20 Questions: Barbara Hershey

Barbara Hershey says she's left the past behind. So we won't mention it, except to say that the only thing about this provocative actress that hasn't calmed down is her career. Hershey's films include "The Stunt Man," "The Entity," "The Right Stuff," "The Natural," "Hannah and Her Sisters" and, currently, "Tin Men." Contributing Editor David Rensin spoke with her recently between pictures. "Barbara has two vices: coffee and curiosity. During the interview, we drank a lot of the former. Afterward, I fielded her questions."

1.

[Q] Playboy: What's the most memorable rumor you've heard about yourself?

[A] Hershey: That I wanted to eat my son's placenta. How do you defend yourself against something like that? [Laughs] For the record, I didn't eat it and I never wanted to. That anyone would even publish something like that is pretty silly. The terrible thing is that it puts you in jail as an actor. People think of you in one light. That's unfair. It was deadly to have highlighted a lifestyle that I was just passing through.

2.

[Q] Playboy: How are you teaching your son, Tom, the manly arts? Will you show him how to shave?

[A] Hershey: I'm not teaching him any arts, but I've thought about that. Sometimes he needs a man, and I can't act the role. I can only be aware of those needs and try to introduce him to people who can fulfill them. I have one male friend whom I sometimes call for advice. He has been very close to us both, a force in Tom's life in terms of the manly arts. But Tom is very male, anyway. He'll probably teach himself how to shave.

3.

[Q] Playboy: Sum up the Sixties.

[A] Hershey: They were necessary: We could make our own rules. I didn't have to eat white bread. I could eat whole-wheat. I could bake it myself. I could grow the wheat. You could take it as far as you wanted. The bad part of the Sixties and Seventies was the drugs. I saw a lot of horrible things happen. I've tried drugs, but I've never been an addictive personality. For instance, I never took a drug by myself, ever. It's been 15 years since I've even smoked grass.

4.

[Q] Playboy: In Tin Men, your character is a pawn between Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito. Have you ever been fought over by two men in real life? Isn't it every woman's fantasy?

[A] Hershey: Yeah. It's not fun. You can have fantasies about things you never would want to have happen. The fantasy here would be the passion of it, that two men would desire you. In reality, it inflicts a lot of pain. I've never actually watched anyone come to blows over me. Lots of times, fantasy and reality are better being separate.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Can you walk down the street today without being recognized?

[A] Hershey: Sure. I can walk into a laundromat and no one thinks anything of it. Or I can walk down the street and make people look at me. Sunglasses are definitely an attention-getter. Actually, I'd like to be less of a jerk when people recognize me. I've been working on that, because I do crave the recognition.

6.

[Q] Playboy: What aspect of the movies still doesn't make much sense to you?

[A] Hershey: You constantly see people hitting each other, being shot, dying. In reality, it's so rare to witness any kind of physical violence. If you saw someone get shot in reality, it would take a long time to recover. We don't often see that reaction in a movie. And when's the last time you really saw a car chase? Perhaps it's the fantasy aspect of movies that satisfies on some primal level--stuff that you don't want to experience. Probably, people just want to be entertained and those things are so basic that you can escape without any real involvement.

7.

[Q] Playboy: In The Right Stuff, you played Chuck Yeager's wife, Glennis. What pointers did Yeager give you on your character?

[A] Hershey: Because I joined the movie at the last minute and had no time for research, I asked Chuck to divorce himself from certain details about his wife--and he did. For example, in one scene, Sam Shepard, who played Chuck, and I pick up each other at Pancho's bar and do a fantasy with each other before the audience realizes that we're married. I know that Chuck and Glennis never did a fantasy out in this bar. So I asked him, "Does that bother you?" And not taking himself too seriously, he said, "No, the essence is true. The feeling is true, and that's all I care about." That was generous. He'd also call me Glennis. He brought me quail that she had cooked and told me about their lives. He was great to me. Took me flying. It was the only time I've ever felt confident. I didn't even care if I died. I thought, Well, if I die, I'll die with Chuck Yeager.

8.

[Q] Playboy: How can you tell when a guy has the right stuff?

[A] Hershey: I tend to be attracted to talented people. Beyond that, I can't figure it out. I've tried. Why this guy? Why not that guy? I've tried to talk myself into attraction sometimes when I think a guy would be good for me but I'm not really attracted. [Laughs] I believe in love at first sight, though I don't really know if it's love. There's something irrational, animalistic and delicious about it. It's fun to feel it, whether anything happens or not. It makes you feel very alive. But I don't attach much seriousness to it until later, if it still feels good.

9.

[Q] Playboy: How long must a relationship last in order to be successful?

