20 Questions: Rosanna Arquette

Actress Rosanna Arquette, at 25, is this generation's answer to Jane Fonda and Meryl Streep. Aside from such movies as the hugely successful "Desperately Seeking Susan," America knows her as the inspiration for Toto's 1983 hit song "Rosanna," sung by her then boyfriend, keyboardist Steve Porcaro, and also as Gary Gilmore's wildly sensuous girlfriend in "The Executioner's Song." Claudia Dreifus caught up with Arquette in New York. Her report:

"Rosanna Arquette dresses in mink coats and punk outfits, but her face gives away the show: It betrays every small feeling, every nuance of emotion. One thing it clearly registers is an almost physical loathing of the press. Trouper to the end, though, Rosanna talks openly; whatever's on her mind at a given moment tumbles out."

1.

[Q] Playboy: Can it be true, as we've heard, that you're insecure about your looks?

[A] Arquette: Yeah. I have buckteeth. I hate my thighs. I don't think I'm pretty at all. On the other hand, Madonna has an absolutely exquisite face. She's a beauty. Sometimes I feel like a shmoo next to her!

2.

[Q] Playboy: You two became close during the filming of Desperately Seeking Susan. What did you chat about?

[A] Arquette: Mostly girl talk. She's really secure. She wants to be a star, and she's very comfortable with that and works hard at it. She's great with the press, because she doesn't give a shit what anybody says about her. I read a terrible thing about her and she said, "Oh, don't worry about it. Doesn't mean anything." I mean, I'd be a wreck! But Madonna's a symbol right now; she's a thing instead of a person. I will never be that big.

3.

[Q] Playboy: But you are on the verge of serious stardom. Talk with any critic and he'll say, "Rosanna Arquette is going to be the star of the late Eighties." It sounds as if you dread what's about to happen to you.

[A] Arquette: I dread losing privacy. Last year, people would stop me and say, "Hey, aren't you Nastassja Kinski?" But now they're stopping me and going, "Hey, Ro-sann-ah!" There's something both nice and weird about it. My grandfather, Cliff Arquette, was well known from playing Charley Weaver on The Jack Paar Show and Hollywood Squares. He suffered a heart attack in Los Angeles and people kept asking him for autographs while he had to get to a hospital. Isn't that sick?

4.

[Q] Playboy: Do you hang out much in Hollywood?

[A] Arquette: No. I'm a very private person. I don't go to Hollywood parties. Never have. I live in a very rustic canyon house with mice, a fireplace and wood-burning stoves. As far as I'm concerned, the Hollywood scene is full of shit.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Since you've hit the big time, are people trying to get close to you because you're "a name"?

[A] Arquette: Yeah. But I'm also getting the opposite, too. Suddenly, people are really weird with me. I talked with Steve Porcaro this morning and asked him, "Did that happen with the band, too?" And he said, "Oh, yeah, they're all expecting you to be an asshole so that they can start treating you differently." I don't know Sissy Spacek personally, but she seems like the kind of woman I can admire a lot. She lives away from Hollywood and she does her work and has her baby and her husband--and she shows up at the Oscars looking incredibly gorgeous. She's comfortable about herself, and so am I, and I hope to stay that way.

6.

[Q] Playboy: One of the nice things about becoming a star is the money you're making. Any plans for your movie-made fortune?

[A] Arquette: I have a production company and I'm going to start developing scripts for myself. I give a lot of money to charities--Ethiopia, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which works against the Ku Klux Klan, Tom Hayden's Campaign for Economic Democracy, and a physicians' group against nuclear war. I also help my family out a lot--my siblings are going to school. But, you know, the more money you make, the more you spend. My agents get ten percent. My manager gets another ten percent. Lawyers get money; accountants and the Government, too. By the time you count it all up, I end up with only about ten or, at best, 15 percent of what I make.

7.

[Q] Playboy: Does it bug you that just about every director you've worked with has made an effort to show you topless?

