By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
April 10, 2002
As she nears her 44th birthday on April 21, Andie MacDowell is a testament to how good you can look in your 40s. She stands almost 6 feet tall, only 5-foot-8 of that thanks to genetics. The other 4 inches are the result of a pair of shoes so sassy and beautiful they’d be at home on one of the ladies on “Sex and the City.”
They most certainly wouldn’t be worn by the headmistress MacDowell portrays in the charming British film “Crush,” which opens Friday. Kate is bright, loving and caring. But years of living in a small English town have driven the sensuality out of her.
Her best chums are Janine (Imelda Staunton) and Molly (Anna Chancellor), with whom she enjoys cigarettes, wine and discussing the frustration of trying to find the right guy. Often, Kate is the winner of the consolation prize: a big box of caramel chocolates given to the woman with the worst dating story.
Sitting on an overstuffed sofa at the Four Seasons Hotel, MacDowell maintains the slightly aloof aura of the high-fashion model she once was.
She is a Southern belle, but she is no pushover. When a photographer suggests she reposition herself so he can shoot her in a better light, she says, “I think the light is better here.” But when pressed, she politely moves to the suggested area and poses.
“I’m a people pleaser,” she says, almost apologetically. “It matters to me what people think.”
Dressed in a tight, powder-blue sweater and matching pants, MacDowell is undeniably beautiful. Her cheekbones are as impossibly sharp and refined as they were during her days modeling for Calvin Klein, but a few lines on her forehead reveal she is not a freak of nature. This is the look that makes men weak in the knees and that women want to copy.
Of course, there is a price for this kind of beauty. The athletic actress enjoys working out regularly in the gym. But on this day, her lunch is a brown, nutritional shake she insists is delicious.
This is not the meal you’ll find Kate eating.
“Kate goes through so much throughout the film,” says MacDowell. “In many ways, this is the most complex role I’ve played [since ‘sex, lies and videotape’].”
That’s a bold statement, since she’s appeared in critically acclaimed films such as “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and this year’s “Harrison’s Flowers.”
“I’ve been lucky enough to work with some amazing filmmakers and actors,” MacDowell says. “I’ve played some really great women, who inspire me.”
In its own way, this comedy–tinged with tragedy–is a buddy picture for women. But whereas Mel Gibson and Danny Glover bonded over bad guys and guns, these women use their rapier-sharp wits to push each other’s buttons.
Their happily dysfunctional party of three is jolted after Kate falls for a young organist named Jed. When they meet at a funeral, he informs Kate he once was her pupil. He is unpolished and cocky in the way that only the young and impossibly good-looking can be.
“My organ’s at your service anytime that you like,” he tells her.
At first, Kate’s friends are titillated that she has a 25-year-old lover. Then they are repulsed that their dignified, career-minded friend is falling in love and spending less time with them to be with someone they consider beneath not only her, but them.
“I can understand their feelings because here is this boy who has nothing in common with her,” MacDowell says. “They want to protect her from harming herself and everything she has accomplished. The movie is really about the friendship between these women more than it is about her relationship with Jed.”
Kenny Doughty, the English actor who portrays Jed, disagrees. No one would make a fuss if a 40-year-old man dated a 25-year-old woman, he points out.
“Andie and I have a difference of opinion about this,” says Doughty, who recently turned 27 but still looks like he could be borderline jail bait. “I think Kate and Jed could’ve had a fantastic life together. I don’t think the
difference in their ages or their social standings had to mean so much.
“He loved her with all his heart, and I think Kate loved Jed, too. But she had more to lose by dating someone she wasn’t supposed to. He didn’t have an established set of rules he felt he had to live by. He loved her and that’s all he needed to know.”
Doughty himself is in a four-year relationship with an older woman. OK, she’s less than two years older than he is. He doesn’t believe age should be a major issue.
Watching the two actors interact, you get the feeling he’s right. They banter easily and affectionately. While Doughty respects MacDowell’s talent, he isn’t in awe of her, as he was when he learned he had been cast as her leading man.
“Now that was a frightening day,” he says, laughing. “I was very familiar with her work, and here she was working with this unknown kid from England. But she went out of her way to make everyone feel equal.”
MacDowell has come a long way from her early film career, when she was cast as Jane in “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes” and then had her voice dubbed by Glenn Close when the producers believed her Southern accent was distracting.
“I’ve still got the accent,” laughs MacDowell, who is from South Carolina. “But people seem to understand me just fine now.”
