Amy Irving - Femme Fatales interview

Recalling Her Horror Legacy & Life with Steven Spielberg

Femme Fatales Magazine

Volume 8, Number 8

December 3, 1999

By William Wilson Goodson & Sam L. Irvin

"I was put on stage when I was nine months old," recounts Amy Irving. "I was kind of born in a trunk. My father [Jules Irving] was originally a theatre director, he had his own theatre. He started in the San Francisco Actor's Workshop in 1954. All three of us kids were in the company and Mom was the lead actress. And then he was the artistic director at Lincoln Center Theatre Repertory from 1965-1972."

Irving tallied more formal training from the American Conservatory Theater and the London Academy and in 1975, moved back to California (she was born in Palo Alto in 1953). The fledgling actress quickly earned work on episodic television and, within six months, made her movie debut in Brian DePalma's Carrie. She reunited with DePalma for The Fury (1978) which renewed the former film's theme about teenage telekinetics. "I don't think it was as good a film as Carrie in any way," admits Irving. "The Fury was much more plotty and, for me, there are some difficult places to watch. Carrie had a wonderful appeal. Everybody has that feeling in their high school days of being the outcast, of not fitting in and the idea of revenge is sweet. It kind of touches into a primal time in one's life. Those teenage years are hell."

Her subsequent films included Yentl (1983) for first time director Barbara Streisand: "It was Barbara's dream to do that film for ten years. She was very loving to work with, very clear, very fun." Irving was on a roll. Her performance earned and Academy Award nomination and she won an Obie for her Broadway debut in Amadeus.

Between 1985-1989, she was married to director Steven Spielberg, whom she met through Brian DePalma. "It wasn't really a blind date. Brian actually sent me to meet him on Close Encounters of the Third Kind knowing I was too young for the part. He just wanted us to meet." Exempting an off-screen role as "Jessica Rabbit's singing voice" in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a film executive produced by her spouse, Irving didn't work with Spielberg: "It wasn't something I wanted to do. No, I really wanted to keep my work separate. I had my own career."

"Roger Rabbit wasn't work. [Director] Bob Zemekis needed somebody to lay down a track for the animators to animate the song. I went in as a favor to Bob. He ended up liking it and using it -- I didn't get paid."

She was introduced to her second husband, director Bruno Barreto (Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands), when she was cast in his 1990 political thriller, Show of Force: "We have a very different relationship. Ours began as a working relationship, and we are very much more a collaborating team as far as our work goes."

She was executive producer on their next film, Carried Away ("It was something that Bruno and I did together. It was like a baby we created; it took us five years to put it together.").

The 1996 release is an erotic and perceptive chronicle about an affair between a teacher (Dennis Hopper) and a promiscuous 17 year-old (Amy Locane). Their union impacts the teacher's relationship with his neighbor/co-worker (Irving). The actress addressed her lengthy nude scene with Hopper in cyberspace (via Mr. Showbiz): "Because Bruno is Brazilian and very comfortable in his sexuality, I think he was able to shoot it in a way that it wasn't just about baring your body. It was about baring your soul, baring everything. It's about shaking up the leaves and waking up your passions, and living your life to the fullest."

Now, three years later, she says, "I think it's an extraordinary film. As a matter of fact, it's the best thing I've ever touched."

Cast in 1997's Deconstructing Harry, Irving lauds the film's star/director: "I had a great time with Woody Allen. I met him in my early twenties and I just found him to be someone who can be a little nervous, a little distant, unless you make yourself very preferable. As a director, he works in the masters so much. He has to be choreographing each film in his head. Judy Davis and I went into work one day and we weren't going to get the scene because Woody wasn't there. So she and I rehearsed it, imagining how it was going to be. When we came in the next day, and Woody put us on our feet, it was exactly the opposite of what we saw it as."

I broach conversation about Carrie II, which tanked at the box office earlier this year. Cast as "Sue Snell" in that film's forerunner, Irving reprised the role in the sequel. But, yielding to nostaligia, the actress focuses on a couple of films she made for DePalma, including the classic Carrie. We regress to another time and a much earlier interview...

