20 Questions: Rebecca De Mornay

Rebecca De Mornay likes going in unexpected directions. Films as diverse as "Risky Business," "Runaway Train," "Trip to Bountiful," "And God Created Woman," "Dealers," "Backdraft" and "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" underscore the point. The 30-year-old actress' latest film is "Beyond Innocence," with Don Johnson, in which she plays a lawyer. According to Contributing Editor David Rensin, who met with De Mornay on a rainy day at a Sunset Strip hotel and who has seen "Risky Business" about 30 times, the woman defies whatever a priori notions you may have of her. Says Rensin, "Rebecca requested a table by a picture window in the empty restaurant--to watch the rain. Suddenly, she fixed her baby blues on me and said, 'I don't know if I'm in the mood for this.' But for a moment I could have sworn she'd said, Are you ready for me?' It was just my imagination. But either way, the challenge was inviting."

1.

[Q] Playboy: In the surprise hit The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, you play Peyton, a seriously disturbed individual. How much did playing her affect you?

[A] De Mornay: A lot. It was schizophrenic. She was very freaky and disturbed in a way that was almost unpleasant to watch. I guess that means I succeeded in the character. What was surprising was how much the audience cared about Peyton's predicament initially, and then how much it loved to hate her. In Japan, she actually turned out to be the heroine. The Japanese are in love with their children and feel they have to be protected at all costs. They recognized how much Peyton loved the kids. One male journalist said to me: "Ah, it's strange what Peyton did. It's hard for a man to understand." I said, "Yeah, well, it's a movie." He said, "Why didn't she just kill the family?" That was funny.

2.

[Q] Playboy: How did you play someone so connected to children without having had the experience of raising children of your own?

[A] De Mornay: As an actress you know that the primal emotions you'll be dealing with on-screen are ones you have experienced by the time you're five years old. You've tapped into all the major feelings: love, hatred, rage, envy, murderous passion. You know them as a child. And then you learn to repress them, slowly but surely, as you grow up. You bury them. The horrible thing about burying feelings is you never bury them dead, you bury them alive. As for not having had my own children yet, I'm glad. I'm still very self-absorbed, and the biggest gift you can give to kids is to be ready to have them.

3.

[Q] Playboy: As one who's seen both sides, describe the common ground between extreme success and extreme failure.

[A] De Mornay: I spoke at length to a Zen monk about this question. What he said came at the time I needed to hear it. He said that the notion of success and failure is a game society educates us in. The game is dangerous because the stakes are incredibly high. Few people win. You pay the price of worthlessness if you lose. Success is played out on the backs of others who are called failures. Winners are only winners in comparison with the losers. When you're really involved in the game without realizing it's a game, and you lose, you get the worthlessness. If you can realize that it's a game, it can be fun. That's how it is for me today. I was blessed because my first two movies demonstrated the game profoundly. Risky Business was a huge success. That's very rare. My next one was a huge flop. At the time, the flop felt awful, but nothing happens to me that isn't illuminating. It took a while to figure out. Now, I'm no longer emotionally attached to the results of the game I play because I understand it has nothing to do with me personally.

4.

[Q] Playboy: How tough is it to convince yourself of that?

[A] De Mornay: The results of a movie have to do with my financial future, period. When The Hand That Rocks the Cradle became a success, did I suddenly become a better actress at that moment? After the success of Risky Business I was given a career that lasted nine years until my next hit. That's very nice--a nine-year ride on one movie. I did a lot of other interesting things, too. But I was moving on that movie because it was a hit. I'm grateful. Our financial livelihood is a matter of serious concern. Had it not worked out so quickly, I probably would have gone into something else. As it is, even if The Hand That Rocks the Cradle hadn't been a hit, it didn't matter since I've worked continuously since Risky Business. And with very good salaries.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Oscar Wilde said "One's real life is often the life that one does not live." What's your real life like?

[A] De Mornay: I'm living a life very different from my real one. I suspect most people are. I would be a nun. [Smiles] Really. The concerns that are deep in my heart are addressed in the monastery. Running around to see how we can help or what difference we can make is mindless activity. You radiate your position. Every person has tremendous influence on everyone else, even by just being in the same room. So it becomes very important to do something for yourself. As Krishnamurti said, "Don't just do something, sit there." And if you really sit there, then you start to breathe. You start to feel your own breath. And when you start to feel your own breath, you start to feel connected to your environment. And when you start to feel connected to your environment, you start to feel less frantic and lonely. And when you start to feel less frantic and lonely, you start to feel kinder. And when you start to feel kinder, you start to feel happier. And when you start to feel happier, you begin to make a difference.

