The Wright Way

Actress Robin Wright has defied Hollywood with her unconventional style and wisdom, Now, after big praise for "Forrest Gump" and a role in the upcoming "The Crossing Guard," she proves she can have it all - on her own terms.

By John Brodie

The first time Robin Wright met her Forrest Gump costar Tom Hanks, she was stripped down to her underwear. The occasion was a screen test for Brian DePalma's ill-fated Bonfire of the Vanities, and Wright was gunning for the role of Sherman McCoy's mistress the part Melanie Griffith eventually won. "It was humiliating," remembers Wright.

Cut to three years later, when Wright tested opposite the Academy Award-winning star of Philadelphia again. This time, the ruggedly pretty blonde was up for the role of Jenny Curran, the tramp with the heart of gold who remains Gump's lifelong object of desire. Demi Moore and Nicole Kidman had already refused to test, but Wright wanted the part so badly that she was willing to face Hanks a second time.

However, when Wright showed up for her screen test on the Paramount lot, she was hardly the image of a femme fatale. In fact, she was eight months pregnant with actor/director Sean Penn's child. And while the thought of Tom Hanks prattling on in his best stupid-is-as-stupid-does accent opposite a zeppelin-size Wright does not sound like the stuff of good drama, Forrest Gump's director, Robert Zemeckis, knew he had found the woman who could play Hanks' true love.

"I have a very good maternity dress," confides the 28-year- old actress with a smile.

With critically acclaimed performances in State of Grace, The Playboys, and now Gump, Wright could easily graduate from starlet to star. But every time the limelight draws near, the former teen model and soap opera actress either dives into an esoteric independent film (as she did when she followed The Princess Bride with the virtually unseen Denial) or devotes herself to raising her and Penn's two children (daughter Dylan, 3, and son Hopper, I ).

"I like the whole package [script, director, costars] to be good" is how Wright explains her picky approach to roles. "It's a rarity that that happens, so I end up not working a lot. As long as I can keep doing the lesser-sold roles, I will. But I'm sure there will be times in the future when I will take roles for the money, and there will also be times I want to go off the edge and do something extremely abstract."

Gump was one of those times when the whole package was in place. "I don't think I consciously pass on studio movies," Wright says. "At the end of the day, you choose a role because of what it makes you feel, and that depends on where you are in your life.'

Wright's penchant for evocative material has caused her to tum down a number of mainstream projects that would have cata- pulted her into the select sorority of box-office divas who are known by their first names alone Julia, Demi, and Geena, to name a few. Most recently she passed on the opportunity to play millionaire Bruce Wayne's love interest in Batman Forever in favor of the leading role in a small romantic drama called Loved written and directed by best friend Erin Dignam (who directed Denial) which Penn is producing and may star in as well. She's also turned down other high-profile parts, in such blockbuster films as Jurassic Park, The Firm, and Born on the Fourth of July And this fall she shied away from following in Audrey Hepburn's footsteps in Sidney Pollack's upcoming remake of Sabrina.

But thanks to her star turn in Gump, Wright now gets calls for the same projects as better known actresses like Jodie Foster and Bridget Fonda. She is already being touted as a likely candidate for a Best Actress nomination. And this winter she will follow Gump with a supporting role in The Crossing Guard a somber drama about the repercussions of a drunk-driving accident. The film stars Jack Nicholson, Anjelica Huston, and David Morse, and is directed by Penn.

She describes the experience of working with her significant other as no big deal because the duo have similar opinions about what makes a good movie. "You have preconceived notions going in," explains Wright. "And you wonder how it's going to be, because this person knows you so well and you know them so well. In that sense [The Crossing Guard] wasn't so shocking. It was like eating lunch. We have the same tastes, the same truth barometer, which made it very comfortable on the set. And that's what you look for in a director, period."

Sadly, her cerulean-blue eyes and nice curves often consign her to playing the beautiful foil to an intense, expressionistic lead like Tom Hanks' happy idiot in Gump or Gary Oldman's sociopathic Irish mobster in State of Grace. "Most actresses are put in that position until they break through," says Erin Dignam. "People have not seen Robin at all. So far she has only used the talent in her baby finger."

Indeed, when Wright has the opportunity to be the center of attention, as she did in The Playboys, she demonstrates an incredible capacity for vanishing into her roles, a quality she shares with one of her favorite actresses, Meryl Streep. In that 1950s period film, Wright flawlessly plays a headstrong, small-town Irish girl who has a child out of wedlock and runs off with a roustabout (Aidan Quinn) rather than marrying the child's real father, the village constable (Albert Finney).

