Hurley & her - model Elizabeth Hurley interviews actress Jeanne Tripplehorn - Interview

Interview, Sept, 1999 by Elizabeth Hurley

What's a nice English boy doing mixed up with a mobster's daughter? That's the premise of the current fish-out-of-water comedy Mickey Blue Eyes, starring Hugh Grant and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Here, the movie's leading lady talks with its producer, Elizabeth Hurley, about wise guys, wormy ex-boyfriends, and making whoopee with Hugh

Coming from England, home of the world's most rabid journalists, I was initially somewhat reluctant to join the ranks myself. However, my desire to promote Mickey Blue Eyes soon overcame such scruples. Casting Jeanne Tripplehorn as a Mafia princess seemed an odd idea st first; she hails from the waving wheat fields of Oklahoma, a far cry from Brooklyn. But whether playing a tormented sex goddess in Basic Instinct (1992), a stoic wife in The Firm (1993), or a bizarrely dressed nymph in Waterworld (1995), she's always been brilliant and beautiful. She was also targeted for the role opposite Hugh in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) but had to withdraw for personal reasons. Therefore, it was with huge sighs of relief that we got her to sign up for our romantic comedy, Mickey Blue Eyes, playing James Caan's daughter and the girl for whom Hugh's character risks everything.

ELIZABETH HURLEY: If you say "don't print that" at any time, I promise not to write "she said, 'Don't print that.'"

JEANNE TRIPPLEHORN: Don't you just hate that?

EH: It's about the most irritating thing a journalist can do. So, are you smoking?

JT: No, I quit. In Europe, of all places.

EH: You're kidding?

JT: No. I was filming this new John Duigan movie, Paranoia, in the Isle of Man, and I decided to quit then and there. I went through London and Paris and never touched a cigarette.

EH: Have you put on weight?

JT: No. I've been working out. I've been playing tennis, and just whatever sport is in front of me I will do.

EH: But you've always been fit. In Mickey Blue Eyes there's that scene where you run away and Hugh has to chase you. He said it was almost physically impossible to catch you. He's so out of breath in the master shot that he looks like a wheezing old woman!

JT: [laughs] And I was in heels too!

EH: So you are phenomenally fit. What did you think when we offered you Mickey Blue Eyes?

IT: Well, we'd had such great times together socially, I was immediately open to working with you. And then when I read the script I thought it was really unusual. It took a genre we are all familiar with and turned it around and made it funny and romantic.

EH: Lots of people have said to me that you must have felt very weird kissing Hugh in front of me. I never even thought about that.

JT: I never thought about it either.

EH: Thank you. I never thought for a second you would. In fact, I think the two of you had to be in bed in your underwear for the first scene we shot!

JT: Yes, which I don't like. It wouldn't matter who was on set, the fact that I am prancing around in my underwear gives me a queasy feeling.

EH: I'm going to be frivolous because I'm bored senseless with serious interviews. It strikes me that almost more than any other actress in Hollywood, you have acted opposite the hottest leading men.

JT: [laughs] Including your boyfriend!

EH: But it's true! To act opposite Tom Cruise, Kevin Costner, and Michael Douglas in three of your first films is pretty startling. Do you find people are flendishly jealous when you go back to Oklahoma?

JT: No. The women just want to know all the details.

EH: Does everyone say, "Did they get an erection during the love scenes?"

JT: Nobody has ever asked me that!

EH: Really? That's always the first thing everyone asks me. It just shows you probably have nicer friends than I do!

JT: Well, in Oklahoma, they wouldn't dare! [laughs] To me, it is just unheard of for an actor to get an erection. I mean, how could they, with a million people standing around?

EH: Oh, I guess because you're exchanging saliva and wriggling around a bit. I think your sex scene with Michael Douglas in Basic Instinct Is the sexlest scene in the film.

JT: Thank you. That was my first love scene on film, and it was complete beginner's luck.

EH: So, listen, back to Mickey Blue Eyes, not that I have an agenda here. . . . What did you think when, for research, we took you out to meet some of the real wise guys in New York?

JT: [laughs] I had a three-mile-wide smile plastered on my face all night long because I was so nervous. With all we know about the Mafia, I was so unsure of what I was stepping into - and I thought you and Hugh were, er, impressed is not the word. You were, um . . .

EH: You can say it: I was obsessed with them.

JT: Well, yes, you were, but I knew you'd sort of romanticized them. You were into the Mafia myth.

EH: Completely. Let's blame Scorsese and Coppola.

JT: And I was afraid we were going to die as a result. [EH laughs] So I just minded my p's and q's, and if I ever saw two or more of those guys speaking in hushed tones, I would try to look away, because I didn't want to be caught overheating a conversation and end up losing

EH: - a limb?