OLDER, BETTER AND READY TO FIGHT

by Stephen Rebello

Photos by Steve Shaw for Montage at the Luxe Hotel Rodeo Drive

When the swell that was the teen craze crashed quickly in the summer of 2001 after a number of predicable high-school romances failed to being in even their core audience, Hollywood insiders were placing bets on which teen stars would swim or sink. Jennifer Love Hewitt profited mightily from the teen craze, making plenty of dollars of two I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMERs, the cult hit CAN'T HARDLY WAIT and TV's soggy series PARTY OF FIVE. But she was not one of the young'uns people ever thought would disappear. That's because by last summer, Love, as she is called by her friends and peers, had already set into motion her strategy for distinguishing herself from the herd of Young Hollywoodites.

In 1999, Hewitt was looking to prove her versatility and grown up chops. Though her series TIME OF YOUR LIFE didn't last, her bio movie THE AUDREY HEPBURN STORY won viewers and sent out the message that she was willing to take risks. In 2001, Hewitt scored a box-office hit in the mother-and-daughter con women comedy HEARTBREAKERS, co-starring Sigourney Weaver and Gene Hackman. Hewitt seemed to be entering a whole new realm when she starred for the first-time director Alec Baldwin in THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER, in which she played Satan opposite Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins. The choice was arty and, at the time, seemed smart---certainly a far cry from screaming for her life in a two piece in I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. Too bad the film is being held up by legal hassles.

Now Hewitt is taking another turn in her career---she's starring opposite martial arts expert Jackie Chan in the action film THE TUXEDO. With the megahit RUSH HOUR franchise to his name, Chan is almost guaranteed to bring in movie goers, which benefits Hewitt nicely. What's more, she's launching a new album, BARENAKED, which was co-written and produced by Meredith Brooks (singer of the chart topping "BITCH"), that could elevate her to hyphenate status.

STEPHEN REBELLO: Jackie Chan seems an unlikely co-star for you.

JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT: When you see us in the movie together, you'll know why it works. I've never had such amazing chemistry with any other actor.

Is Jackie why you took this movie?

Yes, I love Jackie more than anything. He made me want to be in the movie. Now that we've worked together, I love him so much more and for many so many different reasons. I like my character, too. I play a CSA agent, a nerd, a water expert with an anger management problem, someone who spends a lot of time with beakers, chemicals, chlorine and is not a people person. She becomes Jackie's sidekick.

Did you do stunts?

They had me do wire training and initially we were going to be this kick-butt fighting duo. Then Jackie said, "Why? Let me be the one to do the stuff people can't go home and try. Let her do stuff that young girls could try," which made a lot of sense. I do the lame version of what Jackie does.

Got any war wounds to show for it?

I broke my finger on HEARTBREAKERS, but I got more fingers broken on this one. I got karate chopped in the hand and broke my middle finger. We just taped it together and kept on filming. There was no room for me to go, 'Oh, I need to go home.' Jackie was like, 'Are you OK? Yes? We shoot!'

Did you win his respect?

He still calls and leaves messages on my answering machine saying, "I love you," and he sings me love songs. I can honestly say I love him very much. He thinks I'm crazy. He constantly made jokes about how I must have been dropped on my head as a child. He kept saying, 'I know that there's something wrong with you because you're just weird.' He's right. I am weird. But he completely embraced me for it, which made me able to be as completely wacko as I wanted because it made him laugh.

Do you think he's sexy?

Jackie Chan is sexy. I think anybody who's that talented is sexy.

Are you satisfied with the kind of roles you're being offered?

I'm 23 and I have been in the entertainment industry since I was 10. At this age, people don't know what to do with me. I'm not quite old enough to play the parts that I really want to play, but I'm not young enough to play the parts that I'm actually kind of right for. THE TUXEDO will help.

Did HEARTBREAKERS open any doors for you?

It did very well at the box-office here and great overseas. In terms of "the business," it didn't make a huge difference.

What happened to THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER?

It's in, like. movie space. It's all about a bunch of legal stuff, money stuff. When you do independent films, you take a real gamble.

But a movie that goes unreleased doesn't help anymore, unless it's truly awful, of course.

I haven't seem it, but I don't see how it couldn't be good. The only thing that upsets me is that I feel like I grew as an actor in the movie and I want people to see that. What upsets me even more is that Alec is such a tremendous director. I want people to see what he did.

Your costars are no slouches in the acting department. Were you intimidated?

It was unbelievable to work with Anthony Hopkins. To work with Alec Baldwin was even more unbelievable. The biggest moment was the day we had to shoot the speech that comes at the end of the movie where Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin take me, Satan, to court of heaven and hell, and I have to try to convince the jury that God is actually the bad one, not me. Anyway, when I was sitting in rollers watching Anthony act, I realize I was not meant to be there, that I have never actually learned how to act. I thought, 'I've built an entire career without having any idea what I am doing because this man, right now, is really acting.' I ran into my trailer crying, being completely melodramatic and feeling sorry for myself.

Who extracted you from your trailer?

