Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt bares it all emotionally on her new CD - hence its risqué title.....

by Brenda Kelly

Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt's new album is called BareNaked. But in spite of the titillating title for the CD (scheduled for an October 8 release), don't expect to see the star of I Know What You Did Last Summer and TV's Party of Five bare naked any time soon.

In town yesterday to talk about her musical side project, Hewitt, 23, said she doesn't do on-screen nudity and noted that the title of the album - and the lead single - is a nod to baring it all emotionally, not physically.

"Initially when people hear the title BareNaked, they think automatically, 'Oh cool, we're going to see Jennifer naked,' which is not attractive nor necessary ever in life," Hewitt said. "BareNaked is very much how I feel in releasing the record. This is a record that people will have the right to be harsh in their criticism of, because I am an actor and that's all that most people have known me as for the last 14 years of my life. And now I'm singing. I wasn't sure if people were going to hate it or love it, and that left me feeling insecure in releasing it. BareNaked is not about me actually being naked. It is about the inner bare-naked. When people have an embarrassing moment, they say they feel like they're standing in front of a bunch of people with their clothes off."

Many fans of Hewitt's film and TV work might be surprised to learn that this is not her first album. She has released three other CDs over the past decade to little fanfare, and music has always been a major passion for the Waco, Tex.-born Hewitt. While growing up, her mother fed her a steady diet of Otis Redding, Al Green and the Beatles, and even before she made it to grade school, Hewitt had a talent for remembering lyrics and melodies.

When she moved with her family to Los Angeles at the age of 10, she had her sights on a music and/or acting career, but it just happened that the acting gigs started clicking quicker than the pop-music jobs.

Hewitt says she feels insecure in releasing her new CD, "BareNaked", because of what the response might be.

The petite actress spent the second half of the 1990s starring alongside Canada's Neve Campbell in the popular teen series Party of Five, and later made the transition to the big screen, with films like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Can't Hardly Wait and last year's Heartbreakers. She also starred in the short-lived 1999 series Time of Your Life.

Given Hewitt's history of teen-focused projects, many also might expect her album to mine the usual Britney and NSync disposable-pop turf. But the new 12-track set is actually more in the vein of Sheryl Crow or Avril Lavigne. Singer-songwriter Meredith Brooks, best known for her hit Bitch, produced and co-wrote the album, with Hewitt co-writing several songs. It even includes a minimalist, nearly a cappella take on Me and Bobby McGee, the Kris Kristofferson-penned Janis Joplin number.

"I wanted to make a soul/rock record because that's the kind of stuff I grew up on," Hewitt said. "I grew up on Janis Joplin, Al Green and Billie Holiday. I knew it was a tougher thing to do, but it made it more exciting. It would've been a lot easier and would've taken half as much time to let someone else write my songs and to do a pop record. But that's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to challenge myself."

Hewitt was last in Montreal two years ago playing the title role in the TV movie The Audrey Hepburn Story, and she has nothing but fond memories of her stay here.

"I think Montreal is the sexiest city in the world and all my friends who have been here since agree with me," Hewitt said. "I was also doing my dream job here - playing Audrey Hepburn. There's something great about getting to gallivant around Montreal - which feels like Paris and New York put together - in these amazing costumes, with gorgeous men, and speaking like Audrey Hepburn."

Hewitt's next on-screen appearance will be opposite Jackie Chan in the Toronto-shot action-comedy The Tuxedo.

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