PRESS ARCHIVE
Glamour - March 2002
Calista Close Up

Calista Flockhart tells Oliver Jones how motherhood, a sense of humour
(and maybe the odd glass of red wine) have helped her to handle Hollywood.


Calista Flockhart, famous actress, face of Ally McBeal and mother, is
sipping a frothy cappuccino in a tiny café a stone's throw from the set of her
smash-hit E4/Channel 4 sitcom. Her huge chocolate-brown eyes are smiling as she
talks, animatedly, about the ridiculousness of finding herself under the daily
scrutiny of the press. "Two of my best friends are male," she says, "and almost
every time we step out of the house together, I'm linked romantically to one of
them. It used to bother me, but now I just think it's absurdly funny. We look at
the pictures together and say, "Well, you look like dog shit. Why on earth were
you wearing that?'"

This is a refreshing change for the woman who used to be shocked and disturbed by
the half-truths and lies she read about herself on a daily basis. It's four years
since the launch of Ally McBeal, and since that day she seems to have become
a world-wide hot button for controversy, including criticism that her character
represents all that's become 'silly' about post-feminism. She's been singled out
as an example of how Hollywood is forcing actresses into a dangerous state of thinness.
And then, last year, she courted controversy when she adopted a baby and chose to be
a single mother.

Calista has taken this all with dignity and humour. Where most of us would have curled
up into the foetal position and refused to leave the house, she went on The Late
Show with David Letterman and told the press to kiss her 'skinny white ass'. Today,
said ass is covered in baggy khakis, which she's wearing with a black T-shirt and grey
jumper adorned with food stains. She calls it her 'Liam sweater' after the love of her
life- her one-year-old son. "I'd wear this sweater when Liam was a baby and he would spit
up on the left shoulder," she recalls. "You'll see stains down most of my sweaters. I throw
them somewhere, forget they were dirty, then six months later I'll put them on again."

In it's infancy, Ally McBeal was at the centre of a Zeitgeist. Calista graced the
cover of Time as the face of post-feminist narcissism. In they years following, the
show lost some of it's buzz, until last year when Robert Downey Jr came aboard to give it
a much-needed new lease of life. The on-screen chemistry between Calista and Robert was electric.
I ask her if they still keep in touch? "We haven't seen much of each other because we're so busy,
but yes, we do keep in touch."
Now into it's fifth season, Ally has endured several
cast overhauls. Robert Downey Jr and James LeGros (Mark) have left the show, along with Lucy Liu
(Ling). And Lisa Nicole Carson (Ally's flatmate, Renee) will be making sporadic appearances.
The show, it seems, is starting to take on the personality of its star: that of a survivor. Now
producers are hoping that an infusion of new blood, including rock-star-turned-actor Jon Bon Jovi
as a builder Ally falls for, will return the show to pop-culture central.
"I was very surprised
that Ally became an icon for women," she says. "The intention of the show was to entertain people.
Nobody could have predicted it would have a profound impact on people's lives. At least it did for
a while. I don't think it does so much any more, but who knows? I try not to pay attention to that
stuff, anyway."
There have been lots of rumours about the Ally McBeal girls, including some
claiming they don't get along. But Calista vehemently denies this. "Are you joking? I count them among
my very dear friends. We hang out, they come round for dinner. I can't cook, so I just pick something
up from the store. The atmosphere's very laid-back. And there's usually a lot of red wine involved."

So what does she bring to friendships and what qualities does she admire? "Wow, that's hard to answer!
I think I'm probably a good listener and in others I respect vulnerability, intelligence and the ability
to learn. This doesn't just go for women, but for all people."

There has been much talk about Calista making an appointment on the London stage. The production she was
originally linked with was The Philadelphia Story, and she says it's always been a dream of hers
to do theatre in the Uk's capital.

In January 2001, however, Calista switched the focus of her life away from work and friends and adopted
Liam, undoubtedly the catalyst behind this new, fresh-faced and happier version of herself. She joined a
growing list of powerful women in entertainment who have chosen to do motherhood alone, among them Jodie
Foster, Diane Keaton and Rosie O'Donnell.

For Calista, the decision to adopt had nothing to do with trends. "Choosing to be a single mother can be
perceived as brave by some, perhaps foolish by others," she says, her voice much lower than it seems on
TV. "But I didn't think about it one way or the other. I just knew in my heart that it was the right thing
for me and the right time to do it."

Calista has talked of her desire to have another child; whether this will be on her own isn't clear. But
unlike Ally, man-hunting is the last thing on Calista's mind. "I'm not preoccupied with finding someone
and I'm certainly not worried about it," she says, with a sigh. "But still, I'd love for it to happen,
to meet somebody and have a partner for the rest of my life. I really feel at this point in my life that
if it happens it would be great, and if it doesn't happen, well that's fine, too."

Young Liam's presence can be seen on more than just Calista's sweaters. Indeed, he has taken over her entire
life. She was never big on the Hollywood nightlife, but now she banishes even the thought of a night without
nappy-changing and baby food. "After I put Liam down, I'll drink a glass of red wine, get into bed and read;
I can't watch the news anymore. I've just finished Tess of the D'Ubervilles for the second time. And I
love Jane Austen and Tolstoy, even though he was a misogynist pig!"
She can't bare to be parted from Liam
in the day either and he accompanies her to work. "Between work and Liam, I don't have time for anything else,"
she says. "If I'm lucky and he falls asleep in my lunch break, I can get away and work out or sit in the sauna
for a while."

Born in Illinois, Calista (named after her great-grandmother, Calista is greek for 'most beautiful') never had
a chance to settle down in one place as a child. "We were constantly moving around," she says. Her father was
an executive at Kraft Foods Inc and her mother was a high-school English teacher. "I was always reinventing
myself," she says. "I'd be enormously shy, and then I'd move and say, 'OK, this time I'm going to be really
outgoing.'" One such reinvention occurred when she joined the cheerleading squad at Shawnee High School in
Medford, New Jersey. "I was very passionate," she says. "When our team lost, I'd cry."

Her career as a sports booster was short-lived, but it sparked a taste for the spotlight. She graduated from
Rutgers University in New Jersey and moved to New York, where she spent a decade in various states of employment-
including one job collecting towels and teaching aerobics in a Manhattan gym- and made friends she is still close to.

"Two of my best girlfriends are from New York. We were actresses and we all struggled together." Now the girl who
never had anywhere to call her own is settling down in LA. "I'm finally starting to feel really at home here," she
says.
Many women say they find their twenties a time of stress and uncertainty, and they come into their own in
their thirties. I ask her if, at 37, age has brought happiness. "It's too much of a generalisation to say you're
happier in your thirties. There were many good and bad things in my twenties, I'd say the same for my thirties, and
it will probably be the same in every decade thereafter! Everybody finds peace in their own time. Some people say
that when you're 50, you're like a vintage wine- you just get better and better. Hopefully that's true for me. Only
time will tell."
Date of this item added :
2007-09-02