Spotlight on Ashley

The actress refuses to be stereotyped as a typical starlet. Here, Ashley Judd discusses her passion for fashion, activism, literature and more.

By: Jesse Kornbluth

Ashley Judd is giving a dinner party. Thomas Jefferson is seated next to Jesus and across from Bobby Shriver, Bono's between Mother Teresa and Karl Marx-- you're getting, I hope that this is a fantasy dinner, an all-star event that turns into one big Now--and there are writers, artists and "one wonderfully articulate woman who represents everyone who never had an opportunity."

Where does the hostess sit? "Prostrate at the feet of Martin Luther King Jr."

Does she make a toast? "Definitely. I salute my husband [Scottish race-car driver Dario Franchitti] for his self confidence and self-possession."

And what is she wearing? A trickier question. Ashley is not only has a special wardrobe room at home in Tennessee, but she had so filled it with racks of clothes there's barely enough room for another hanger. Of course, she has first name, kissy-kissy relationships with the designers she favors, but she also has a firm grasp on their history--indeed, the entire history of fashion. So think modern, but with vintage resonance.

Which isn't a bad description of Ashley herself. Many an actress can score points by quoting a shard of the too-sensitive-to-live poetry of Anne Sexton--Ashley can also quote from Searching for Mercy Street, the shattering memoir of Sexton's older daughter. And she can transition effortlessly from shameless celebrity name-dropping to quoting her maternal grandmother’s folk wisdom: "When things are bad and getting worse keep a cookie in your purse."

Because her range is so vast, you're always a little off-balance when you're with Ashley. Blame it on Hollywood. Her most successful movie role had her married to a man who was not only wrong for her but intent on destroying her; off-screen her marriage is rock solid. Her surprises? Not the stuff of tabloids. They're intellectual and spiritual-just what you don't expect.

"You know what's really important?" she will say, apropos of nothing. "To turn yourself upside down everyday. Let everything drain to your head. Because when you're upside down, you suspend the aging process."

"Like Lady Mendl," I counter, because one of the games this woman seems to push me into is: I too can play in the conversational big leagues. "Know who I mean?"

"Of course," she says. How she says this is key. Curt and dismissive is what I deserve. But Ashley is earnest--or , because she knows that earnestness works best when self-deprecation follows on its heels, she puts it as, "I'm a whore for the truth." And in our conversation, the truth is very much on her mind.

This is in part because our first meeting was in another reality: a bus trip through the Midwest to promote AIDS awareness with Bono and his co-conspirators Bobby Shriver and Chris Tucker. The intent of the Heart of America tour was to remind Americans of a conflagration in Africa: 6,500 people dying each day of AIDS, another 9,500 infected daily. The message was brutal--and so was the trip. Think windy and cold, no meals to speak of, a stream of appearances in drafty theaters and overheated newspaper conference rooms. Think Bono, sallow from overwork and lack of sleep. And Ashley, incessantly drinking herbal tea, with Dario just off to the side, beaming with support and love.

And then hold one image: Backstage in an Indianapolis theater, Ashley, Bono, Dario, Bobby Shriver and Agnes Nyamayarwo, an African woman who has been living with HIV for a decade, standing in a circle. And who is the one who leads them in prayer? Not the Irish bard of the Kennedy-clan activist, but, surprisingly, the Hollywood actress. And not for a few seconds, as a showy gesture. This woman testifies and then goes on stage and asks the crowd to "pray for Bono, and cover him, for he is anointed."

That image might make you think something wicked: In the movie version of her life shouldn't she be wearing gingham? But Ashley is all about confounding expectation. She may wear sweatpants and nightgowns when she's at home on her farm in Tennessee, but when she's out, she's the poster girl for crisp. Tonight she is wearing a white Armani shirt, Buzz Jones jeans--"Samuel [L.] Jackson's costumer hooked me up with these. There's a panel below the knee that gives the jean a nice line"--and Prada sling backs with a slightly pointed toe. What's most significant, however, is virtually unseen: "I'm wearing Dario's Aryton Senna [arguably the 20th century's greatest Formula One racer, killed in 1994 when his car hit a concrete wall] cufflinks." And that sparks a rush of confession. "Yes, we're married. Yes we have sex. But now he lets me wear these cufflinks. And, after, we stand together, remove them from the shirt and carefully put them away."