[A] Arquette: Yeah. But I don't do that anymore, unless it's important to the script. Screen nudity was a real problem for me when I was with Steve. He hated to see me undressed in movies.

8.

[Q] Playboy: Well, you certainly made an impression that way. Martin Scorsese confessed in print that he has long been obsessed with you. In a recent issue of Film Comment, he and writer Jay Cocks went on at length about the time they were staying at a house in the desert, writing a screenplay and fantasizing about you. Cocks described himself and Scorsese as "two obsessed guys far from home, dwelling on a vision of unbounded carnality." Do you see yourself as "unbounded carnality"?

[A] Arquette: No. He didn't mean it like that. Scorsese happened to have a part for me and he liked me as an actress. He's obsessed with me as an actress, not as a body or a thing. I've got to make that very clear. He never tried to fuck me. He's not that kind of guy. He's very happily married.

9.

[Q] Playboy: Something we haven't read about in the many recent articles about you is your outspoken views on current issues. For instance, you speak out in favor of maintaining legalized abortion. Have you ever had an abortion?

[A] Arquette: Well, as a matter of fact, yes. And my mother went to have an abortion when she was pregnant with me. I mean, she was on her way, and then the nurse told her to go out through the back door because the place got raided and the doctor got arrested because it was illegal. This was during the Fifties, when women used to go to these old buildings and someone would do it with a knife and a newspaper. I mean, some butcher. I've had two abortions: one when I was much younger and one two years ago. I was deeply involved with a man the second time. We made the decision together that it wasn't the right time for us to have a baby. It wasn't a pleasant experience. We were going to get married but the moment just wasn't right. The abortion ended up being OK, because I broke up with that person. So, you know, I wouldn't want to have the marriage break up and have a two-year-old running around.

(concluded on page 156)Rosanna Arquette(continued from page 137)

10.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of man do you find attractive?

[A] Arquette: First, a man who's secure with himself. Then, someone who's very creative: the crazy-genius type. I've always been with one. Also, eccentric and sensitive men. A man who can cry and not be ashamed of it. Men who love to be intimate and tell secrets. Before I turned 25, I was addicted to a Svengali type of man: an older man who knew everything, took complete care of me but never accepted me. The man I'm with now [record producer James Newton Howard] is nothing like that. We're best friends and, no matter what, we tell each other what's going on. I've known him for a long time. We were friends before we were lovers.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Your relationship with Porcaro was different. The rumors are that he was the great love of your life but that he wasn't very supportive of your work; he wanted you to keep house. True?

[A] Arquette: He says that it isn't true anymore. But I don't know. I think we wanted different things. A man has to be really strong to deal with my career. Because, you know, I need a "wife," too. He wasn't terrible to me and we're still great friends. It's just that we both grew up. But, you know, I don't want to keep talking about my ex-relationship. We're really good friends and, in fact, my boyfriend, James, is one of his best friends. He's got a new life and he's really happy. He's straight and he's got a girlfriend and we're pals. End of story.

12.

[Q] Playboy: Defend monogamy.

[A] Arquette: It's real important for me. I want a relationship where I can be very true. I've had the others--where my mate was not monogamous, while I was. That's awful. I never was a person who had one-night stands. People, probably readers of this magazine, may think, Oh, how sad for her. But I've never been laid in my life by someone I wasn't in love with--or at least had a deep friendship with. I've never made love to a stranger.

13.

[Q] Playboy: First, you'd be surprised who reads this magazine. But, tell us, what's wrong with one-night stands?

[A] Arquette: There's nothing wrong with them--if that's your decision. That's just not my choice. You're taking on a lot when you make love with someone--not just his body and his sperm but his whole vibration. I couldn't do that with someone I didn't know real well. It would be real empty. I have a lot of friends who get laid a lot and I find that fascinating. I talk to them about it and it's, like, wow--a trip.

