Poppy - actress Poppy Montgomery - Interview

Interview, April, 1999 by Jane Adams

PM: If you're unique and you are comfortable within yourself and self-assured - that is sexy.

JA: It's everything our grandmothers told us. See, I've never fallen into the conventional Idea of sexy. You do a lot.

PM: Physically I do?

JA: Well yes, you're a very sexy woman.

PM: But every man I know thinks you're the sexiest thing on two legs.

JA: Oh, now, you know what? I'm going to turn off the recorder.

PM: No, you are not turning off the recorder because it's true.

JA: Who influenced you when you were young?

PM: Molly Ringwald. I thought she was just fabulous because she was so different. She made girls like me with freckles and red hair think, Wow, I'm beautiful too. And Gillian Armstrong's films impacted me beyond belief.

JA: Thank God for women like Gillian Armstrong who put those strong women out there. Because you and I are not living the way our parents lived. I don't have any road that's been paved for me, where I know, Well, OK, if I turn here, this is the right thing to do.

PM: Right, so we find it in films and books.

JA: I want that woman's perspective because it gives me support. It gives me strength.

PM: My Brilliant Career [1979] presented the epitome of a headstrong woman who knew what she wanted and went after it, who didn't marry and give up her writing. Hell yes. [both laugh]

JA: What are you reading lately?

PM: I just finished rereading The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien created this whole alternate universe.

JA: Well, you're sort of in an alternate world now.

PM: I am. In Australia, Hollywood was the fantasy world. Did I ever think I would be playing Diane Keaton's daughter? Did I ever think I'd be doing a film with Eddie Murphy? No, he was like a mythical creature. I do think L.A. has changed me. I used to run around in Australia barefoot - bugs, snakes, I didn't give a shit. And all my little brothers and sisters are like that. They're so tough. I went to visit my mum recently and she said, "Come down and see the rain forest. It's gorgeous." I looked in and there was this tangle of bush and dark and my Mum was just strolling through. I said, "There's spiders, Mum." And she was like, "What happened to you in America? You used to be so ballsy." "Mum, I've got flip-flops on. I just had a pedicure." My mum was strolling around looking like someone out of some fabulous film, walking over bush with open-toed shoes, not caring.

JA: Yeah, but there's a lot of your mother in you. A woman striding through the bush in open-toed sandals.