View to a thrill - actress Elizabeth Hurley - Interview

GF: You've had some good reviews - for Christabel, for example - but you haven't been acclaimed as an actress. Does that trouble you?

EH: It comes down to getting the right parts. A lot of people - including really good actors - work all their lives without getting a chance to show everybody what they can do. I'd love to get better parts and if they happened to be in films that were high profile that would be great. Every actor or artist - not that I'm saying I'm an artist - wants their work to be seen and appreciated. I'm in a position now where people will see what I do whether it's a nice thing or not. That's not great, but that's just how it is. What's bizarre is that I get offered so many jobs now that I don't do, but which I'd have been delighted to have been offered three or four years ago. I still don't get many jobs I yearn for.

GF: Does your production company exist mainly to create rules for yourself?

EH: The main reason is to create parts for Hugh, because we can raise quite a lot of money on his name - not that there are many films he wants to make. Certainly I think it would be ideal to produce something that had a role for me as well.

GF: Where do your producing skills come from?

EH: Nowhere whatsoever. But I've been on lots of film sets and I've always been a terrible eavesdropper, and I think listening in has made me realize I could do certain things differently, if not better. It's all down to your own opinions really, your own taste, and your confidence to say what you think is right. It wasn't so difficult on Extreme Measures; I didn't have to work with the Teamsters or anything. I tend to be foxy about things, which means I can get them done the way I want.

GF: You seem very self-possessed and resilient.

EH: I hope I'm not a hard-nosed person.

GF: No, I didn't say that.

EH: "Resilient" sounds like criticism to me so I don't know what to say.

GF: Doesn't everybody need to be resilient?

EH: I suppose so. I've never been very good at wearing my heart on my sleeve and I know Hugh says, after nine years of knowing me, that he doesn't have the faintest idea what I'm thinking at any given moment. I quite like other people keeping themselves private, and there are certain things I don't ever want to know about them. People go to therapy and stuff, but that's something I've never felt inclined to do myself. I never thought it was a good idea to delve into cans of worms somehow. It could be so much work, don't you think?

(On the phone nine months later)

GF: How have you been?

EH: Not too bad. I've been busy, but I'm trying to keep myself out of mischief.

GF: Tell me about Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

EH: It's very different from anything I've ever done before. Initially, I was nervous about doing it, simply because it's a big, broad comedy, but I didn't have to be broad in my part. I'm very much the straight man. Mike Myers claims he wrote the part for me, which is astoundingly flattering.

GF: Who do you play?

EH: I play Vanessa Kensington of the [so-called] British Intelligence Agency. Mike plays a superspy, Austin Powers, who was deep frozen - as was his enemy Dr. Evil, also played by Mike - in the '60s. In the story, they're both unfrozen and my job is to acclimatize Austin to the '90s. It's very, very silly.