That's the only thing she's really careful about. In her work, Ashley looking for the kind of passion she witnessed in her friend Salma Hayek, when she produced and starred in Frida. Ashley played photographer Tina Modotti in the film. She rolled the dice with Blackout director Philip Kaufman (known for racy fare like Quills) and had a heightened creative experience working on the film, due in theaters this fall. And she hopes she'll find magic yet again on Broadway later this year, when she will likely star with Mark Ruffalo and Ned Beatty in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

The theater presents special challenges. First is one that may, at last give women a reason to resent her: "When I'm working, I cant keep weight on. But I would have to gain weight for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I don’t like to see modern bodies in period pieces." And then there is the sheer size of commitment, for which she'd have to hunker down and play the same part, eight times a week, for six months. Why would she agree to such a long stint? "Cherry Jones [a Tony-winning actress who co-starred with Ashley in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood] told me that, depending on the play, you don't figure your part out for 80 to 120 performances. So, yeah, it's Thanksgiving, its New Year's-but it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity."

Worry not--she can pace herself. Ashley doesn't go around a conversational curve without invoking her husband, so you might think it's marriage--the imposition of Dario's racing schedule--that is the defining factor in her disciplined approached to her career, her faith, her friends. But then she deconstructs some family legends, and you see that she has always has a cool eye for what's important.

Legend: After her parents' divorce, Ashley, her mother, Naomi, and her sister, Wynonna, were so poor that running water was, on occasion, a luxury.

Fact: "My aunt Pauline and uncle Landon lived on a farm in an old-fashioned way. We used to spend time with then in the summer--which is where those stories come from. It was valuable to have a foot in the past and a foot in the present."

Legend: Ashley, the nonsinging Judd, cleaned her mother and sister's tour bus for $10 a day.

Fact: "When the Judds were touring, my sister and I sometimes shared a bedroom on the bus. I was a bit tidier than the other and had more free time, so I'd tidy up our room. And, yes Wynonna would give me $10."

So banish the Cinderella stories and the Daisy Mae myths. And consider, instead, her trip, at 19 when she traveled across France with a group from the University of Kentucky before settling into a Paris hotel. "I begged my mother to let me stay on," she recalls. "I actually said, I'm finding myself."

Afterward, Ashley returned to the University of Kentucky, where she majored in French and graduated from the honors program. Only then did she head out to Los Angeles, get a plum job as hostess at a celebrity hangout the Ivy, and begin the astonishingly easy task of getting "discovered."

"No man," Samuel Johnson wrote, "is a hypocrite in his pleasures." No woman, either. So here is Ashley Judd calling from Scotland, late at night to talk about... books. We had started this conversation on a bus in Ohio. She had raved about Wallace Stegner. (And, okay, it didn't hurt that Sean Penn had given Wynonna a note on a napkin recommending Stegner's Remembering Laugher to Ashley.) I raved back about Guy de Maupassant and later presented her with a copy--in English, though her French is flawless--of Bel-Ami, which has a great part for her should they ever remake this 1947 classic.

This led us to Stegner's Crossing to Safety. Someone had written a script, Ashley said, with a part for "a young Kathatine Hepburn." Could she stand the comparison? "As long as I'm the only one making it," she quipped, and then turns serious. "The only comparisons you hear about are the ones that are flattering. So I don't read my own press. It's not constructive."

What she does read--correction: inhale--are the look books that fashion designers create of their new collections for favored customers. Her powers of concentration are great; she not only looked at every page, she had sharp opinions at the ready. On Armani: "To touch these textiles must be very nice." Prada: "This crocheted, appliqued white shirt--the inspiration has to be a comforter." Louis Vuitton: "How lucky am I that there are ribbons everywhere."

I thought about her fashion editor incisiveness in the weeks between our conversations, and when we talked again, I asked her a question that stars never get asked: "Are clothes better when they're free?"

Ashley Judd, true to form, took the question seriously. "No," she said. "Clothes your husband buys you are fun."

But talking about clothes with a writer is less than fun, so she moved again to literature. On this night, we started with The Great Gatsby, a mutual favorite. I pointed out the Daisy was from Kentucky. In a remake, would Ashley want the part--or would she rather be Jordan Baker? "I'll go with Jordan," she replied. "She cheats. I'm not a cheater, so I want to figure out: What causes her to do that?"

Then she asked what I was reading.

As it happened, I was working my way through A Responsibility to Awe, a book of poems by Rebecca Elson, who died at 19, after fighting cancer for years. Ashley is 34. She did not fail to identify. So I read her a poem, and we both choked up, and then Ashley mused about the title. It seemed to her a neat summary of where she is in her life. Which is to say: She's blessed. Very true. But many of us are. What makes Ashley Judd a joy to be with, even briefly, is that she knows it.

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