I'm on the fast track for love

Ashley Judd is to take time off from acting to concentrate on her Scottish husband's motor racing career.

Judd, 35, who is married to Indy Racing League ace Dario Franchitti, saysshe loves what he does.

On crutches after a fall during her Broadway version of Cat On A Hot TinRoof, she now wants to spend some quality time with her husband.

And it couldn't come at a better time. Dario had a spectacular high-speedcrash in the opening race of the season at the Toyota Indy 300 at Homsteadin Miami.

It was his first big race since breaking a vertebra in his lower back in amotorcycle accident in Edinburgh last April.

Asked if she was anxious about the dangers of Dario's sport, the gorgeousactress said: 'I love racing. It's so much fun.We're a two-career householdand it's Dario's season.

'So, I'm really excited about going racing because he didn't race much lastyear. He had an injury to his back. His motorcycle broke on him, the foolthing.'

It seems The Judd-Franchitti couple have both been in the wars.

Ashley, star of Kiss The Girls and Double Jeopardy, tore ligaments and hadto limp off stage last month during an evening show of Cat On A Hot TinRoof, in which she plays Maggie.

She wasdue to return before the end of the show's run next week, but theproducers decided to bring down the curtain a week early this Sunday.

The injury may also put paid to Ashley's hopes to find out first-hand whyDario loves his job so much.

She wanted to ride in a two-seater Indy Car with former Formula One worldchampion Mario Andretti the only driver Dario trusted enough with his wife.

It's little wonder that the IRL is notoriously dangerous.

Andretti, Formula One world champion in 1978, was running in a routinepre-Indy 500 test last year when his car flipped over four times. Afterthat, the 63-year old ace hungup his professional helmet.

In October, American Tony Renna died from massive head and chest injuriesafter a high-speed smash while testing tyres at the Indianapolis Speedway.

His death came shortly after Swede Kenny Brack survived despite breaking hisback, leg and ankles when his car became airborne at the Texas MotorSpeedway.

But when Ashley is watching her husband, who she married at Skibo Castle in Dornoch, Sutherland, in December 2001, she remains very firmly out of thelimelight.

She said:'You have to be appropriate in the setting, which is a hot pit andeveryone is working and their jobs are very time-sensitive.

'It's funny, though, because when I first started going to races after wemet, I was extremely nervous.

'It was like being backstage and hoping you don't trip over something orbreak anamp or accidentally speak into a live microphone and make an ass outof yourself. So I was real hesitant.

'They took a picture of me while I was stretched out on the pit wall readingThe New York Times during morning practice on the day of the race and Ithought, 'Maybe that's a little too relaxed'.'

Ashley is currently taking on Jesus at the box office in America. Her latestfilm,Twisted, with Samuel L Jackson and Andy Garcia, wentup against MelGibson's The Passion Of The Christ.

It's her first major film since turning down Catwoman the role taken byHalle Berry to star in Tennessee Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.

Ashley explained: 'I wanted to do the play for a long time. I don't evenknow if I had dared to dream. I'm sure that I had read it when I was youngerandwas in awe of it. It was this very iconic thing andnow I don't look at itthat way anymore, from the outside in.

'It's who I amand it's what I do, but they had offered me the play a coupleof years ago when they did it in London and I had turned it down. So when itcame back around, it seemed like sweet justice.'

Not many actresses of Ashley's standing with multi-million box-office hitsto their name take the plunge and prove they really can act not just onstage but on Broadway.

But Ashley had a blast. She said: 'It was very exciting and thrilling andeach show had its own personality and audience.

'When you came in for a Saturday matinee, it would understandably seem likea drag because it was four shows in 48 hours from Friday to Sunday.

'But then you hit that part of town that becomes Broadway, with all theenergy on the street and the marquees and the lights and everything.'

Ashley, who is daughter and sister to country singing stars Naomi andWynonna Judd, got her first million-dollar pay packet in 1999 for Eye OfTheBeholder, which also starred Ewan McGregor.

She commands $10 million a movie reportedly the amount she turned down toplay Catwoman and is seen by many women as Hollywood's action heroine.Thefilms include High Crimes and Kiss The Girls, both with Morgan Freeman, andDouble Jeopardy with Tommy Lee Jones.

In Twisted, out in the UK next month, she plays police officer Jessica,whose father was a serial killer.

While investigating a murder, she finds herself in the centre of her owninvestigation, when her former lovers start dying around her at a furiouspace.

To train for the tough action workouts, she enjoyed one of her favouritehobbies hiking around Marin County, near San Francisco.

But Ashley nearly came a cropper when she fell into a lake. She could havedrowned but the training she's had over the years for her movies saved theday.

She said: 'I did a lot of hiking in Marin. I could beon a trail 15 minutesfrom anywhere, from where we would shoot and from where we lived.

'It was wonderful.There was a lot of hiking and I fell in a lake. It waskind of funny, and I didn't tell anyone that, but I went down to the water'sedge and it was real slippery and craggy and I slipped and fell in.

'Of course, I hadmy really heavy-duty hiking shoes on because the terrainwasn't even and I got caught.

'I wasn't kelp because it was fresh water, but I got caught in some stuffand I kind of started to panic.

'I had to take my shoes off and throw them ashore, anddo the whole thing andhave my wits about me. It was kind of fun, andnow I have a story to tell.'

The actress is proud that tough roles in which her characters more thanmatch up to the men are so popular with movie-goers.

Like Sigourney Weaver and Angelina Jolie, Ashley is held up as a leading action actress in Hollywood.

She said: 'It's a special point of pride. I'm very flattered that women likemeand my roles. It's been said to me that of course it's a compliment if aguy likes you, but if a woman is going to like another woman, than that's areal compliment.'

With another film De-Lovely, a musical about Cole Porter starring KevinKline, in the bag, Ashley seems happy to let acting take a back seat.

But as well as watching Dario race, she says she has a lot planned for thisyear.

There's her father's wedding to look forward to Michael Ciminella, amarketing specialist in the horse racing industry, divorced Naomi in 1972.

She's also going to Asia for Youth AIDS to coincide with the World AIDSconference in India.

She added:'I'm reading scripts, but I haven't found anything workwise yet.'

All of which leaves more time for her real love, Dario.

March 2004

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