Like Streep, Wright has little problem with accents. She has already executed such toughies as an Irish brogue, a Hell's Kitchen New Yorkese, and several south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-line vocal stylings. Wright admits to being a gifted mimic who as a child did impressions for her mother, a Mary Kay Cosmetics saleswoman at the time. According to her pal Dignam, she also does a wicked impression of Penn, but when asked to scrunch up her face and talk tough during our interview, she laughs politely and passes.

In terms of celebrity, Wright seems to have come full circle on the issue. As a teenager growing up in Los Angeles, she remembers loving the movie Fame and wanting to move to New York to become a dancer. But after a childhood spent in Texas, the San Fernando Valley, and the idyllic seaside community of La Jolla, CA, her first break came on the Los Angeles-based soap opera Santa Barbara. Wright, then 19, had just moved to Maui to work as a cook when her agent called with the news that she had landed the part of Kelly.

"Santa Barbara merged into trying out for sitcoms, and that led to auditions for John Hughes films," Wright says wistfully. "I lost them all to Molly Ringwald, and that was a disap- pointment for about a year."

Deprived of the uplifting experience of working opposite Anthony Michael Hall and Emilio Estevez in such cinematic gems as Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club, Wright nevertheless persevered and was seen on Santa Barbara by a number of directors often when they were home sick in bed. Dignam discovered her on the soap; Woody Allen saw her there as well. During her stint on the show, she won the role of Buttercup in The Princess Bride, and director Rob Reiner remembers her flawless English accent, unflagging work ethic, and frail beauty reminiscent of the young Julie Christie.

"When she first met Andre the Giant, she screamed and ran in the other direction," recalls Reiner. "She was this little thing. Only 20. And she ran and hid. I think Gump was a great launching pad. Now she's being considered for all the roles she deserves."

For her second film job she chose to star in Denial, the story of a woman thinking back on a youthful, manic love. It was during preproduction that Wright met Penn, who was set to play her lover; he was married to Madonna at the time. But Jason Patric appeared opposite her instead, and the two were reportedly intimate offscreen as well as on.

It wasn't until Phil Joanou's gangster film, State of Grace, that Wright and Penn finally hooked up. Watching that movie is a bit like spying on a first date. There is a sweetness and slow burn to the romantic scenes the couple share. One even catches Wright smirking when their two characters are chatting about their romantic pasts. "You were married?" Wright teases Penn.

To date, the only heavy-duty love scenes Wright has done (with the exception of one youthful dalliance into T & A called Hollywood Vice Squad) are in that film and with Penn. In her mind, her private life and her decision to avoid nude scenes are intertwined. Even in Gump, where in one instance Jenny Curran is working as a stripper in a G.I. bar, she sings "Blowin' in the Wind" with her body tucked behind a guitar. "I would have made a lousy stripper," comments Wright. "I'm just not very comfortable exposing myself."

She makes this last observation not only in reference to her feelings toward nudity in film, but when apologizing for being so evasive about her five-year relationship with Penn. Although the press tends to portray her as the fairy princess she once played, the tabloids usually present him as a toad. (This summer's rumor had Penn squiring supermodel Naomi Campbell around L.A.) However, the supermarket headlines seem to conflict with the commitment Penn and Wright have made to each other. According to Wright, they alternate projects in order to keep their young family together. When she was at work on Gump, Penn and the kids were on the set. When he was shooting Carlito's Way, the family lived together in New York. (This partially explains Wright's short list of credits.) Penn is currently dedicating himself more to directing than acting; he recently signed a three-picture deal with Miramax. And Wright is excited about starring in Loved, which will begin shooting this winter.

Their union could join Hollywood's long list of onscreen and offscreen collaborations like Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman, Vincent Minnelli and Judy Garland, Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, and even Blake Edwards and Julie Andrews. "More like John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands," quips a colleague of the two, the inference being that Penn and Wright will continue to choose idiosyncratic material and be better known in art houses than at the multiplex. Translation: critical kudos and no box office.

But unlike Cassavetes and Rowlands, Penn and Wright have no qualms about working within the Hollywood system. The couple recently bought a house on the coast after Penn's home burned in last year's Malibu brush fire. And now that daughter Dylan is three, she is beginning to grasp and enjoy what her mom does for a living.

"She is hooked on The Princess Bride," Wright says with equal parts pleasure and embarrassment. "She loves Inigo Montoya [the Mandy Patinkin character] and says that speech all the time: 'You killed my father! Prepare to die!"'

Like most moms, Wright brightens when talking about her daughter, who is beginning to demonstrate an uncanny knack for material. "She should run a studio someday. She could run one now," says Wright.

When the two read stories together, Dylan acts like a smart development executive and points out parts that would be good for her mom.

"Like what?" I ask.

"Curious George," answers Wright. "Dylan says, 'You could play the monkey."'

BAZAAR NOVEMBER 1 9 9 4 p 184

last updated August 29th 1997