Ashley Judd Emerges from the Shadow of Her Famous Family
By Barbara Teasdall

Q: Before we get started, who did your fabulous outfit?

Ashley Judd: This is Valentino. [Referring to the off-white, knit pant ensemble that included a sweater over a tank top with knit rosettes keeping the wide shoulder straps in place.]

Q: This is the first time that you've carried a movie….

AJ: It's other people who make those distinctions. Everything I've done has been personally fun, important, and meaningful to me. Ruby in Paradise and the intensity and quality that I was able to experience on Smoke were equally as important to me as working on this movie every day for three-and-a-half months.

Q: But in a business sense, don't people look at this a little differently?

AJ: Maybe. I really stay out of it, because I have a certain tangible set of criteria that are either met or not when I read a movie script.

Q: In other words, if it doesn't speak to you, you're not going to do it no matter what your agent or anybody else says?

AJ: When you say that, it makes me think that Kiss the Girls or Norma Jean and Marilyn — which was extraordinary hard work and equally as rewarding — are somehow not important or diminished by Double Jeopardy seemingly being a more broad, commercial appeal kind of movie.

Q: Was it hard for you to shoot the coffin scene in Double Jeopardy?

AJ: I cried all day. It really upset me. I think it was because it was coming to the end of the movie and we'd already said good-bye to everybody [on the set] in Vancouver. And there was something about lying still all day. I guess I just had an opportunity to absorb the fact that the movie was coming to an end. I didn't consciously have thoughts of my own mortality, but maybe that did come into play as well. I got hysterical. My friends — the women who worked on the set — and I were very, very close. One day, somebody left the set to pick someone up at the airport and nobody had lunch with me. I got my feelings hurt and cried all day.

Q: How long were you in the coffin?

AJ: I don't remember shooting anything else that day. They rigged up a very inventive way to make it appear as though I'm entirely closed in. That involved this little tiny camera on a crane that scooted around. Someone would replace and remove panels of the coffin as they came in or out of view. They did a great job.

Q: You're not claustrophobic?

AJ: No.

Q: I heard that you did most of your own stunts on this film and that you actually got hurt?

AJ: I sprained my ankle once on Kiss the Girls, but I never got hurt on this film.

Q: But you did do most of your stunts?

AJ: Yeah. They wouldn't let me jump off the building [the preschool where she goes searching for her son] though. They knew that I wanted to, so they shot it when I wasn't around. I came back to set and I'm all revved up to jump off the schoolhouse roof and they wouldn't let me.

Q: Why do you want to do those kinds of things?

AJ: Because it's fun. It's a diversion and it's exciting. It's a different kind of challenge. It's very invigorating.

Q: You were able to deck Tommy Lee Jones after your car fell off the ferry. What was that day like?

AJ: The water was cold. My pop was there, so we played Botticelli to keep my mind off of it. They made a plexiglas container that they set down into the ocean and tried to heat the water inside of it. Admirable effort, ineffective result. It was pretty cold.

Q: Do you think this is a smart movie as a woman-in-distress thriller?

AJ: Mm-hmm. [She nods.]

Q: Do you think it's implausible at all?

AJ: Well, maybe there are one or two things about the double jeopardy concept that are overlooked. I could be charged with violating my probation. I could be charged for illegal possession of a firearm or violating his civil rights if I did kill him. But when you're making a movie, there's only so much that you can do. I know that some people, while thoroughly enjoying it, have said, "It's a little bit implausible." But it's such great fun. Q: I was just wondering, if you killed your husband, would the insurance company really pay off the million dollars on that policy?

AJ: That's not important to her at that point. Don't you think that it's made very clear that the righteousness in and of itself is more than sufficient?

Q: Have you ever been in a situation, even when you were a kid, where you were falsely accused?

AJ: Oh, injustice is the most frustrating, intolerable sensation. God, I wish I remembered this art teacher's name, because this would really be her comeuppance.

Q: Your own Teaching Mrs. Tingle?

AJ: Yeah. How funny was Janet Maslin's quote in her [New York Times] review, "Helen Mirren shows that she can out-act teenagers even with her hands tied." I read her reviews for sport. I'm telling you....

Q: So, tell us about the art teacher.

AJ: Yeah. I'd really like to get this off my chest [laughs]. I got into trouble one time in the eighth grade for something and was put on hall probation. We had art class during lunch period. There were three feeding troughs or something and we were the last. We had a 10-minute break before we actually went to eat and were allowed to goof off. I was on some kind of probation, so I wasn't supposed to wander. I remember hearing the teacher come in and look around. Then she left and I thought, "she was looking for me." She got me into so much trouble, because she swears I was off gallivanting. And I wasn't! I was going tinkle. She sent home a note to my mom and everything. But there was no way that I could convince her, because she had already convicted me of being a bad kid.

Q: Did you get detention and the whole deal?

AJ: I don't think I got detention. I think I got my mother's cold disappointment, which is far worse. I remember she was trying to be so sweet to me. I had cheered at a game. It was late and she'd drawn me a bath and all that. I thought, "she's being so sweet to me, this won't make a dent." But she was very angry.

Q: Was she tough on you?

AJ: She wasn't that tough on me, but I think she was often a little frightened — being a single parent. So it begets this quality of desired absoluteness that doesn't really exist. My sister could crack her up. She'd be getting into trouble and put the Steve Martin arrow through her head and mom would start to laugh. I didn't have the same sort of wiliness.

Q: Did you ever take the rap for your sister?

AJ: No, no.

Q: Did she take the rap for you?

AJ: Yeah. She let me drive and I put the car in a ditch.

Q: And she told your mom she did it?

AJ: No, she told mom that she let me do it. [Laughter] That's different.

SOURCE: Reel.com

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