Splendor on her own

JILL BLACK: Two Girls and a Guy is so much about making choices. Do you think relationships might be herder in the '90s because people have too much freedom?

NATASHA GREGSON WAGNER: There are choices. But the heart of the matter is always whether or not two people are in love. At this point in my life, I'm not as experimental as Lou, my character in Two Girls and a Guy, is. I think I was much more so when I was younger. Lou keeps her ego in check much more than I think I would have done. I really fought with Jimmy [Toback] about the scene where I'm outside the room and the other two are making love. What he originally wanted me to do at that point was masturbate, but I thought that was wrong, because I wanted to show Lou's aloneness. It doesn't matter that she's tough and funny - she's still hurt. That to me was the core of her, and Jimmy let me play the scene my way. I'm really interested in heartbreak, how it affects people, how their strength is awakened by it. I probably won't be the kind of actress who makes people go, "Oh, she's so much fun to watch."

JB: How did your mother's career influence you?

NGW: I don't think her career affected me. But she influenced me because she had this inner strength and she was so grounded by her morals.

JB: Your characters definitely don't take any shit. Is that true of you as well?

NGW: I'm quite small, but I'm fierce, too, and just because you know how to take care of yourself doesn't mean you're a bitch. That scene in the bathtub where I rip Robert's character apart came totally off the top of my head. [laughs]

And in the film I'm making now [Larry Clark's Another Day in Paradise], I play a junkie prostitute who's wild and sexual, and that's where her power is. It's interesting to experiment with that stuff when you don't have to pay the consequences.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning