Theresa Russell always hoped to star in a Western. ''I wanted to stand there, waving a gun and saying 'Get offa my land,' '' she laughs. So after more than 20 years in films, the sultry actress finally gets The Proposition, a Euro-Western set in 18th-century Wales (see review on page 90), and what happens? ''I'm chasing all these cattle with a stick, and I don't even get to ride a horse.''
Acting, however, has been quite a wild ride for the 39-year-old actress. When she was just a Valley girl, Russell used to sneak into Universal Studios at night to hang out; she left home at 16 and, two years later, won her first role as a Hollywood mogul's daughter in Elia Kazan's The Last Tycoon. Since then, Russell has trotted the line between cinematic art (Track 29, Kafka) and exploitation (Public Enemies, The Spy Within) in a way few have tried. Her new movie, the black comedy Gentlemen Don't Eat Poets, opposite Sting, opened March 7 in limited release.
''I probably should've tried harder in the genre films. I'd be a lot richer,'' says the actress. ''My husband [British director Nicolas Roeg] kept telling me you can't play both sides of the court, and I kept saying 'Yes, I can, dammit.' ''
Russell, who has appeared in six of her husband's films, often lands what she likes to call ''the twisted sister'' roles: ''I try not to, but it's hard. You get put in a little hole. How many different psychotics can I come up with?'' She's proud of her most controversial part, a weary prostitute in Ken Russell's 1991 Whore. ''It needed a gutsy person, someone who could really have a go at it,'' says the director (no relation). ''Theresa was that person. She's not one of those starry Hollywood types.''
That lack of pretense is evident in conversation, as the husky-voiced actress constantly chuckles at herself -- and her decisions. ''I'm sure I have regrets. But I don't think about them,'' she says. ''Onward is the cry.'' Russell, who resides mostly in London with Roeg, 68, and their sons, Statten, 13, and Max, 11, is currently in L.A. looking for work. ''We'll see. They probably don't want me anymore,'' she says, sounding like a woman who has experience in picking herself up, dusting herself off, and getting back on her horse.
