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Alicia Silverstone has been around
for so long that it is hard to
believe she is only 28. She started modelling when she was
eight, starred in her first film at
15, and made her name playing
the superficial yet kind-hearted teenager Cher
in the hit movie Clueless when she was just 18.
She is slim and gorgeous with a flawless
complexion — the standard Hollywood look
— and it is hard to believe that, after her role
as Batgirl in Batman & Robin, for which she
was required to put on weight, she would
be faced with chants of 'Fat girl! Fat girl!'
wherever she went.
She recalls:
Once, when she was asked to describe herself, her summing up ran to just three words:
'deep, selfless, passionate'. Which goes some
way to explaining why she once smuggled all
her empty water bottles from her London hotel
room back to California, fearing that they
wouldn't be recycled otherwise. 'I've got to
save the world,' she said.
She is a curious combination of perkiness
and bite. Her perkiness enables her to put a
positive spin on almost everything, while her
bite emerges when you delve, in her opinion,
too deeply into 'personal matters', which really don't seem that personal at all. But, given
that she has worked in showbusiness most of her life, perhaps she deems such defence mechanisms necessary.
She begins perkily enough,
however, discussing her latest
film, Beauty Shop, a hit comedy in the U.S., starring Queen Latifah and Kevin Bacon. It's a lively enough movie with
Alicia playing the lone white
hairdresser, Lynn, in Queen Latifah's salon, although both
are somewhat overshadowed
by Bacon's narcissistic hairstylist, Jorge.
Says Alicia:
Still, when you've worked for as many years as Alicia has, then any free time you can get
to sort out your filing cabinets
must seem like a blessing, although it's baffling why anyone would want to take them
to work and install them in
their trailer.
After the success of Clueless,
which took £150 million at
the box office, Alicia landed a £7 million multi-picture development deal, and
produced her first film at 19.
She has worked non-stop ever since, sometimes successfully, as in Kenneth Branagh's
Love's Labour's Lost, and sometimes not so
successfully, as in Batman & Robin, which
flopped. Her last TV series, Miss Match, was
taken off the air after just one series, although she earned a Golden Globe nomination
and rave reviews for her role
as a divorce lawyer by day
and matchmaker by night.
She has packed a lot into a
short space of time and gives the impression of being much
older than her years. She says:
Alicia's father, Monty, is a
British-born property developer, while her mother, Didi,
is a former Pan Am stewardess from Dunfermline,
Scotland. The couple met in
Florida, and Alicia and her
older brother, David, were
brought up in San Francisco. Says Alicia:
At the age of 13, she discovered that she had
an elder sister, Kezi, living in London. Kezi,
the child of a relationship that Monty Silverstone had before he married Didi, couldn't have had a more different upbringing from her
famous sister. For while Alicia was brought up
in a secure home in relative affluence in the
States, Kezi spent her childhood moving
between several different foster homes, her
mother unable to cope with the rigours of
bringing up a child on her own after Monty left
her just months after Kezi's birth.
In an interview earlier this year, Kezi said,
'It wasn't much of a childhood', although it is
interesting to note that, like Alicia, Kezi also
started modelling (though not until she was in
her teens) and did some acting, too, with small
roles in Footballers' Wives and Jonathan
Creek. Now, she is best known for her musical
career, having had a hit with her single What
A Feeling.
But it was not until she was 18 that
Kezi decided to contact Barnardos
to try to trace her father (who,
unbeknown to her, was also trying
to find her), and in 1990, when
Kezi was 19 and Alicia 13, they
finally met. Alicia was told by her father, at
first, that Kezi was a distant cousin (he wanted
the girls to get to know one another before
telling Alicia that she had a half-sister). After
Kezi had returned to England, Alicia's father
eventually came clean and told his youngest
daughter the truth. She phoned Kezi straight
away and, incredibly for someone so young and
seemingly without a hint of rancour, told her,
'I've always wanted a big sister.'
