Feeling at 'Home'

Image credit: A Prairie Home Companion: Melinda Sue Gordon

Are you done with kids' movies?
Um... I don't want to cancel anything out, but there's, like, five movies that I'm looking at right now, four of which are indies. And they're all fairly dark. One's a thriller, The Last of Sheila — we're working on the script with Joel Silver — and I'm really excited for that. The original, I think, was made in the '60s. I'm not sure, I could be completely off. But Joel said, ''Don't see the first one!'' And I said, ''Okay, okay, I won't.'' But I don't want to jinx anything. [We're] just in talks! [Editor's note: Herbert Ross' original, starring Raquel Welch and James Coburn, was released in 1973.]

You've been working pretty closely with Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin. Do you feel like an apprentice to these masters?
Oh, yeah. Meryl and Lily, Kevin Kline... all of them are, in their own way, geniuses. We've been doing a lot of improv in this movie, and I'm not really used to that. So just watching the cast is such a great learning experience for me. And I really couldn't have asked for anything more than that. I want to have a career like Meryl's. I want to have a long career like that. That's what I aspire to. We've gotten close during the filming, and it's nice to know that there's someone on set you can go to, someone you look up to in the business that will sit you down and talk to you, take the time to actually care. Because a lot of people just pull at you and pull you in different directions 'cause they want something. They're nice to you for the wrong reasons. And, you know, you get jaded by that.

You've had a rough couple years, with your father going to prison and the tabloids constantly hounding you. Is being here like a summer vacation?
I feel like as much as I've pushed myself over the limit and been a workaholic when I shouldn't have been, it's all been a summer vacation — because this is what I love to do. And it's great therapy, I think, to be able to do these crying scenes and bring up everything that you have inside you and put it into someone else's words and just let go.

Have the paparazzi bothered you here?
They were here when I first came in, a lot of them. And it was kind of a shock. I walked out of my hotel the morning I was coming to the set and I was like, ''Oh my god! You just don't give up!'' The thing about the tabloids is, they're going to keep taking pictures and they're going to keep selling [magazines]. And I understand that. But 99 percent of the stuff [they write] is not even true. I'm more than willing to get on the phone with those people and say, ''If you want to write a story, fine, but then let me diffuse the lies a bit. I'll tell you what's real and what's not real. You can get it from my mouth to your ears.''

Okay, now it's time for the hard-hitting question. Are you going back to being a redhead after this movie?
Yeah. My natural color is strawberry blond with dark red and black [highlights]. It was a shock for me [to go blond]. When I first did it, I was like, change it back, now!