The Family 'Cat'

By Blake GreenSTAFF WRITER

November 2, 2003

It's been one of those days. "There's been a physical tug-of-war going on for my person," says Ashley Judd, another in this season's crop of movie stars lending luster, talent and box office appeal to a Broadway production - in this case, the revival of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

"The best way I knew how to cope," continues the diminutive actress with the startlingly hand-crunching shake, "was to bake some chocolate chip cookies. I brought you a couple," she says, rummaging through one of the parcels strewn about her dressing room at the Music Box Theatre, where Williams' steamy story of sexuality and mendacity and no-neck monsters is in previews.

A plastic bag with said cookies is produced, its baker proclaiming "some crispy, some not so crispy," plus another bag in which she's included "some raw dough - in case you're part of that sorority who loves raw chocolate chip dough."

As she talks, a shoeless Judd - guests are warned that, "separating the outside from the inside," footwear is shed at the threshold - is in constant motion, sidestepping two dancing blond cockapoos, Buttermilk and Shug. The latter's name is "Scottish for Hugh" and the reason Judd, the wife of Scotland's race-car driver Dario Franchitti, refers to Hugh Jackman as "Big Shug." Her co-star in the 2001 movie "Someone Like You" is appearing, literally, next door at the Imperial Theatre in "The Boy From Oz."

A few more minutes of this and Judd, her dark hair bunched in a three-ponytail style that manages to expose what is probably her only physical imperfection - ears that stick out - promises, "I'll sit down soon; I'm just making my nest."

Judd is an interesting mix of sophistication and down-home. She's "the kind of smart, down-to-earth, gorgeous combination found in Audrey Hepburn," says Carl Franklin, who directed her in last year's "High Crimes." Settling in, she climbs atop the floral comforter on her daybed. Legs curled under her, back rested against the wall, dogs sitting beside her, she levels her green eyes on the matter at hand, this interview that's been tugging on her time.

To play the sexy, grasping Maggie "The Cat," one of Williams' most famous female roles, Judd turned down the title role in the movie "Catwoman," a reported $10-million offer. "Can't do two projects at the same time," she says breezily.

There are other cats she'll also be missing - the University of Kentucky Wildcats, the basketball team that "along with motor sports is where all of my sport brain cells are devoted. I won't be able to go to a game until February," the avid fan complains. "But I did get ESPN's Full Court package." A UK alum - French major, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Phi Beta Kappa - she's firmly in the fold. Rick Pitino, the former UK coach, "is coming to see the show Thursday."

Director Anthony Page says he wanted the 35-year-old Judd to play Maggie "because I'd liked her performance in 'Double Jeopardy,'" the 1999 film that established her as a leading lady. "She's like Susan Hayward, she makes a melodramatic situation believable," he says. "Aside from the glamour, there's the commitment she gives to these situations."

Page first offered the role when the play was revived in London two years ago, but Judd turned down that invitation in part because of her blossoming relationship with Franchitti, whom she'd met on a blind date. They were married at the end of that year - in that same Scottish Highlands castle where Madonna and Guy Ritchie said their vows. Franchitti wore tartans, Judd a dress by Giorgio Armani, one of her favorite designers.

"We'd been together a while at that point," she says of the timing of the London stage possibility, "but we were unsure what period he'd be racing. I decided to be conservative because of his schedule." In the interim, she made several films, "Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood," another Southern tale in which she plays a woman on the verge; "Frida," in which she played photographer Tina Modotti; and two future releases: "Twisted," another in her string of killer-thrillers, co-starring Samuel L. Jackson, and "De-Lovely," in which she plays the wife of Kevin Kline's Cole Porter.

Judd sings in "De-Lovely," a first for her, even if she is the third member of the performing Judd family. Her mother and sister are country music stars Naomi and Wynonna Judd. "I have a reasonable voice," the actress says, "but I don't have a lot of confidence. It turned out to be even trickier than I'd expected."

Getting Maggie's accent just right has been tricky, too, Judd says about her first time back on the New York stage since 1994's "Picnic." "I'm one of those Southerners who knows too many accents," she explains. Her own life story, which started in Los Angeles, has run through Kentucky and Tennessee. "It would almost be easier if I didn't come from the South."

The play takes place on "Big Daddy's" Mississippi cotton plantation (Ned Beatty, the only holdover from the London production, plays the patriarch), but Maggie is a Nashville finishing-school debutante. In real life, the three Judds reside in separate homes on a 1,000-acre farm in Williamson County, outside Nashville (Ashley and her husband are in a restored 1819 farmhouse), but that's hardly the same kind of accent, says Judd.

"I know posh Williamson County and country Williamson County," she says, "and the way I talk in my house is country, which is extremely different [than Maggie]. I have a lot more in common with my 'Ya Ya' accent." It would help, she believes, "if I used Maggie's accent all the time. But I'm not, because it just freaks Dario out."

Since 1955, when "Cat" debuted on Broadway, a number of actresses have played the coveted role of Maggie, including Kathleen Turner in the last revival, in 1990. Judd saw that production - as well as a video of the 1958 movie, which starred Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. "We're friends with Mr. Newman because of motor racing," she says of the film's Brick, Maggie's dissipating husband, played by Jason Patric in this stage production. "And I wanted to see that so I could give him grief at the track."

As decreed by Williams' stage directions, all of the Maggies have spent most of Act One in the famous "slip of ivory satin and lace." Judd considered gaining weight for the role, "because there was more flesh on women in 1955." She doesn't appear to have added pounds, but "like Brick, I have gotten softer," she says. Unlike Brick, who's a self-destructive alcoholic, she says this is because she's had to forgo her yoga regimen since rehearsals started.

In a conversation with Judd, it's possible to learn all kinds of things about literature: She's currently high on a book of Williams' short stories she's been reading while soaking in the bathtub. About acting: "I focus on four or five lines every day." About Youth AIDS (she's the organization's global ambassador): "I'm an actor, but I consider my primary vocation to be an activist." Even, about fried chicken: Hers "isn't always great, like my Aunt Dot's," but Judd does know a trick or two. "Soak the chicken in salted water; that pulls out any nastiness. And use self-rising flour; that gives it a better texture and more flavor." The cookies, by the way, were delicious.

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