Alicia
Silverstone : Don't Call Me Clueless!
by Sarah Gristwood
What
strikes you when you walk into her hotel room (more than
jeans, sweatshirt and unlaced grubby sneakers for the
Dorchester) is that face. She's not chocolate-box sweet
nor seriously beautiful but it is a face you remember.
Alicia Silverstone's comparatively few screen roles have
left a strong image on the mind's eye. The pop-socked
Cher in Clueless, the rubber-suited Batgirl, the trapeze
tease of the award-winning Aerosmith video, one of three
that made her an icon on MTV.
Now she is playing the Princess of France in Kenneth
Branagh's musical adaptation of Love's Labours Lost. It's
a game of women versus men - "torturing the
boys", as Silverstone puts it - with the females
stronger and more feisty. Besides giving Silverstone the
Shakespearean role which is still an actor's rite of
passage, it also gives her a crack at the Hepburn/Tracey
kind of comedy. Trouble is, she says, she was just too
convincing in Clueless.
"I do feel like I'm having to do a lot of explaining
why I'm in the film, and that's sort of obnoxious."
Her American accent is strong on and off the screen,
despite a father who was a London estate agent and a
mother who came from the Isle of Sheppey. "A lot of
people have said - 'But you're the girl from Clueless!'.
And I've thought - excuse me, Clueless was critically
acclaimed." Branagh originally auditioned her for
the role of Rosaline, romantic partner to his own
Berowne. That finally went to Natascha McElhone. Branagh
was apologetic for offering Silverstone a different role
but it's one with more gravitas, ironically.
She goes for "the process rather than the
result". That hasn't always worked. Batman &
Robin was a flop. And the sin of daring to cram a
normal-sized figure into that rubber suit saw her dubbed
Fatgirl. On the back of the Clueless success Columbia
gave her, at 18, a multi-million dollar production deal
but Excess Baggage, the first film from her company First
Kiss, failed dismally.
The result is that at 23, people are already beginning to
talk about Alicia Silverstone's comeback - as evinced by
the commercially successful Blast From the Past. She
doesn't care. She's been on screen since she was 12.
She sees a lot of scripts she doesn't like, but "I
believe in quality not quantity". She hasn't acted
since shooting Love's Labours Lost at Shepperton this
time last year. "I like my normal life more than I
like the business. I'm such a baby." She says she
just wants to be home with her friends and her dogs.
A non leather-wearing vegan she is committed to animal
rights (she runs an organisation for abused pets). This
is a part of her life she takes very seriously.
"Acting is just clowning around. Animal activism is
something to make the world a better place."
Love's
Labour's Lost opens 31 March.
© Associated Newspapers Ltd., 22 March 2000
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