories about me," she says. Y'know, the ones that call her rough and ready, and aggressive. The ones that tag her as a personality challenged mistreater. "It isn't me." Perhaps that's why Fiorentino is co-starring in Dahl's sci-fi thriller Unforgettable (opening Friday). She plays a change-of-pace nerdy scientist who tries to help Ray Liotta's medical officer find out who killed his wife through revisiting other people's memories.
No sex kitten in this one. Fiorentino is strictly fidgety and fully clothed. Liotta, an aquaintance before Unforgettable, and a good friend after, says this about Fiorentino as if to confirm the fact that the press is misrepresenting her. "I know people look at her in a certain way," says Liotta. "From what I can see of her, she is just a nice, sometimes gawky girl who is very committed to acting. She doesn't play the diva. But she did play tired." "I was really tired," says Fiorentino. "I'm still recuperating." Those darn agendas. See, when Jade ran into weather delays, the shoot was moved from San Francisco to L.A., and that's when Fiorentino found herself in a bind. "I was supposed to be wrapped four weeks before I was," she says. So, her last day on the Jade set in L.A. ended up being her first on the Unforgettable set in Vancouver. How long did she have to prepare for her new and completely different image-altering role? "I had the airplane ride, and I hate flying. There Iwas getting in character while my hair person is cutting my bangs." Tough transition, but colleague Dahl had no doubts about his Seduction star. He knew she was resilient. He knew she was focused. Dahl says now: "I am more impressed with her than I was a year ago." Certainly, Fiorentino saw Unforgettable as a makeover and as a test of her endurance. "It was all very confusing," she says. "But I knew a lot of the people because of The Last Seduction. So it was funny, it was like going home, and it was like a refuge. Otherwise it would have been painful."
As it turned out, Fiorentino would suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous media profiling during that period, anyway. Soon, Jade would be vilified by critics just as vehemently as The Last Seduction had been praised. Love/hate ambivalence was all around, and everywhere she went. And she didn't like it, not one fame bit. "The good news is I recently got tickets to the Lakers and the Bulls, courtside seats." But that's not the payoff. "It's not like one day I decided to start acting so I could get good Lakers tickets. "You get lucky, you get a job. And you get another one."
From the high of The Last Seduction to the low of Jade is quite a ride, though. And that's in one year. Fiorentino reports, "I was definitely jumping up and down when The Last Seduction was finally released, but then I started being recognized. And Iknow I don't like being stared at in public. It affects my movement." What did Jade affect? Fiorentino looks impatient. She scowls ever so slightly. "I think I did okay in that," she says, referring to the lambasting Jade received. "I don't think the critics came after me at all." Maybe. Maybe not. But there is damnation by association. Fiorentino scowls, but ever so slightly. She catches herself. The new and improved Fiorentino is looking on the bright side of her acting life. "I look at it this way," she says in full smirk. "If you're going to flop, you might as well flop big." More interestingly, Fiorentino says, how about this: "In the same year, I had a movie in the 10 best list, and the 10 worst list. "And that says it all. Doesn't it? That's showbusiness in a nutshell." Uh, right -- showbusiness.
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