Saturday, August 20, 1977. It's a wet night in the Windy City. Irving, 23, waits for the crew to finish setting up a scene for DePalma's The Fury. She relaxes in a rented Winnebago. A visiting Carrie Fischer is seated in the back. Carole King music softly plays.

How did you first meet Brian DePalma?

I met Brian in an audition for Star Wars. George Lucas was seeing people and Brian sat in on the auditions.

When you went to the audition, had you seen any of Brian's films?

No, I'd been in England for three years. When I got home, I kept hearing about Phantom of the Paradise because my whole family just loved that movie. I hadn't seen anything he had done. I didn't know who he was. With Carrie, I thought I was involved in some little movie. I hated the script. But I didn't know that he could do magic to those sort of things. When I saw the movie, I loved it. I knew the day I met him that I was gonna do Carrie. George [Lucas] was really shy. He comes off, when you don't know him, as kind of cold. He was doing the interview, and I had just come out of the hospital from an operation. I'd been laid up for six weeks and I hadn't been in an audition in a while, so I was still kind of delicate. George was asking kind of statistical questions with his head buried, and I just wanted a little human warmth.

I kept looking over at the corner and there was Brian. He never opened his mouth but I just really felt something. When I walked out, I knew I was gonna do Carrie.

Have you seen Brian's other films now?

Let's see. I saw Hi, Mom, Sisters, Phantom and Obsession. I haven't seen Get to Know Your Rabbit but he'd never push that. When I first got the part, he screened a lot of his films for others -- not just to show us -- but to show cinematographers or whoever. That was when I saw most of his films and became a big fan. I'm sick of hearing people say, "Oh the music was too loud in Obsession." If you give yourself over to the experience of what that movie was, it just hit the liquid in your bones. It was a wonderful experience.

When I saw Carrie, I thought, "My God! Anybody who could make that opening scene as tasteful as he did" -- it was beautiful! I even got a lot of my stuff cut out of it. It was my first film and all of my big scenes were cut out. I thought I would be really upset, but I'd rather be in a tight film like that and lose my stuff. I didn't even care that I didn't have any big scenes in it anymore.

When I read The Fury, I said, "Brian, what do you want? Seventeen different varieties of hysteria? What kind of a role is that?" He said, "Well, you and I are gonna have to work on it and build character out of it and do something with it." I trust Brian to the hilt. I don't even go to dalies anymore. I used to go to dailies all the time to make sure I got the right take, but Brian and I always chose the same one anyway. He's such a good woman's director; I would love to work with him always.

Was there anything cut out of Carrie that you miss?

They had a scene where you saw Carrie as a six or seven year-old and Sissy played the part. They made the fence bigger and had her behind the fence. It was incredible to watch. And they had a little girl for the back shot of her running away. They had her in these young clothes and the fence was oversized. It was hysterical. I was reading a script at the time where they wanted me to play a fourteen year-old. I said to Sissy, "God, I can't play 14." She said, "Amy, I'm about to play six! Don't give me this you can't play 14!"

What did you think when Brian said that you had to walk in reverse for the final scene of Carrie?

There I was in my costume and he says, "Okay, now you're gonna walk backwards." But I didn't know what he was doing. It was my first movie. Then we shot night for day -- I just do what he tells me. I'm good at walking backwards.

Did you notice that you can see a car going backwards in the shot?

I never even noticed the car the first time I saw it -- I didn't notice anything! Somebody says there's a bird flying backwards? The second time I saw it, I saw the car going backwards. That reminds me, some people actually thought I was a bad guy throughout Carrie, which upsets me. Even when I start seeing the rope, some people still think I'm in on the whole thing. That doesn't make sense. Some of the reviews I read say that I'm in on the whole thing, and I don't like being misunderstood because I thought my performance was pretty clear. Even when we were at the Avoriaz Film Festival and Carrie won the Grand Prize, all the French judges were coming up to me, "Were you good or bad?" I couldn't believe that.

Didn't you used to date William Katt, who played Carrie's prom date, Tommy Ross?

I dated Billy when I first got back from England. It was like a year before we tested for Carrie. We were only together for a short time and then we became friends. Suddenly, we were tested for this film together. We tested with a scene that wasn't in the film, one of our big scenes that was cut out. It was in the back seat of a car and it was very physical. We were lucky because we'd been through that; we were very comfortable with each other, it was easy. We didn't end up having much together in the final print.

