PRESS ARCHIVE
In Style - July 2000
Calista kicks back

She suffers the frenzied trials and tribulations of Ally McBeal every week. But when her work is done, the real- and very private- Calista Flockhart turns down the noise.

(You’ll never guess her idea of a great Saturday night)

It's Saturday night at a futurama bowling alley in LA's San Fernado Valley and Calista Flockhart is bravely donning the requisite vintage—in this case, extremely vintage—blue-and-red shoes. "Let's not think about all the people who have put their feet in these,“ she says with a wry wince as she slips the relics over a pair of prized pink cashmere socks. Not that she's timid about the sport itself.
"I'm a kick-ass bowler," she warns a handful of easygoing friends. "You watch." In her blue cords and long-sleeved T-shirt, the petite, petal-cheeked actress could easily pass for one of the high school kids in the next lane, but when she grabs the marbled ammo, it's with the gusto of a woman who has lived a little and knows what she wants. She surveys the pins without mercy, licks those pouty lips, and- whoosh, crash- strike! Flockhart twirls around and grins. "See?" she says.

Indeed, Flockhart, an intriguing mix of pixie dust and iron will, seems to be on a roll. A certifiable TV symbol as beleaguered Boston lawyer Ally McBeal, she dazzled American theatre audiences last year with her fierce turn in the Neil LaBute play Bash; and she'll be stirring things up again in the upcoming film Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her, in which she plays Christine, a free-spirited lesbian tarot-card reader whose girlfriend (Valeria Golino) is dying. Not that Flockhart, who sports a belly-button ring for the role, is one for psychics herself.
Rather, what drew her to the character was her fascination with "the fragility of human beings. If I weren't an actor, I have a feeling I'd be a psychologist.”

Of course, a slew of reporters and associates have tried to play pop psychologist themselves, dubbing Flockhart "shy" and "unknowable". And though she admits she is sometimes reserved ("Just like everyone else in the world, I take my time making friends and opening up to people"), tonight she's warm and playful, high-fiving her friends and chatting freely with fans. When one teen drums up the courage to ask her to write a funny note with her autograph, she admits she's stumped. "I can't be funny on the spot," she says, and that's what she writes, with the slightest of blushes. Paul Rudd, the Object of My Affection star who appeared with Flockhart in Bash, marvels later at her sweetness with admirers. "Once, right after a performance, a girl came up and burst into tears about how difficult high school was," he recalls. "Calista must've been exhausted, but she listened." Greg Germann, who plays the glib Richard Fish on Ally, attributes that generosity to the fact that Flockhart "still seems surprised" by her stardom.

"That Audrey Hepburn energy isn't a put on," he says. "Calista is naturally effervescent; she has that indescribable spark. She'll never be able to take in how much she stands out."

Well, she does have some idea. When Ally McBeal entered the Zeitgeist, so did the actress, who — plucked from the relative anonymity of the New York theatre world — admits she wasn't quite prepared for all the attention. During the first season, Flockhart was branded everything from the latest It Girl to a post-modern That Girl. And after venturing to the 1998 Emmys in a pink Richard Tyler sheath that revealed her very thin frame, the star found herself swirling in rumours of anorexia. "All that garbage, it was really disappointing. But I focused on my work and maintained my sense of humour."

Some of that resolve can be credited to her parents. Flockhart was born in Freeport, Illinois, but her father Ronald's work as an executive for Kraft Foods bounced the family — including mother Kay, an English teacher — from Iowa to Minnesota to New Jersey. To soften each new landing, Kay signed Calista up for everything from flute to, yes, bowling lessons. "I was struggling a lot with being the new girl, so I reinvented myself. I had a very large fantasy life going on. My mother wanted me to make friends," explains Flockhart, who was also steered towards cheerleading at high school in New Jersey "She had to drag me kicking and screaming into that, but she was right."

At Rutgers University in New Jersey, though, it was Flock-hart herself who instinctively chose acting—and the play Picnic as her bold campus debut. Her confidence could be shaken and stirred, however; at Enchante, a local restaurant where she worked as a cocktail waitress, she admits, "I was a notorious screwer-upper." Spilt gimlets behind her, after graduating in 1988 she headed for New York where she did a Broadway turn as the painfully shy Laura in a 1994 revival of The Glass Menagerie. Hollywood soon took notice and she was offered the role of politico Gene Hackman's drippy daughter in The Birdcage—and, in 1997, the chance to audition for Ally.

Though Broadway was, and is, in her blood, she hasn't lost affection for her TV alter ego. "I love that Ally is struggling and that she wins and loses—that sometimes she's not such a great person," says Flockhart. "She's allowed to be not perfect." The role has proven "to be everything I wanted", she adds with a grin. "That doesn't happen very often."

Jumping into the world's biggest terrarium required a major period of adjustment, Flockhart acknowledges, but at night she can retreat to her two-bedroom Cape Cod-style home, nestled in LA's west side. "It's small—it suits me perfectly," she says. There, she pops movies featuring favourite actresses like Bette Davis and Carole Lombard into the VCR or picks out a book from her library, where Tolstoy volumes share space with favourites from her childhood such as David Copperfield. "I like to read before I go to sleep."

She bought the house two years ago, but still browses market stalls and renovators' stores such as Restoration Hardware to add to her eclectic decor. Taking the time to select the still sparse furnishings is a luxury. "Decorating is a slow process," she says. "I don't just randomly fill my house up. It's going to take me a while."

But 14-hour workdays leave little time for nesting. As a child, Flockhart says, "I'd pretend to be sick so I could stay home and watch The Brady Bunch and I Love Lucy." Does she ever play hooky now? "No," she says, adding with a con­spiratorial smile, "but it's not a bad idea. When you have a really big workload, you have to make time to play and hang with your friends. I have to keep reminding myself of that."

Flockhart relishes going out with mates in Los Angeles. "I'm always looking for a new great little restaurant." Sushi and pasta joints are high on her list, along with Mexican spots ("I like margaritas") such as kitschy El Coyote on Beverly Boulevard.

Her look is Gap jeans and woollen jumpers—"I have my old standbys that feel like pyjamas. I roll out of bed, put them on and go to work." She rarely wears make-up, save for occasional powder and her favoured Clinique Black Honey lip gloss. "Calista does a lot of grunging around," says Germann. "That's her New York actor's foundation." Still, after the 1998 Emmys furore, she did cut loose a year later in a chic Ralph Lauren ensemble (a long yellow skirt with a tailored white cotton man's shirt tied at the waist).

If she's in the mood for love, she's not saying. But Flockhart, who was engaged at university and has since been linked romantically with Ben Stiller and American Beauty director Sam Mendes, does admit to one thing after pointing out some toddlers nearby. "Yeah, I want a family," she says with a shrug. But with whom? "I'm drawn to people who are talented and I'm hugely attracted to people who make me laugh." A comedian perhaps? "I'm not specific on the make-me-laugh track, just make me laugh!"

Whoever it is, she'll hold her own. "Calista has a really disturbing sense of humour," says Rudd with a titter. "If you're crude, she's game to join in." Flockhart has reason to feel free. She has financial stability (there was a time when "I couldn't pay two months' rent all at once, so it's nice to be in­dependent"), clout ("I can be a little more picky now. I have to be passionate about a project or I won't do it") and a firm conviction that she'll be able to direct some day. "Some stars tend to play things safe to protect their image, but there's nothing Calista wouldn't try," says Things You Can Tell producer Jon Avnet. "She's pretty fearless." Flockhart, who has proved that point in the bowling alley, has given the ball a rest. "Just for the record," she says with a giggle, "I won."
Date of this item added :
2007-09-02