6.

[Q] Playboy: When God created women, what did He get right and get wrong?

[A] De Mornay: A woman is a wonderful creature. The dynamic of men and women, the beauty and the sadness of what men and women get right and get wrong and the misunderstandings that happen can often be illuminated directly in sexual intercourse. The man has to become hard, the woman has to become soft. The man has to push in and withdraw and push in and withdraw, the woman closes around him and embraces him. The woman fears abandonment (continued on page 146) Rebecca De Mornay (continued from page 121) and aggression, the man fears suffocation. Neither comes to anything without the other. And when they respect each other, they dissolve and become one. The mystery of men and women is beautiful; the war created by misunderstanding is sad. Even if you don't understand these things, you're illuminated instantly in the act of sex.

7.

[Q] Playboy: And what do you know for certain about love?

[A] De Mornay: That's the only question that really interests me. I know three things: The first one I realized when I was sixteen. There had been a bombing in Beirut, and I saw a photograph in a newspaper of a woman stretched out across the rubble of this bombing site, with her face contorted in a grimace of misery because her husband was underneath the rubble. I stared at her face and asked myself: Is there anyone that I know or have ever known that I would feel that way about? At that point, I couldn't answer yes. The second thing I also learned when I was a teenager. I had many boyfriends and I was in love a lot, supposedly. I didn't want to make love because I had a certain idea about the first time. But I was involved in some serious embraces. [Smiles] Finally, I went to this girl who I knew had slept with somebody and I said that during these embraces I had felt such and such. I asked, "Did I have an orgasm?" She said, "If you have to ask, then you didn't have one." The third thing I know is that there's only one kind of love that everyone's really turned on by. It has to do with forgiveness.

There are so many feelings that fall under the blanket of loving someone. Yet we have only one word to describe them all. There are so many different ways to love, different gradations. Like a haiku. Yet, whether it's sharing silence or wild sex, the element of forgiveness is what we're all looking for.

8.

[Q] Playboy: Describe Leonard Cohen and then describe yourself when you are with him.

[A] De Mornay: I'll compromise with you, because I'm reluctant to talk about my personal life. Someone asked me, "What's your favorite color?" and I had to give four adjectives. Then I was asked, "What's your favorite animal?" and I had to give four attributes. Later, I was told that the four adjectives for color were how I saw myself, and the four attributes of the animal were what I was looking for in the opposite sex. So, my favorite color is black. I said it is mysterious, strong, feminine, unknowable. My favorite animal is a wolf: magnificent, lethal, misunderstood and mates for life.

9.

[Q] Playboy: What do older men know that younger men don't?

[A] De Mornay: They may not have the stamina, but they usually get it right the first time.

10.

[Q] Playboy: We suspect that most beautiful women can sense when a man wants them--because most men probably do. Who's more intriguing: a man who's obviously desirous, or a man who is but hides it?

[A] De Mornay: I don't like a lot of hiding. You can hide yourself completely. Hiding is for advanced people. What turns me on, besides this thing called chemistry--which is completely undefinable--is if I can sense that someone is into life, is into sex, is into compassion, is into justice, is into being alive. I'm not putting down attention to form, but there's something to the idea of breaking form. How many rules have you broken lately? You can read it in somebody's eyes. I want that person who can balance true integrity with abandon, with courage. I'm not interested in somebody who just, yeah, loves to fuck, loves to enjoy life. You really examine the thing on a deeper level and it comes out. Everything that you are, you see right away when you meet someone. You can't hide too much unless you're an advanced game player.

11.

[Q] Playboy: How do you reward a guy who's interested in your mind?

[A] De Mornay: I give him something to think about.

12.

[Q] Playboy: Writers tend to gush when describing you. They use "dark allure," "face like a saucer of cream," "sympathetic but repugnant," "she can shoot that look across the room that says 'I want you now.'" What does your face say when you're not trying to make it say anything at all?

[A] De Mornay: I just got a video camera. I've been shooting myself, setting it up facing a mirror, looking into the mirror. I was surprised because it was one of the few times I've seen myself on camera without makeup, with no pressure to perform. And I talked. I invented a monolog that was close to my heart at that moment. What I saw was this girl, a woman, whose face seemed extremely tender, sad and compassionate. That's probably not what would normally be associated with me.

