Cinema Confidential Interview
Denise Richards breezes through the door in a dark fitted ensemble. Her trademark features – deep blue eyes, full pouty lips, flowing brunette locks (recite the rest yourself) – are stunningly apparent. One could not help but inquire about her fashion. “Dolce and Gabbana,” she says when asked who made her couture clothing. She then pulls down her jacket to check the inside tag. “I’m not sure what it’s made of, but I love leopard.” Richards is in demand for her contemporary American femme-fatale allure, but keeps up her figure with a non-specific diet. “I can’t eat whatever I want, and I definitely like to work out. But this morning for breakfast, I had M&M’s with my coffee.” She pauses, then adds, “and oatmeal too.”
Her stirring style helped her widespread success in 1998′s “Wild Things” and as nouveau Bond Girl in 1999′s “The World is Not Enough,” which made her a household name. She’s currently using her fame to fill her working palette with projects such as “Empire,” an independent film co-staring John Leguizamo and “The Third Wheel,” a romantic comedy distributed by Miramax and featuring Ben Affleck. In her most recent cinematic effort, “Valentine,” from Warner Brothers pictures, she co-stars with David Boreanaz and Marley Shelton as the wilder one in a group of friends being tormented by a cherub-masked murderer from their past.
Richards is particularly partial to Valentine’s style of horror. “This is like some of those ‘Friday the 13th’ movies. It reminds me of films of the early 70′s and 80′s.” Her decision to play the role of Paige seems to be based on the ways her character deals with being simultaneously lusted after and disrespected by men. “Did you hear what the detective said to her? He’d get fired for that,” she says in reference to a scene where an overzealous investigator pulls a Clarence Thomas on Paige in his downtown office. Richards also refers to a scene featuring a fratboyesque chauvinist who asks Paige to “wax it.” “I had never heard that expression used before,” she admits. ” I think it was made up for the film.”
In her leisure time, Richards says, “I like to be at home because I just travel so much. I have four dogs, golden retrievers.” When asked about her most shameless indulgence, she responds, “A good margarita, a good red wine, I like expensive alcohol, but not a lot of it. I don’t like to throw up.” She can feel the interview edging towards other topics. She breaks in smoothly with “the nudity issue always comes up. It depends on the role.” Speaking of roles, in The World is Not Enough she played a knockout nuclear chemist. For those despondent souls who believe the portrayal stigmatized her serious actress potential, Richards has this to say, “She was a Bond girl; she couldn’t have been in nerdy glasses.”
Off-camera, Richards had a good time with her fellow cast-mates on the Valentine shoot. “Up in Vancouver we all stayed in the same hotel. It was fun, and it wasn’t some deep dramatic piece that we all had to prepare for.” In Valentine, Richards’ character and her friends are lead to believe that the killer is someone they mutually rejected in Jr. High School. Life experience has given her enough preparation for the scenario. “They nicknamed me fishlips; it was horrible,” she says about her former Jr. High associates. But Richards isn’t wielding knives; she has press junkets to attend. “It’s amazing how it starts that young – trying to fit in.” A smile widens her ambrosial lips. Publicists and agents wait patiently somewhere behind her. Her breed of vengeance: living well.
“Valentine” opens nationally on February 2nd.
Source: Cinema Confidential
This entry was posted on Friday, February 2nd, 2001 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Interviews, Valentine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.