Your real-life mother, Priscilla Pointer, played your mom in the film. How's she doing?

Fine. She did a small role in Nickelodeon. She's played Diane Keaton's mother in Looking for Mr. Goodbar. She's doing a lot of television stuff. She keeps busy. I wanted her to play my mother in The Fury, as she had done in Carrie, but we decided to stay as far away from Carrie as possible. She blew her wad on Carrie, even though the mother in The Fury was a better part. It's too bad.

You're now living with Steven Spielberg?

Who told you that?

I just heard that somewhere. I heard that you were living with Steven and his dog Elmer.

Our dog Elmer.

How did you meet Steven?

Brian set that up about a year and a half ago when we were doing Carrie.

Have you seen Steven's Close Encounters of the Third Kind?

No. I went to Mobile to visit for a while. I saw stuff being shot and I saw dailies now and then, but I'm so inexperienced when it comes to special effects and things. Steven wants me to have the whole experience. I know the script very well but I don't want to see any footage yet. I want to be surprised and I'm so looking forward to it. It's going to be a brilliant movie. I cried at the scoring session. I'm a very emotional person. Steven is brilliant, but I don't even know that side of him. I mean, there's this Joe Schmo off the street sitting here with me. He's this great guy and he eats junk food and, suddenly, I see this genius. I'm very much in awe of him.

Would you consider working for Steven?

I would love to work for Steven but, right now, I want to make it on my own first. I do not ever want to be known as "Steven Spielberg's girlfriend." First I want to be Amy Irving. I grew up as Jules Irving's daughter. Everytime I got anything in the theatre it was, "Oh, well, she's Jules Irving's daughter." Steven and I are very independent of each other and I have have my independence. For him to respect me, I have to do it on my own. We've been together a year and a half, and it's terrific; but I don't want to put any strains on it at this point. [John] Cassavetes wants to write a script for me, but he said only on the condition that Steven has to direct it, so that'll have to wait. I don't want to limit myself to not working with one of the top directors in the world by living with him. If I have to make a choice, I'd prefer to keep the relationship. Steven is producing a film called The Beatles 4Ever [ultimately released as I Wanna Hold Your Hand], and that film's director [Robert Zemekis] and writer had written a part for me. But because Steven's producing it, I don't get to be in it. They decided I'm too old. Steven doesn't think I can play 17 anymore but that's because he knows the woman, he doesn't know the child [Nancy Allen, cast as malignant Chris Hargenson in Carrie, wound up playing the top-billed role]. The Beatles 4Ever deals with the night the Beatles played The Ed Sullivan Show. They were staying at the Plaza, and it's like five separate stories of how these kids infiltrate. It's a wonderful script. They're talking to Carrie Fischer about it now.

When did you meet Carrie Fischer?

I met Carrie after Star Wars. George brought her over to the house one day, and she had studied for a year in England. We just got talking and became fast friends. She's about the best friend I have and it happened real fast. And then I went and visited her on her junket on Star Wars, and here she is visiting me on The Fury.

How did you get the part in The Fury?

I was going to do Big Wednesday which was a nice, really beautiful love story. John Milius is directing it. He is a friend of Steven's and a friend of mine. But he wouldn't test me for the damn film. I read it and I knew I was right for that part. So I fought my way into his office, I was really pissed off. I got in and I tested and, the next day, he offered me the part. I was so happy. Steven was in New York at the time with Brian, and I called him and said I got the part. He said, "Amy, you're gonna get a phone call from Brian in the morning that's gonna confuse your life a little bit." I said, "What?" He wouldn't tell me. The phone rings the next morning. It's Brian. "Amy, get on the plane to New York right now. [Producer] Frank Yablans wants to meet you. I want you to be in The Fury."

I had not read the script. I'd read the book because I knew Brian was doing it. But I didn't pursue the film because the character in the book is fourteen years-old. I thought, "Oh, well. It'll go to Jodie Foster." After the call from Brian, I flew to New York and nobody in the world had read neither The Fury nor Big Wednesday. I just had no idea what to do. I came home and my mother, my father, my agent and Steven passed pages around from The Fury. We weighed up a lot of pros and cons but when it came down to it, it was Brian. I felt like the Milius thing would have been a wonderful piece for me to do, but it also would have been very easy. The Fury has been the most challenging thing. I'm glad to be so challenged. I was also happy for the first time to be number one on the call sheet. Now no one can say, "Did they cut you out of your film?" because they can't cut me out.