14.

[Q] Playboy: You grew up in one of the hippest families of all time. For those of us who were plagued with hopelessly square parents, tell us what we were missing.

[A] Arquette: My mother, Mardi, is a poet and was active in the peace movement. My father, Lewis, is a terrific improvisational actor. They believed very strongly in raising their kids to be free and happy and creative. In lots of ways, I'm a child of the Sixties. I've always known about sex, and it was never a very shocking thing to me. We lived in a nudist colony for one summer when I was a kid. We also lived in a commune in Virginia for a while. I knew what an orgasm was at a young age. I was very uninhibited and my parents always said, "The body is a beautiful thing and it's important to know about your body parts." My mother told me where to get birth control when I made the decision I wanted it. On the other hand, my parents never had the attitude that it was OK to screw anyone you wanted. Their attitude definitely was not "Go fuck your brains out." It's ironic that even though I grew up around such relaxed sexual attitudes, sex wasn't all that easy at first for me. My first sexual experience, for instance, was terrible. I was 15 and it was with someone I'd known all my life and it was kind of a forced situation. On a cot. In a basement. I remember saying, "I hate this." Well, most people I talk with say their first experience is weird. And also, in those days, I experimented with a lot of drugs. Acid, whatever. I did that kind of thing until I was about 19. When I got real serious about my career, I stopped doing drugs altogether. I don't do anything now.

15.

[Q] Playboy: Did you leave home around then--when you were 15?

[A] Arquette: Yes. I grew up fast. In my head, I was ready to leave the nest--though when I look at pictures of myself then, I seem like such a baby. I hitchhiked from Chicago to California with some friends. It was great--though I wouldn't suggest it to anyone these days. I worked for a while at Renaissance fairs. For a while, I lived with my aunt and uncle--and then I had my first serious relationship with a man. It was also my first experience with the Svengalilike man I'd be involved with a lot after that. He was 33. It was pretty sickening.

16.

[Q] Playboy: Why did you recently go through a drug-rehabilitation program?

[A] Arquette: It wasn't really for me--it was for a friend. This was 16 months ago. My friend had a cocaine problem, so I went through the program with him. He got completely straight from it and I learned an awful lot. I was raised around people who had drug problems, so that sort of atmosphere affected me and the relationships that I chose. I was never addicted, but I got involved with people who were. One thing I decided, because of the program, was never to use anything--no matter how "recreational"--again. And, as a result, I haven't smoked, drunk or done anything else since--one day at a time.

17.

[Q] Playboy: Were your parents into drugs?

[A] Arquette: My mother wasn't. If I came home stoned, she'd get unbelievably mad. But I would get high with my father. Like when I was 15. [Laughs] We would smoke joints together.

18.

[Q] Playboy: Speaking of paternal figures, tell us about having Charley Weaver for your real-life granddad.

[A] Arquette: I didn't really know him. He lived on the West Coast. We lived in Chicago or Virginia. We saw him once a year. He brought neat presents.

19.

[Q] Playboy: Is your father proud that you've gone into the family business?

[A] Arquette: Well, I don't know why, but my father hasn't spoken to me in a year. He's never called to congratulate me or anything. I don't understand it and I probably never will. But it's good in one way: It's made me grow up. I have a really incredible therapist and I've learned a lot from him, such as why I've chosen to be with a lot of men who are exactly like my father. I've chosen people who are not at all accepting of me and what I do. It's strange, because my father was so supportive of me when I was a kid. I can't believe I'm talking about this.

20.

[Q] Playboy: Why therapy?

[A] Arquette: It's good to talk about your life with someone who's objective. I recommend it to anyone who's working stuff through. I'd rather not give out the details, but it saved my life. I go. James and I go together, too. We go to this guy. His name is Don. He's helped me let go of things and go on with my life.

"I've never been laid by someone I wasn't in love with--or at least had a deep friendship with."