Alicia is cagey when discussing her family,
particularly this aspect of her childhood, but
she admits that she and Kezi:
'We became psychologically connected very
quickly. Kezi lives in England and I'm out
here, so although we kept in touch, it hasn't
always been easy to meet up. But over the
years, we've spent a lot of time together. One of
our cousins died in the World Trade Center
attacks on September 11, and although that was
a horrible time, it was also when a lot of families were able to reconnect...
'It was so strange, but ever since I was a
young girl, any chance I could get to hang
around an older girl and be her friend, I would
take it. When I was two, I was hanging out with
five-year-olds, so maybe somewhere, subconsciously, I knew I had an older sister.'
When asked if they've ever discussed their
respective childhoods, Alicia clams up — 'this
is getting way too personal' — but she admits
that they will
And has Alicia seen Kezi acting
on TV yet? She looks startled.
Alicia's own professional career began at the
tender age of six, when her father took some
snapshots of her lying on a sheepskin rug in a
bathing suit, and thought that his daughter had
a future as a model. She modelled for a few
years, an experience she claims not to have
particularly enjoyed, but which 'enabled me to
pay for acting classes. I knew from a very
young age that I wanted to act and my dad was
really encouraging.'
Alicia says that she loved acting lessons
because:
Why would
someone so young require therapy or catharsis? She sighs:
At 15, she won her first movie role, as a
teenager obsessed with a journalist twice her
age in the film The Crush. While making the
film, she caused a stir by going to court to
became 'legally emancipated' from her parents
and declared an adult, in order to get around
child labour laws that would have interfered
with her working hours.
The action, supported by her parents, was
described in many newspapers as a 'divorce',
something that still rankles with Alicia who
insists that she:
The Crush was followed by several appearances in Aerosmith videos, a few TV shows and then her role in Clueless, which shot her to
worldwide fame.
After that, it was perhaps inevitable that
a backlash would ensue and it did, almost
immediately. Her first film venture as a
producer, on the movie Excess Baggage,
which she co-starred with Benicio Del Toro
was a flop, as was her next film, Blast From
The Past.
Then came Batman & Robin,
which Alicia starred as Batgirl opposite George Clooney and
Chris O'Donnell — a film notable for the vitriol of the reviews
and the harsh assessment of Alicia's
figure, encased as it was for much of the film in
a skintight catsuit.
'The irony was that I became a vegan out of personal choice, and my body just got so
healthy and skinny, and my skin became radiant, that I started looking fabulous anyway. So it all worked out in the end.'
And does Alicia think that far too much emphasis is put on looks these days, to the point where plastic surgery in Hollywood has got out of control? She screws up her face.
Which is all very well, except that the things
that are interesting are the subjects she clams
up on. She has been seeing Chris Jarecki, the singer of punk band S.T.U.N., for several years but won't talk about him; and, predictalbly
when asked about rumours of on-set rormances
with Benicio Del Toro and Kenneth Branagh insists, 'Just write that they're all true'', in a
tone that gives absolutely nothing away.
But she does admit that she would eventually
like to start a family:
'I'd love to raise a family on a farm and grow
my own food, and grow my hair down to my
ankles and be a kind of punk-rock hippy.'
Just don't expect Alicia to tell you about it when she
does. That's too personal.
ALICIA SILVERSTONE was born into
wealth and privilege to British parents, and
became a Hollywood star. Little did she
realise that back home she
had a secret sister brought up in foster homes
Alicia Silverstone
May 2005
'It hurt at the time but I just
hope that I was an example to other young girls
and showed them that you can be five or ten
pounds overweight and still star in a movie.
'There was a point when I was so sick and
disenchanted with every film studio's demand
for physical perfection, that I thought it would
be a good thing for all young girls to eat burgers and sweets as a form of rebellion. But I
don't think that any more, because it's not
healthy. Although I refuse to subject my body
to two hours on a treadmill every day just to
get hired.'
