Dream roles, her music, and being PUNK'd by Asshole Kutcher.....

by Pauline Adamek with Jim Mix

With her singing career on hold (she's recording a new album---2nd for Jive Records and 5th album totaling), Jennifer Love Hewitt cuddles up to a CGI cat in a big screen version of the much loved comic strip, GARFIELD.

Pauline: Why do you think Garfield resonates so strongly?

Jennifer Love Hewitt: I think people can really identify with him.  He's an iconic American character.  I think the reason why people identify with GARFIELD is that he seems very human.  He's like your grandfather!  He walks kind of slow and he's kind of crotchety, and grumpy at times.  He's got his crunchy outside, but inside he's a big much ball.  He's just waiting for someone to pay attention long enough to see his sensitive side.  And that's who Garfield is for me.  And that's the amazing thing that Jim Davis has really done with this character, all along.  He's really been the voice of the people.  His sense of humor and what he says to the people is what we all wish he could say.  But we'd all get hit in the face if we said that to someone.  He's a cat.  And he can say hat he wants because nobody can hear him!  That's the interesting thing about Garfield.

How did you interact with the CG Garfield in the film?

I have a lot less to do with that than Breckin Meyer.  Breckin had to carry Garfield around and have him on his stomach, and do all of that crazy stuff.  He got much better at it than I did.  I'm only in Garfield in a couple of scenes.I was always dealing with Breckin so I didn't have too much of it as he did.  But once I got used to it, it was fine.

You once were in this kind of weird bracket where you were too young for certain roles and too old for others.  Do you still feel like that?

I think I'm kind of at the end of it now.  There's starting to be more roles now that are different from roles that I have already played, and closer to the roles that I really want to play.  I'm happy about that.

What kind of roles do you want to do?

I'd like to do films like "My Best Friend's Wedding" or "Pretty Woman", and Meg Ryan type stuff, I guess you can say.   I'd love to do some action films as well.  But romantic comedy is what I really love to do.  So I'm just now getting into that.  I was filming a romantic comedy just outside of London called "The Truth About Love" and I'm really excited about that.

You look young than you are.  Were you concern about playing a vet in this film?

No, it's "Garfield" and essentially it's a kids' film.  It's generated toward young  people, so I think it was actually good.  I think it would have looked really funny to have an older actress, especially opposite Breckin Meyer, who also looks much younger than he is.  I think it would have looked really odd to have somebody who looked much older than me not only playing his love interest, but also a doctor in this movie.  Kids wouldn't be able to relate.  So it's good that I look younger.  And there are really young doctors.  I hurt myself not long ago and I went to the E. R. and I had a doctor fixing me up who was 25 years-old!  The same age as me!  But anyway, I was shocked how young he was.

You were Punk'd by Asshole Kutcher into believing that you were going to star in a movie with Brad Pitt, and then two debt collectors came charging in, threatening to kill the casting director.  You looked pretty shaken....

I had no ideal what was going on!  And I fell for it.  And what's funny is that you saw a twenty minute version edited down.  I was there for an hour and fifteen minutes.  I was terrified.  I think that part that doesn't dawn on people is that as a female, with the state of the world as it is now, with people just doing the most stupid things, it's easy to get scared.  You put me in a room with three guys, I'm the only female.  They're in a desperate situation.  Two of them are very angry, and threatening to do stuff to people.  I've seen "Goodfellas" like everybody.  And here I am, a witness to what's going to happen to this guy.  I even said to the guy, and it's going on the show, that I don't remember any of my moves from "The Tuxedo".  I was saying to myself in my head, "if he comes at me, can I crunch him?  Will that really work?  Where's Jackie Chan?  Where?"  But I've always known that something like that was going to happen to me.  I was shocked that it took them this long.  Every person that knows me, as soon as the show came out, was saying, "Oh sweetie, don't worry about it.  You know it's going to happen."  And I'm like "What's gong to happen?"  And they say, "You believe everything everybody tells you!"  But I survived it.  In a way I felt honored because they often got pretty good people to punk!  So, it's fine.  And revenge is very sweet.  And I will have my revenge at some point.....

Can we ask you about your music career?

It's going fine.  It's kind of on hold at the moment.  I took so much time off to go and really tour with the record and stuff like that.  I put the acting side of things on hold.  So now I'm trying to catch up on the other side of my life, and do a bunch of acting projects.  I'll get back to my music in a while.  It's hard, especially when you decide to write your own songs.  You have to go out and live things in order to have things to write about.  And right after I've got done writing the record, I didn't have anything left to write about.  I'd written about it all the year before.  So now I need to live a little bit and experience things, and then I'm sure I'll have plenty more stuff.

What direction are you going in with your music?

I'd really love to do another record.  But it's very hard for me to continue making records when there are people that aren't taking them seriously because I'm an actor.  And it's only hard because music means so much for me, and I really wanted to do well.  But I don't want to continue making records that people aren't going to hear. As much as it is a passion of mine, I do it because I want people to hear it.  And so, I feel like I need to take a break and figure out a way I can get people to listen to it.  I know that the people who do listen to it like it.  And they think I've got a good voice.  And I was able to go out with the record and prove what I wanted to prove, which is that I could sing.  I'm not doing music that is attached to my movies.  I don't go and dance.  I don't do all that stuff.  My music is meant for people to just sit in a small room and listen to and feel passionate about.

A couple of years ago, you had a TV thing going with "Party of Five".  How did you sustained the rollercoaster ride, when things are hot one day and not hot the next?

The only way that I've been able to do that is to know that it's been like that for everybody.  And it's not easy.  There are days when it's like "What am I doing with myself?"  I get really unhappy and really sad because things aren't going the way that I want them to.  And the next day it compeletly changes and I'm so happy and singing off the balcony.  So the only way I can really make sense of itis by telling myself that I'm not the only person it happens to.  But when you're on a rollercoaster and it's bad, you do feel like you're the only one in this town that it's happening to  And that's definitely not the case.

Story: © 2004 FKP Universal Exports Pty. Ltd. in association with My Love Hewitt Websites. All Rights Reserved.
Image: © 2004 Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation - a News Corporation company. All Rights Reserved.
"Garfield" and Garfield character names and images are registered trademarks of Paws Inc. All Rights Reserved.