[A] Hershey: We measure success and depth by length of time, but it is possible to have a deep relationship that doesn't always stay the same. It evolves into a friendship or it ends. But that doesn't mean it wasn't real or fruitful. However, perhaps because of my upbringing or mores or society, I also can't quite live by what I just said. I also believe that if something is real, it will last. Making movies is always a great lesson in this area. You go through this intense thing a minimum of 12 hours a day. There are outrageous situations. You see people at their best, you see them at their worst, and you quickly know upon whom you can depend. It's like a lifeboat. And sometimes--I'm not necessarily speaking sexually or romantically--intense relationships happen. You cry in each other's (continued on page 176)Barbara Hershey(continued from page 111) arms. And then you walk away at the end of the film, and you may never see these people again. It's always bothered me. I wondered if I was being insincere. I've come to realize that I'm not. The relationship is just finite.

10.

[Q] Playboy: What can you do best with your best friend?

[A] Hershey: My best friend is a man I was involved with for six years. Nobody you'd know. We're not involved now. I don't know why. I guess we love each other really completely and we've been through a lot together, and we speak a language with each other that I've never found with anyone else. I can tell him things. If I go through a weird experience, I can talk to him about it. Just the other day, I called him because all of a sudden it hit me, after all this time, that I was in the movies. I'd watched some movie on TV or something. So I called and just left that thought on his machine. He told me later he laughed. I don't know if I could express that to someone else as I could to him. He understood my moment of joy.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Is it possible to be happy in Hollywood?

[A] Hershey: Boy, oh, boy. Pauline Kael once said that Hollywood was the only town in which you could die of encouragement. Brilliant. The town is so industry oriented, even the waiters have their eyes on the movies. To be happy, you must have something fulfilling in your life that has nothing to do with your work, because there's that terrible tendency to wait for the phone to ring. I want my life to feed the work. I don't want it to be something that happens only between jobs.

12.

[Q] Playboy: What are Woody Allen's love secrets?

[A] Hershey: [Laughs] I wouldn't presume to know. But I can say one thing: He really loves women. And I don't mean it just in some lascivious way. He deeply loves women. He likes their company; he enjoys them. He's one of the few people who can really write roles for women.

13.

[Q] Playboy: Do you make friends easily?

[A] Hershey: Easier now. I've been very shy my whole life and that puts people off. I can handle that better now. I realize I need people more. Shyness is a misused, sweet word for something that isn't so sweet. It's more like self-involvement. You're very concerned about what people think of you. When you're not, you extend yourself instead and are curious about someone else. That's the basic difference. I haven't conquered my self-involvement, but I am more curious and less fearful. Let's just say I have different fears. Better fears.

14.

[Q] Playboy: Is bad acting contagious?

[A] Hershey: Yes. I've seen good actors become bad actors. Acting is half talent and technique, which is half a matter of learning it and half who you are--half what you perceive, half what you're capable of understanding. If you surround yourself with insipid things, you're going to become insipid. If you're afraid of love, then you won't be able to express love on film. Most bad acting happens on television. Those actors often exhale at the end of sentences. And then there's a certain kind of look that's stamped out and accepted. I'm always afraid it's catching.

15.

[Q] Playboy: Which section of the supermarket do you always avoid?

[A] Hershey: [Laughs] The imported, canned-items section. Also the cleaning stuff.

16.

[Q] Playboy: Everyone's looking for the answer to life. What have you found?

[A] Hershey: When you go through something that really hurts as a kid, you think you will never recover. I know now that the pain is not going to last forever. This applies to joyful experiences as well. As one gets older, there are fewer absolutes and more perspectives.

17.

[Q] Playboy: What's on your night stand?

[A] Hershey: Books and magazines, usually. I've been trying to get organized. [Disappears for a moment into the hotel bedroom] A lamp. A tape player, a dictionary. Incense. The Paris Review. A TV remote control. An opera review from the Sunday New York Times. And a list of things to do.

18.

[Q] Playboy: What's the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for you?

[A] Hershey: A friend went on a trip once. I said, "Pick a spot and take a breath of air for me there." He took a breath of air for me on the Pyramid of the Moon in Mexico, outside Mexico City, and he was hit by lightning. He was actually knocked off his feet. He survived, so it wasn't a tragedy. But it was pretty romantic. [Laughs] I'll be careful the next time I ask him to do something for me.

19.

[Q] Playboy: You once said, "When I'm 30, I'm afraid of being thrown out with the trash." Now that you've passed that age and are still with us, what scares you?

[A] Hershey: I'm afraid of being lazy and complacent. I'm afraid of taking myself too seriously. My dad died a few years ago. Afterward, I really examined my life and thought of things that would make it fruitful, so that at the end, I could look back and say, "This was a good life." And my conclusion was to try my best to really live, to take every chance to expand and grow. That means doing things that are scary. That's another reason I moved to New York. I wanted to scare myself, to challenge myself with the unknown. I think I've managed to do that pretty well.

20.

[Q] Playboy: Fill in the blanks: If God had wanted us to----, He would have----.

[A] Hershey: If He'd wanted us to be perfect, He would have made us perfect.

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