"HEARTBREAKERS" & PMS

by Matthew Turner

Once again we've sent our Movie reporter Matthew Turner into battle! This time he took on the might of Heartbreaker's Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Q: Jennifer, can I start by asking you about one of the most hilarious sequences in the film, when you get somewhat entangled with (Ray) Liotta. Can you tell us about that?

Jennifer Love Hewitt (JLH): Yes, it was actually my first and second day of filming, which is a great way to start the movie (laughs) - attached to his crotch for nine hours! It was actually really hard physically, they took a piece of my hair and put wire around it and kind of put it up through his underwear and safety-pinned it to the top of his pants - I was actually in his zipper, on my knees for nine hours.

Q: I would imagine that you were able to supplement your income by playing cards with the technicians. Your hands are in shot the whole time.

JLH: (Laughs). There was actually more of that in the movie, but in the scene when we enter the lobby of the hotel in Palm Beach and I fall, I broke my finger and that week was the week when we were supposed to do all of the other card stuff in the movie and I couldn't because my finger was in a cast.

Q: Who taught you the tricks?

JLH: Ricky Jay - actually he plays the auctioneer. He taught me how to do it and how to do the quarter flips and a bunch of other con tricks.

Q: What with this role and your forthcoming appearance as Satan in The Devil and Daniel Webster, do you find yourself being drawn to the dark side?

JLH: Not normally, but it seems like a fitting role to play after Page Page was the seed of Satan, Satan was next, so. No, it was kind of fun actually, to do a departure in a couple of movies from the kind of sweet girl next door, but I'm ready to go back now. I've been to the darkest of the dark and now I have to go back.

Q: Which is more the real you?

JLH: Definitely the good girl. When I've got PMS, more SatanŠ.

Q: How difficult was it for you to play Page because she really is a quite unpleasant conniving bitch for two thirds of the movie and then suddenly she turns into this rather sweet girl. How did you construct that journey?

JLH: Again, I drew on PMS, which seems to help me a lot in my roles these days. We shot a lot of those scenes during PMS which helped also, which was good. The director was like 'When is that happening? Okay, we'll film that scene that day, thanks'.

Q: What was it like working with Sigourney Weaver?

JLH: She's amazing her focus is unbelievable. I'm terrible, like if somebody does something funny I'll just break up laughing and it'll take me a minute to get back into it. She doesn't break anything she knows exactly what she's doing from the beginning of the scene to the end and she carried through and every take is pretty much flawless and it was really great to watch.

Q: Since you play a con artist in the movie, I was just wondering if you'd ever been in a situation where you'd actually conned somebody or if you'd ever been conned by somebody?

JLH: Erm...I have been conned, and sadly enough I was conned two months after the filming of Heartbreakers, which you'd think that I would go 'Oh, maybe I'm being conned!' but unfortunately Page is a lot smarter than me!