Do you think the script to The Fury is better than the book?

The script is much better. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the book, a lot of different areas to go into. I think they really chose the right stuff to use. I was more into the psychic stuff than anything else. Maybe that's because that was my character, I don't know. All that stuff fascinates me. But it's very hard to make that sort of thing work on film. It's a clean script now.

I noticed that there are two endings in the script.

They just haven't really got a good ending yet. They don't know which ending they're going with. I mean, we didn't know the ending of Carrie till like a week before we shot it. That was the last thing we shot. We never knew how it was going to end. All the girls were bickering over who got to be in the last shot. I lucked out.

Have you enjoyed filming in Chicago?

I want to go home. I love Chicago but I've had a grueling schedule. I had been running barefoot every day last week through the streets of Chicago. I had run and run and run and run barefoot on the cement. I bruised my heel so I had to start running on the ball of my foot. I was in such pain, and there's Kirk Douglas running along and I'm thinking, "I ran every day before this thing, I did all my homework for this. I did physical work to be ready for it. I did my biofeedback, I worked on my psychic energy. I reached different states of consciousness so I can experience what it's like to be in a psychic state and receive." And there's Kirk running and there's me just crying with pain. After we'd done those tracking shots back and forth all over the place, they don't dismiss me and it was about four in the morning! I thought, "If I feel this way and I'm 23, Kirk [then 62] must really feel it. He better feel it! Why won't he admit it?" Then Frank came in and I said, "How's Kirk?" And he said, "Oh, he's doing sit-ups in his Winnebago." I found out later that he was kidding, but I believed him and he'll throw things like that.

I complain, "How many people do I have to watch die today?" It's emotional, it's draining. Kirk's been teaching me a lot. At first, I resented it. I thought he was the old pro coming in and telling me how to act. I have a very emotional scene and I was going off for ten or fifteen minutes working myself up into this state, getting in front of the camera and doing it. Then he takes me aside and says, "You know, you have the script down, you really know what you're doing -- so you don't need all that time to work up to it." And I thought, "My God! I have my ways of working and you have yours!" and I started to really not want lesson number ten from Kirk. Suddenly, as I started to really get tired, I thought of all the things he'd been saying about conserving your energy for when it's important. If it's a wide shot, don't give it all. Save it for when you have to do the close-up. I had been thinking, "Oh, I'm a youthful person. I can do it all the time." Then I found I couldn't. Kirk knows how to make sure you get it in the first two takes. He doesn't miss a trick and I love him. I just think he's great. He's very supportive in his positive energy towards me. He keeps saying, "You're going to have a brilliant career if you survive this film."

Did you know [co-star] John Cassavetes before this film?

No. We had rehearsed together a few times and he amazed me. At our first rehearsal, I'm pretending I'm crying on his shoulder and we really got into the scene. He's a very intense actor as I am, and we just connected. Then I'm supposed to kiss his eye which starts everything, you know. And suddenly the pressure in him builds up. He starts trying to get me. This wasn't written in the script. We had this little rehearsal room and he breaks every piece of furniture in the room trying to get me, and I don't have to act anymore. I'm screaming bloody murder and run up against this wall and it happens to be a fake wall and it starts falling down. I keep concentrating on, "Die, John, die," before he gets me and the energy was just so exciting. He has that kind of energy, and Kirk has it too. I wish John and I had more to do together.

How much rehearsing did you do?

We read through most of the film. My big scene with Kirk has been totally rewritten. A lot of it is action -- running stuff -- so we couldn't really go through a lot of it. Kirk and Carrie Snodgrass worked together, and we'd get to change lines that we think don't work for us. Brian's very receptive to that. He feels that since he surrounds himself with the best actors... well, if they can't bring it off, then there's something wrong with the line. We had to change a lot of things. He let us improvise a lot, which was wonderful. It was just nice freedom. It was scary sometimes, because you go into dailies and think, "Oh, God! I was a jerk. Why didn't I stick to the script?"

