Ashley Kicks Back

After four back-to-back films--including this month's High Crimes--Ashley Judd is shifting gears. She and her race-car-driver husband have retreated to their Tennessee farmhouse, where the only bright lights are cast by the fireplace and the only demands come from their five cats, two dogs, and yoga instructor.

Ashley Judd is with someone other than her husband in a converted garage on grounds of their Tennessee farmhouse. She's breathing heavily. Sweat glistens on her back. She moves her body in ways she hopes will please her companion, who is studying her carefully. Suddenly she cries out in pleasure. "i did tittibassana!" she exclaims as she balances her entire body weight on two splayed hands while shooting her legs straight out in front of her. "That's great Ashley," says her yoga instructor, who has been giving Judd private classes in a discipline called Ashtanga. The rigorous, 100-minute workout consists of one gravity-defying pose after another, but with impressive physical control, the actress has segued into each position like a pro, most conspicuously when she nailed this last pose. She's so proud of her accomplishment that after class she runs into the house, jumps up into the arms of her husband, CART race-car driver Dario Franchitti, and wraps her legs around his waist. "I did it!" she announces, as Franchitti kissed her and beams. "I wasn't even practicing it, and I just tried it." This is the Ashley Judd you might expect to encounter: the indefatigably optimistic overachiever who reads French novels in the original, goes on week-long boot camp style ashram retreats, and baked her own bread--a woman Hugh Jackman, her co-star in last years Someone Like You, calls "very passionate and fiery and full of life." But spend an entire day with the actress and it becomes obvious that there’s a new Judd emerging as well--on who's at peace even when at rest. In fact, she's at times downright languid. Perhaps it's because since last May, Judd has been on an extended hiatus, the highlight of which was her December 12 wedding to Franchitti, her fiancé' of two years, at historic castle in Scotland. "I wanted to take enough time off to get married with the kind of pacing I felt was natural--not just fitting it in between other things," says Judd. Franchitti, who is Scottish by birth and Italian by decent, is on holiday too, at least until the racing season starts in the spring, and the couple is not relishing what has turned into an extended honeymoon at home on their 1,00 acre farm.

The two cook enormous brunches, take long walks in the woods, eat dinners by the fire, and catch movies at the local the theater. "We hardly ever leave the farm. We don't really go anywhere," says Judd, who, before her yoga class, had slept in until 10:30, a wake-up time justified by the fact that the night before, she and Franchitti had stayed up late watching South Park episodes on DVD. And right now she has plopped herself down on an overstuffed chair in her sunroom. Her husband has stepped out the shop for paintball guns with his brother Marino, who is visiting. But Judd is hardly alone. She has snuggled down with a passel of pets, including her two cockapoos and three of her five cats. The cats are purring. "It's home time. I don't know when I'll go back to work," says Jud, tucking her legs under her.

Before this respite, Judd had been on the go all the way back to when she was a kid living a tour-bus childhood with her famous singing mother, Naomi, and sister, Wynona. (While attending 12 schools in 13 years, shoe would earn extra spending money by tidying up the bus.) In 1990, after graduating from the University of Kentucky, Judd hightailed it to Los Angeles, where she worked as a hostess at the industry eatery the Ivy, then broke into movies in 1993 with Ruby in Paradise. She has since done 18 films, vaulting to the top of the Hollywood hot list with such blockbusters as Kiss the Girls, and Double Jeopardy, in which she has played determined, tough-as-horsehide heroines as few other actresses can. Perhaps because the nerviness is not an act. Carl Franklin, the director of this month's thriller High Crimes, in which she stars opposite Morgan Freeman and Jim Caviezel, explains: "There was a scene where she's wearing heals and she's supposed to be knocked down, and I was really concerned about her twisting her ankle. I found out later that she had been talking to the stunt person when I wasn't looking. She was asking him to throw her all the way to the ground. She likes to do her own stuff." In fact, she might as well be describing herself when she says of one of her cats: "She's definitely a hoss within her petite frame."