Miss Silverstone knows all about being
healthy. A committed vegan, she arranges for
us to meet in a Los Angeles restaurant frequented by the young and pretty, and which
offers a mind-boggling array of organic dishes. It comes as no surprise when she orders a
non-dairy smoothie.
'Oh, he was just so funny. I had trouble keeping it together whenever he was
on set. It was a great job to have. I got to sit in my trailer for hours and read a lot and
organise my filing cabinets,' making it sound anything but a
great time. 'It would be wonderful to do a sequel.'
'I love
my life and I think I have a
sense of balance now, but
I've learned to play, too,
which is something I never
used to do. I started working when I was eight; I've always
wanted to work so I don't feel I've missed out
on a childhood. I was independent from the
word go, and I can remember being mature for my age
from about the time I was four. I was
always being told what an old soul I was
and was desperate to be out there working. I
worked in a bakery at the age of 12 just to earn
some extra money and show my dad that I
could be self-sufficient. He was a very successful businessman and maybe I just wanted to
prove a point.'
'My mum's job meant that
she was away quite a bit My dad worked
long hours, too. Not that that
was ever a problem or anything. I think it was a very European upbringing and Europeans tend to grow up faster than Americans. My parents were always
really encouraging about the arts, but never
pushy. We'd go to the theatre and see plays,
and they'd also send me to summer camp,
which I liked. Mum would be away for a
bit, but then we all used to go on vacations,
which was good.'
'get along really
well. We all spent Christmas together — the
whole family and Kezi's boyfriend, too. Unfortunately, we only had four days together, as I
had to go to Lithuania to do a film, but it was
great. We've always felt very bonded, right
from the start, and no, I never felt jealous when
I heard that I had a sister and it wasn't a shock
to me at all.
'see each other in the summer and
Kezi will probably come out here. We have a
very sisterly relationship and I'm really proud
of her. I love her music — I think she has a
great voice.'
'Kezi' acts? I
didn't know she was an actress. Why wouldn't
she tell me? I knew she'd done plays and musicals when she was younger, but I didn't know
she was on TV, too.'
'they were so cathartic both for me and
for the others. At school, everyone was walking
around as normal, but in acting class, people
were sobbing about whatever experiences they
had and were really opening up, which I found
very inspiring and therapeutic.'
'Oh, you know. Everyone has to sort out stuff in their own head and I don't really remember what I was thinking about when I was 12.'
'wanted to work and absolutely
loved doing Crush. I wanted that job and 1I
would have done absolutely anything to get it.
All it meant was that I could legally give up
school and work 23 hours a day as a slave.
Anyway, I was 15, living by myself and making a movie with Cary Elwes — who wouldn't
have fun doing that?'
"Well, of course it hurt because I'm only human, but I looked at the people who were shouting "Fat girl!" at me and I thought it was ridiculous because they didn't look so great either. And then I felt that I didn't care what anyone said about me any more, and that even
if I lost my career, I was going to do exactly
what I wanted to do.
'I think it's a boring subject and I just don't care. I don't want to
have surgery myself, but I don't want to judge
people who do. And I'd rather talk about more interesting things anyway.'
'I'm obsessed with babies. I'd like to adopt and I'd like to have my own
children, but I really don't know if I'd give up
vork to look after them. I know I wouldn't
want to be working on a show and bringing up
children, because I don't want to be the kind of
mum who pats her kids on the head and then
goes off to work all day.
alicia silverstone gallery
dvds (shipped from uk)
batman and robin uk dvd | beauty shop uk dvd
alicia silverstone
biog. |
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blast from the past uk dvd
clueless / save the last dance uk dvd | excess baggage uk dvd
hideaway uk dvd | love's labour's lost uk dvd
scattered dreams uk dvd | scorched uk dvd
true crime uk dvd
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alicia silverstone
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Changes last made: 2020