Alec came to me and said, 'You wouldn't be here if I didn't think you were going to be great." Then Anthony came and said, 'This acting stuff is kinda scary.' and I said, 'It sure is.' They told me the way I was feeling was probably a lot like how Satan was feeling, that this was Satan's first chance to say how left out and hurt she felt as not being chosen as an angel. Alec and Anthony made me look at them while I shot my speech. They wanted me to have to look at the people I was most afraid of. When it was done, Alec cried, put his arms around me and said, 'That's why you're in this movie,' and Anthony said, 'You're one of us now. Congratulations.' For Alec and Anthony to have that much heart just goes to show that they're good, good people.

How did you and Alec Baldwin feel when the reporters said that the two of you were romantically involved?

Part of us laughed. Part of me felt really sorry for him. He's such a good man. There are sides of your personality that sometimes you show that you don't mean to, but you do because you're frustrated. But, Alec is very good, very upstanding, honorable man and father. It upset me because I didn't want people to think I was in the movie to be romantic with Alec Baldwin on camera. I also didn't want people to think for one second that he was not in love with his wife because he was, is, whatever---it's none of my business.

But you two were very close, weren't you?

The reason we were such good friends is that I've experienced parents splitting up and he was splitting from his wife at the time. I was able to help him with his daughter, help make her understand that he wasn't going away. I think he gravitated toward me because I was sort of like a daughter to him. He was able to turn to me and ask, 'Am I screwing this up? Did I handle that situation OK?' But my friendship with Alec got turned into such an unfortunate, like, scandal thing that was just so unnecessary.

You've also been romantically linked with Broadway stars such as Craig Bierko and Patrick Wilson, musician John Mayer and SURVIVOR winner Ethan Zohn. Any of them true?

The last time you and I talked for this magazine, we had discuss the Carson [Daly] stuff, which was going on at that time. Since then, I've gotten to a really good place that I think is healthy. I've figured that I give away about 98 percent of all of the secrets of my life---what I look like, who I hang out with, letting people take pictures of me while I'm shopping. I don't complain about any of that---in fact, I'm a ham and I love it. But my resolution for the new year was that I am going to keep two percent just for me.

Are you happy?

I'm really happy right now, I feel really good about myself. I'll leave it at that.

You must catch a lot of flak for still living with your mother?

[Laughs] Oh, God, are you going to give me some, too? Yes, we still live in the same house. We have a good time. We have slumber parties. We were both getting insecure the other day because people were saying we were weird. I talked with her and said, 'Um, are you happy?' and she said, 'Yeah, I love our life.' I said, 'Me too, what are we worried about?' So we danced around the house and celebrated the fact that maybe we're weird to everybody else but we have a great time with just us.

Why have you decided now to come out with an album?

It took me 14 years to come back to what I actually came to Los Angeles to do---that is, to be a singer. I chose the title BARENAKED because I feel named and kind of exposed releasing this record. My heart is in every word and I sang my heart out. Music is something I have never done in front of my peers---that they know of, I mean---because I've done it but they've never paid attention. I'm prepared for the people to say, 'Great, here's this actress trying to become a singer.'

Maybe you'd get more respect if you changed your name to something like 'J. Love'.

If someone says I was trying to follow in Jennifer Lopez's footsteps, I would only say thank you. I think J. Lo succeeded amazingly. She is one of the hardest working person, I've ever seen. I have respect for her.

How do the lyrics reveal who you are?

I'm a really insecure person. Most people don't know this. I really wanted to write about what that feels like. I think it's important for people to know. People get the misconception that if you're successful at something, you have it made and that somehow you're not human. I'm insecure every single day.

Some of the once hottest actors of your generation are struggling these days. You're thriving. What's your survival strategy?

When you're young and in the entertainment industry, there are lots of things you can chose and sometimes you just want to do everything. Unfortunately, that doesn't always guarantee longevity and people get sick of you really, really quick. I don't want that to happen. That's why I am trying to be more selective about what I do. It's frustrating, though, because I think, 'I haven't worked in four months, what's wrong with me?' I have to remind myself that I'm waiting for that one thing that's gonna change people's mind.

For someone as work-oriented as you, downtime must seem scary.

Having worked 12 moths a year on PARTY OF FIVE and TIME OF YOUR LIFE, I thought I wasn't successful if I wasn't working all the time. It's been hard on me.

Do you ever think, 'Why can't I have Julia Roberts' career?'

When I'm insecure, I would love to be Julia Roberts or Cameron Diaz. There are a list of people I wish I could be ever other day. But then I think about whether I would be really happy if I traded and, no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't be me.

Do you think some people perceive you as just perky?

Happy people get a raw deal. If you're a happy person, people think you're not really deep, you're not intelligent, you don't have deep-seated emotions. I'm a happy person and I'm very grateful, but I've also been sad in my life. I'm also a deep, complex person. I don't get a chance to show that very often because people don't allow it.

You've long been mentioned to star in the romantic comedy, WHY CAN'T I BE AUDREY HEPBURN?, about a girl dumped at the altar who finds love with a guy who loves Hepburn almost as much as the heroine does. What's going on?

It's going through one of its last rewrites. It isn't attached to a studio, but half the money is in place and we're just trying to find the rest.

Having played such a beloved and inimitable star as Audrey Hepburn in a TV movie, haven't people warned you to leave the legend alone?

Oh, of course I've heard that. But this movie is just so something I have to do. After this movie, I will probably let the Audrey Hepburn thing go, but it keeps coming back to me in my life and I feel it keeps coming back for a reason. The universe has told me that I'm not done with that whole thing yet.