Interview by STEVE RAMOS
It may have been the most exhilarating moment of Jennifer Jason Leigh's career, and she wasn't even on camera. In front of a packed house at Seattle's Crocodile Club, rocker John Doe invited Leigh onstage to sing a few songs with his band The John Doe Experience.
Leigh and Doe were in Seattle to begin filming on the movie Georgia, a story about struggling Rock singer Sadie (Leigh) battling to break out of the shadow of her successful big sister Georgia (Mare Winningham), a Folk music star. Leigh was nervous to the point where she could barely swallow, but it took only a brief moment in front of a screaming crowd for her to feel at ease.
"I was having the time of my life," she says between puffs on a cigarette, speaking recently at a Los Angeles hotel. "It's so much fun. Singing is a great thing to do. It's so powerful. That's what's so great about Sadie is that she loves it so much, but she doesn't have the voice. She's so naked and raw up there and in love with what she's doing."
Leigh is describing her latest role, but she could very well be describing herself. At 33, she stands alone in Hollywood as an actress who consistently takes chances by playing troubled, ugly characters. Roles as a hooker in Last Exit to Brooklyn, a narcotics agent who falls victim to drugs in Rush, self-destructive writer Dorothy Parker in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle and a pill-popping, booze-swilling magazine writer in last year's Dolores Claiborne have made Leigh the working antithesis to a movie industry that prides itself on attractive, feel-good characters.
Barbara Turner, Leigh's mother and the screenwriter for Georgia, understands her daughter's fascination with unsavory characters as a means of discovery.
"Jennifer has always been a very private person," Turner says. "I always thought that it was her way of very safely exploring that other side, because when she finishes she can go home and just restore herself. I think she feels maybe it's important for those people to have a voice and to be considered, but that's just a guess."
Notorious for the amount of research that she puts into a role, Leigh sees each of her characters as distinct and different. She agrees that for the most part she plays women who live hard lives, the kinds of lives you wouldn't want to live yourself. But she explains that her various roles are connected, that these are the type of people she wants to personally learn more about.
"I think a lot of the women I played are people who, if you didn't know them, you'd just put off in a box somewhere and label them," she says. "I don't think that any group of people should be labeled or boxed or made generalizations about because I don't think generalizations apply to anyone. So those are the people I care about, those are the people I want to understand and they're the ones I am the most moved by."
Leigh's latest role certainly fits her qualifications. A down-on-her-luck singer, Sadie has to copy her favorite musical artists because she doesn't possess a voice of her own. Making matters worse, sister Georgia is an established star in the music industry - and Sadie has to watch her sister become more and more successful while her hopes for a career fade away. Sadie is a character Leigh thought up some years ago, instantly felt a response to and couldn't get out of her mind.
"Sadie certainly lives on the edge and really gets herself out there in a way that's different in how most people would," Leigh says. "She's so fearless and she's such a fighter. She yearns to be anyone but who she is and she admires her sister who is so unlike her but who she just wants to be."
Sadie may look like another troubled character in Leigh's filmography but, at a closer look, she unlocks a door into Leigh's personal life. Leigh is a middle sister - Mina, the youngest, is also an actress, while Carrie, the oldest, is a returning college student. Growing up with a sister who's a successful actress is difficult, and Leigh has spoken to the press before about Carrie's alcohol and drug problems and Leigh's attempts to help out.
If Leigh's personal history sounds a lot like the Georgia screenplay, Turner admits to drawing parts of the film's story from her family.
"In some respects there's some of them in Sadie and Georgia," Turner says. "I suppose because Jennifer's been so successful for so long and she has two sisters. But I think what I got from them more than anything was Sadie's adoration of Georgia, because they both adore Jennifer. They love her very much, so you don't feel tension when they're all together."
Leigh helped produce Georgia and says she might produce again. But for now she's mainly interested in acting and begins work soon A Bastard Out of Carolina, the debut directing effort from actress Angelica Huston. There are too many different women Leigh wants a chance at portraying to step away from acting now.
"That's why I want to play different women all the time," she says. "There's a thread that's similar, but they're all very different. A lot of that comes form my mom because she makes my research look like kindergarten and she has such a love for her work. So I grew up with a woman who was incredibly commited to the work she did, and that's how I learned that work has to come from a true place."©