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Ashley alight - actress Ashley Judd - Cover Story - Interview
Interview, Sept, 1998 by Salma Hayek
Because she illuminates much more than movies with her feisty aplomb and earthy aura, Ashley Judd is a spirit for now
The word "star" doesn't hang well on Ashley Judd. A star is remote, celestial, and illusory - it may have burned out by the time we get to see it. The light it gives isn't to be trusted. Judd, by comparison, is undisguisedly elemental, someone so grounded in the reality she's constructed for herself that when we watch her we don't immediately jump to the conclusion that she's as unreachable as most stars. As Imperiously and nonchalantly beautiful as Elizabeth Taylor, she's as much a pistol as Liz: lusty, opinionated, and proudly hormonal. How smart of director Joel Schumacher to show Judd glistening with sweat in A Time to Kill (1996). She is altogether a different kind of star - an "earth," if you will - with her own kind of light.
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The non-singing, thirty-year-old daughter of Naomi Judd and sister of Wynonna, Ashley has been no stranger to the pages of this magazine since we first saw her In Ruby in Paradise (1993). Her performance in that film remains her greatest, although she was outstanding in Heat (1995) and Smoke (1995); there's still the sense that Hollywood has yet to create for her the big dramatic roles she warrants. Simon Birch, the movie she appears in this month, is modest and her part in it comparatively brief. Had it have been a negligible role, we would have still paid her as much attention as we do here because, frankly, any excuse will do - she's that vital a presence.
Since we wanted something intimate, we went to one of Judd's closest friends and colleagues, herself a one-of-kind - Salma Hayek. They hooked up on a fiercely hot Saturday evening recently when Judd was in Vancouver and Hayek in New York City. The phone line positively hummed.
SALMA HAYEK: I can't believe I'm interviewing you, Ashley. I hope I don't bore you to death.
ASHLEY JUDD: [laughs] Never. It's good to hear your voice. Remember when you said to me the only thing that frightens you is a weak woman? Well, I said that to a couple of guys recently, and they were like, "Ah!" So now I refer to it as "Salma's soliloquy."
SH: That's what happens. They go, "Oh!"
AJ: Yes, it's emotional blackmail. But your wisdom is unbelievable.
SH: [laughs] But now I'm going to take this seriously and become a journalist. The first question is: What are some of the games that you remember playing with your father or mother?
AJ: One thing I did with my dad, which was very dramatic, was play outdoor hide-and-seek. We would play with grown-ups, and they took it so seriously. When I was in kindergarten Daddy took me out of school for a couple of weeks to go up Highway I with him to the Pacific Northwest. He was turning thirty, and he wanted to celebrate with a bunch of his wild, quasi-hippie friends, some of whom lived on government property in a domed tent. We played out there in the forests, and I was just thrilled and scared to death; I felt like I was the only person on the planet.
SH: Was that a good feeling or a bad feeling?
AJ: I don't really know. I mean, there's one moment in particular I can remember where I didn't know where anybody was, and I was just standing in the forest alone.
SH: That's a good thing for a child to experience. if you think about it, in a way we're all standing in the world alone. I think you're incredibly independent, and you . . . I was going to say you play with yourself, but in English that's not a good thing to say. [laughs]
AJ: [laughs] But it's true, Salma. Go right ahead and say it.
SH: You like your own company, and that's a wonderful quality. Did your mother ever teach you songs when you were a little girl?
AJ: I was around music so I absorbed a lot, but she didn't really teach me. When I was in the second grade, we lived on a hilltop in a very rural, beautiful, old-feeling part of Kentucky and we learned: [sings] "Kentucky! You are the dearest land inside of heaven to me / Kentucky! Your laurel and red bark trees / When I die, I long to rest upon some peaceful mountain so high / For that is where God will look for me."
SH: That reminds me: One of the things I find fascinating about you is how you take "home" wherever you go. I remember walking into a hotel room and feeling like I was in a Kentucky house; you'd turned the most cold - elegant, but still cold generic hotel room into a homey, warm place. Is it a way of making sure that you keep your roots and stay true to yourself and to who you are? Do you think that home and stability and the South are all part of your strength?
AJ: Well, I will say a few well-placed quilts and some seashell lights will do wonders for a hotel room. But actually, you're catching me at a very interesting tune, Salma, My definition of home is changing, and my internal compass is being reoriented, and . . . I mean, here I am, crying already.
SH: Oh, I'm sorry.
AJ: No, it's a good thing. But I don't know how much more I can address the actual question because I'm still in the process of changing, and you know how you can get such a good perspective on what you've just left behind when you see it more clearly over your shoulder.
