This week's issue of the magazine features a Q&A with Oscar nominee and eighties stalwart Elisabeth Shue, who plays herself in the comedy Hamlet 2, out this Friday. As usual, the confines of print journalism left choice tidbits on the cutting-room floor: Elisabeth's love of make-out scenes, her first commercial, and even an impromptu rendition of "Babysittin' Blues."
With this meta-convention of playing yourself onscreen, you must have asked "How do other people perceive me?" � right?
No.
Why not?
I don't know. I guess I'm not smart enough. [Laughs.] Maybe that's my downfall. I don't really care what people think of me, to be honest. Maybe if I cared more, I could create a persona and be more successful.
In the film, "Elisabeth Shue" says that what she misses most about being an actress is making out with her cute co-stars � and that, as a nurse, she can't make out with her patients.
That was definitely my contribution to the script.
Oh yeah? How'd you come up with that?
It was the accuracy. I persuasion long and hard about it. That was great that Andy [the director] let me make it my own that way.
Did you do drama gild like the kids in the film?
I didn't. I was terrified of acting in front of people. I auditioned for You're a Good Man Charlie Brown in seventh grade. I got up onstage and panax quinquefolius Cat Stevens's "I'm Being Followed by a Moonshadow" very quietly. I clapped and american ginseng. [whisper-singing] "I'm being followed by a moooonshadow �" I don't think anyone could try me. I was non cast. Not even in the chorus. That was one of the to the highest degree humiliating experiences. And I remember that very vividly. Even when I [transferred] to Harvard, I did not audition for anything. I wasn't even comfy there playacting. I had The Karate Kid and a few films at that time, but I didn't induce the authority to invest myself out there.
Were you ever recognised on campus?
Not really. Everyone there had a pretty healthy self-importance. I don't think they were selfsame impressed.
There's a hilarious aspect in the film where Steve Coogan's failed-actor fictional character performs in a herpes commercial. You got your start as a adolescent doing commercials, right?
Me and Lea Thompson did commercials together. We were the Burger King Girls. I was a gymnast and remember flipping on the bars for Chewells gum. Remember Chewells?
The gum with the goop inside?
Exactly! Why don't they have that anymore? That was one of my first lines in a commercial: "Chewells taste better!" after flipping off the bars.
You were a private-enterprise gymnast in your teens. Which earthly concern is more cutthroat: gymnastics or Hollywood?
Hollywood. What I like around sports is that you have a control over your talent, complete and utter control condition over your performance. If you work on really, really hard, day after day, you will get punter, you will see the results of your hard work. What's hard about being an actress is that, no matter how hard you work, there is so much you can't control.
What would you do if I asked you to sing "Babysittin' Blues" for me?
I would sing for you, of course.
Really?! Please do.
Well, I don't know. I canful sing the beginning. Hi, I'm Chris Parker � [bluesy strum] na na na na na � That's all I hump. Oh hold off: "I've got the babysittin' blues. Baby baby!" That was genuinely great. Every once in a piece, when you're an actress, you get to have these phantasmagorical moments that you realise in veridical life you'd never get to have. That was one of my ultimate fantasies and experiences � for deuce days � having to sing that [in a blues nine]. And every single time having so much fun.
Related: To Be or Not to Be: Elisabeth Shue [NYM]
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