What did you do to prepare for the role?

They told me I was getting hooked into these machines in this school scene, where they read my brain waves and I telekinetically make a model train move. When you go into alpha, the alpha is turned into electric current. Brian had gone to check out this equipment. I said, "Did you go on it? What was it like? I want to try it." So they set up this meeting for me to go to this little institute where they had all these incredible machines. I got hooked up into it and it was kind of like in the film, because I went into 90% alpha right off. They said I have an exceptional talent. I called Brian and I said, "You guys gotta send me here. I gotta have a course." They said, "Okay. Go all you want." So I did an intensive course with them where I would learn how to get deeper into the different states of consciousness. First, I worked on getting into alpha which took one day. The next day I went into the next state which is theta, which is like the dream state while awake -- it's the very psychic state. I got to that really quickly. I just wanted to feel the sensation of what it is so I don't do phony things in the film. It's a wonderful therapy.

Are you easily frightened?

Remember when they were shooting The Exorcist and everybody said strange things would happen? And when they were shooting The Omen, strange things were supposed to have happened? When I was in my course with the biofeedback, they said, "Now it's really important for you to understand where things are coming from with the psychic energy, because you bring it to the surface and things can happen. You are not to be frightened by things happening. You have to understand them." Before the film started, a few things happened to me. I mean, things like making people bleed. I was in Hawaii with George and Marcia Lucas. I was walking down the street and I looked down and, suddenly, there was blood all over my foot. It was like an old cut I didn't even know I had anymore, and it opened and bled more than it should have. Then, a week later, I was driving along and I suddenly felt like I thought I was sweating and I looked in the mirror and I had blood flowing down my face. My nose was bleeding! Then I'd have dreams -- aghast people in my dreams. Those things can happen anyway, but I immediately started saying, "Amy, you're definitely taking your part too seriously now."

Just what Fox Publicity is looking for.

Yeah!

What are your plans after The Fury?

Nothing definite. I'm talking to somebody right now about a particular property I don't want to mention. And also, Frank and I are looking into something. He's really into getting me off the ground. I'm looking for my nice, quiet love story. I don't want to run around the streets barefooted or any of this stuff. I have never been so pyhsically abused in all my life. But it's wonderful, I love this kind of tired. It's wonderful to get tired, but it's a highly emotional part. I'm constantly at the height of emotions. I get so keyed up that I can't sleep. Sleeping in a hotel room alone -- it's such a horrible thing to do. Tonight's my last night. I think I'm gonna go back to L.A. and sleep for a week! But I love it. Brian's so good because I'm super-sensitive. All he has to do is raise his voice to me and I'll be crying in the corner. I can't take it. He's always really very sensitive to what I need. When you've got crowds watching you do something, it's hard to clear everything out. He's made it a lot easier on me. He speaks an actor's language, he really knows how to get it out of you in the simplest way.

Is there a part for you in The Demolished Man, which may be DePalma's next project?

Maybe if it's called The Domolished Woman. I really feel like what I ought to do is get out of this genre.

What do you think Brian DePalma has done for your career?

It's funny. When someone believes in you a lot like Brian does -- you never want to let him down so you always do your best work for him. I was frightened to death of this script practically every moment -- you're dealing with something that you can't really know, and we do a step beyond reality in trying to stay interesting and strong. I didn't want to be a Linda Blair. I didn't want to be a thing, I wanted to be a person. I was scared of it all. All I need is to see Brian sitting there. When he shot Carrie, he was Mr. Rock. He had so much pressure on him, he had to handle everything. Frank Yablans gets so much pressure off him. He takes care of things like coddling me and dealing with everything else, and he'll get out here and do second-unit directing. Brian has so much more freedom to do things and it's wonderful to see him happy while he's shooting this film. In Carrie, it was like, "Get me back to New York." You couldn't go near him. But now he has freedom, which is wonderful to have. Every once in a while, when I do something and he'll raise an eyebro to me, it'll be like the biggest thing. I don't want to let him down. I think that Obsession was Genevieve Bujold's finest performance. Sissy in Carrie, that was her finest performance. Margot Kidder in Sisters, her finest performanc and now -- Brian -- will this be my finest performance?