Kim Basinger: breaking the chains

KIM BASINGER: In addition to the emotions, this whole L.A. Confidential ride has really been an education for me. It was great to finally be proud of something. When people say, "Wow, that was a great movie," for once you can look in their eyes and reply, "Yes, it really is."

IS: That film certainly puts a spotlight on a big issue for you - the double-edged sword, the sense of both power and powerlessness, that comes with being what is known, in quotes, as a sex symbol.

KB: The funny thing is that when I was very young and went to Europe and heard that little sex-symbol sentence spoken out loud for the first time, I didn't think much about it. I thought, To each his own.

IS: Then that little phrase took on a life of its own - especially here in America, where slotting people is a national pastime.

KB: Yes, and there's no freedom in it. If you let society hand you your . . .

IS: Destiny?

KB: No, not quite. It's like they hand you a menu and society wants you to eat what they're fixing in the kitchen. You know what I'm saying? I don't want to eat off that menu. I've never wanted to eat off that menu.

IS: How about your parents. Did they?

KB: I think my father did. In fact he was a very talented, serious musician, but ultimately he didn't give himself the chance to follow that route, Instead, eventually, he chose a more reliable career.

IS: Did he talk about it?

KB: Never. He was very quiet about it.

IS: But you must have felt his disappointment that he didn't go for his dream.

KB: Yes. I was one of those kids who absorbed everything. Sometimes there's a kid in a family who just inhales all of what's going on. Sometimes they hold their breath and feel everything that everybody else is feeling. It can be very suffocating.

IS: How many kids were there?

KB: There were five of us kids, and we were always feeding other people too.

IS: How did your parents meet?

KB: Daddy saw Mother in a drugstore and said, "I'm going to many her." And that was kind of that.

IS: You grew up in the South, right? Near Athens, Georgia? I can hear it still in the way you talk.

KB: Yes.

IS: Tell me about your parents back then.

KB: Our father worked all the time, and he provided for us very well. Our mother was a perfectionist. She wanted her children to have all the things that kids are supposed to have. She sewed a lot of our clothes. I loved the clothes she made. I loved her taste. Her nails and her lipstick and everything she had on always matched.

My mother actually had some grand opportunities in her life, but she's one of those women in her generation who never got to fulfill her potential. She probably should've lived in the generation that came after hers. At college she was lucky enough to study with Flannery O'Connor. The class was early in the morning, and my mother used to go to it wearing her bathrobe underneath her raincoat or something. I don't think Mother realized at the time who O'Connor was. She's such an important writer for our generation. O'Connor's one of my favorite Southern writers.

IS: it sounds like your upbringing could have been in one of her books.

KB: We were like anybody else's family. All those words, dysfunctional and all that, apply. Everybody came out OK. My parents are not together now.

IS: Where were you in all this?

KB: I was the middle kid, and I was the first girl. We were a totally diverse bunch of folks.

IS: Were you close to any one of your brothers and sisters in particular?

KB: When my little sister Ashley was born, I held her hand, and I've never let go since. I took her everywhere with me. Everywhere. There's a reason we were born in the same house. And we've been each other's best friends ever since.

IS: How did the rest of your family see you? KB: Everybody called me the dreamer. I was totally shy, and they'd say, "She's scared of her shadow." It wasn't really true, but I didn't talk much. I wrote. I hated school, though - hated, hated, hated. I'd go home and look at the calendar as if it were a sentence: One more day down, one more day down. I used to lock myself in my room for hours and hours and write. As a child, I wrote poetry and all kinds of things - just stacks of it - and also music. I'd be in my room and my brother or someone would interrupt, saying, "They want to see you." I couldn't stand meeting visitors. In that way, I had a lot of my daddy's introverted nature.

IS: Why were you so self-conscious?

KB: I know what it is now; it's so clear. People make tremendous mistakes unintentionally. There's a wonderful writer, whose name I forget, who said that the minute you're born, they start squelching you. Sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, teachers - everybody starts to douse your imagination and creativity. At a young age it starts, and then all of a sudden you're like a trunk going through an airport, covered in stickers, I think I've spent most of my life pulling off the stickers.

IS: Pulling off the stickers - what a great way to put it. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but are you saying that you became so self-conscious because one of the stickers they stuck on you had to do with your looks?