But last spring while completing a number of movies in a row (including Someone Like You, High Crimes, this summer's highly anticipated adaptation of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya sisterhood, and the biopic Frida), Judd found that she has limits. "I was just knackered," recalls Judd, grabbing a cup of strong coffee in her spacious kitchen. "I didn't have even a couple hours free for several weekends. I lost my will to work." So she decided to hang it up for a bit. "It was very simple. Walk away," she says without a not of regret.

Judd headed for her 1819 farmhouse, situated amid softly rolling hills in a valley outside Nashville, the same region where her family moved when she was 11. (The house, which she has owned since 1994, is just down the road from her mother's.) She had practically every part of the estate restored, refinishing century-old chestnut floorboards and wainscoting, covering bedroom walls with vintage style wallpaper, and filling rooms with embroidered pillows and antiques. "One of the thins I appreciate about the house is that the flow of traffic is very even." she says. "I spread things out so there's no area that is used more or used less."

At least that was the case until last fall, when Judd spent most of her waking hours planning her wedding in an upstairs sitting room that she dubbed the war room--just one sign that she took her battle to keep the media at bat very seriously. (She hung a picture of Winston Churchill on the wall to stiffen resolve. "Some people don't mind having a wedding in public," says Judd. "That's not our style." So she and Franchitti invited all of their 100 guests by phone just a week before the big day. Her tactics paid off. no paparazzi got anywhere near the wedding. Still, the couple couldn't control what was written about the event. "Practically everything in the papers was completely untrue," Says the actress. "We don't even know most of the people they said we invited. Liz Smith decided that Sandy Bullock and I are best friends and that she was my maid of honor." Judd recently e-mailed Bullock (though the two both star in Divine Secrets, they share no scenes and barely know each other). "I said, 'You know I got married.' And she said, 'Yeah, I know. People keep asking me [about it]. I just tell them I was too drunk to remember anything.'"

Allow us to refresh her memory. The five day extravaganza took place in and around Skibo Castle, the 20-bedroom stone edifice in the Scottish Highlands where Madonna and Guy Ritchie famously wed. Judd, Franchitti and their family and friends (including Salma Hayek and Ed Norton) spent the days leading up to the ceremony horse back riding and golfing, the nights dining in the opulent reception rooms, and, one evening, taking part in a ce'lidn, a traditional Scottish dance. For the wedding the bride wore a white silk-satin Armani gown with an Empire waist and cap sleeves. (Says Judd, heading back to the kitchen to prepare dinner, "Dario had said, "I really like your back. ' So it has a big, round opening at the back.") Paper-whites, jonquils and maidenhair ferns adorned the reception hall, and on each table sat a different photo of one of the couple's beloved pets. Despite all teh attention to detail, the pair chose not to videotape the celebratoin. "We're relying on our guests for an oral history," Judd explains.

Not that she and Franchitti will need help recalling things. "It was amazing from the moment we first showed up at the castle--just knowing that in a few days we were going to be married," says Franchitti, back from running errands. Judd, all smiles, runs over and pats him on the butt. She's wearing the number 27 around her neck. "It's Dario's race-car number, in white gold. Wher he wins [the Fedex Championship Series] at the end of the season and gets to have No.1 on his car, I'll have one made in platinum," she says rather assuredly.

For that to happen their join vacation must end. But ther are no signs that the honey moon will end anytime soon. "Are we allowed to drink yet?" Judd asks her husband, pouring a glass of the Laurent-Perrier Brut champagne served at their reception. "We just had uor one-month anniversary the day before yesterday, and it's really exciting," she says. She pauses. "It's unbelievable, incredible. Being married just goes so beyond anything. I can't even begin to describe it. Words fail. I over-rely on superlatives, but how do you express...?" This hoss with a delicate frame has finally met a hurdle she can't jump. and it seems she couldn't be happier.

InStyle - 2002

>> Back