13.

[Q] Playboy: What does the car you drive say about you?

[A] De Mornay: [Laughs] It's a black 1992 Accord. Camel interior. Automatic. Ordinary. Nondescript. It's terrific. Completely dependable. I don't want anything else from my life. I thought for two years about what kind of car I wanted. I don't think for two years what kind of guy I want. I just find myself involved. I used to drive a 1965 Mustang. I loved it. It was an outlaw thing. But I got tired of it, especially when it was raining and the windshield wipers did not work well. I realized the outlaw thing had lost its charm. I craved dependability, nonpompousness, non-self-promotion, non-razzle-dazzle. I wanted a car that delivered without a lot of fanfare, that wouldn't let me down. You tell me what that says about me.

14.

[Q] Playboy: Fill in the blank: I'm still looking for someone to--with.

[A] De Mornay: To take off with. People assume I have a lot of freedom, that I can just pack up and split. When I started as an actress, working as an apprentice on Francis Coppola's One from the Heart, I was standing by the commissary table, munching candy, and Francis came up to me and said, "Would you get on a plane this afternoon and go to Bangkok?" And I said, "Yeah." He said, "But would you really? Would you really be able to leave everything behind?" This is what I ask myself and anybody I meet. Most people, when it comes right down to it, cannot leave the scene they've structured for themselves--a scene they often complain about. I think that I can. And I think that I will.

15.

[Q] Playboy: You were married for ten months to screenwriter and novelist Bruce Wagner. We've read that he pursued you relentlessly and that you married him because it was the only way you could figure him out. What did that exercise tell you about yourself? And what part of marriage doesn't stop when the marriage is over?

[A] De Mornay: I have been afraid of marriage for most of my life. I wondered what it was supposed to give me. Bruce and I didn't join ourselves forever, ritually, in the eyes of God. We ran off to Las Vegas and neglected the spiritual side of it. Now I realize that that's what interests me about marriage: the courage to make that pledge before God. I'm not speaking out of turn when I say that Bruce and I were not supposed to be married. We were just trying to figure out something about ourselves. But now I would like to make that pledge with the right person.

What hasn't stopped is the exquisite memory that you and this other person, with tremendous courage and in spite of tremendous fear, dove off a cliff together. Especially if you're a person like me who's afraid of commitment and intimacy. You don't tend to take too many leaps off cliffs. It's a little dangerous. I'm happy both of us weren't wrecked.

16.

[Q] Playboy: About which do you feel most insecure: career or relationship?

[A] De Mornay: It used to manifest itself more in my career. Now it's in my personal life. Honestly, an acting career demands the least amount of commitment. You have to commit to three months of a job. After that, you can quit being an actress. It's kind of ideal. [Pauses] I know I'm not in it for just a three-month fling. I keep coming back. I have to earn a living. But it's like you sometimes play little games with yourself when you're in a serious personal relationship. You say, "I'll give it two more months and if it doesn't work out, it's over."

17.

[Q] Playboy: What would you never say over the phone?

[A] De Mornay: "Let's get a divorce."

18.

[Q] Playboy: What part of a man's wardrobe should he always pay more attention to?

[A] De Mornay: His pants. There's the yuppie suit trend, with these baggy pants. It's not bad, but you want to see a little more than what the suit pants show. The tight jeans look is also gauche. The idea is to find the pants that hang so that you can see but not see, that fit but don't fit.

19.

[Q] Playboy: We always hear that there are no good scripts, especially for women. What are the writers getting wrong--or does the fault lie higher up?

[A] De Mornay: Depends on your expectations. Mine are very low. I don't consider Hollywood the place where the new Shakespeare is going to be found. It's not like, "Oh, I've read ten bad scripts, but here's one that rivals Chekhov." They just don't. Film is a populist art form. Yes, occasionally there's an offbeat film that is thought-provoking. Film is the dream. The dreams being written are the dreams of our people. How bad are our dreams? The American dream is bad right now. It's the American nightmare. I'm hopeful it will turn around.

20.

[Q] Playboy: A year ago you described yourself as "a beautiful mess." Do you still feel that way?

[A] De Mornay: [Laughs] Now I'm poetry in motion.

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"What turns me on is if I can sense that someone is into life, is into sex, is into compassion."