With a slew of new films featuring a more womanly Brittany Murphy in grown-up roles, the bright-eyed actress proves she's no longer clueless.

It's a warm, breezy night along Ventura Boulevard in the Studio City valley. Inside Dupar's diner, aging waitresses stroll at a leisurely pace serving evening meals of bacon and eggs to a sparse crowd. "Coffee, hon?" asks a white-haired woman in a robotic tome, her tiny paper hat slightly askew. "Yew meetin' someone?" Behind me, I hear the clickity-clack of tiny heels scurrying across the tiled floor. "You're mad, aren't you?" exclaims a panicked Brittany Murphy between breaths. "Tell me- you're mad, aren't you?" she says again, her big brown eyes filling with tears, her face filling with a smile.

A cross between a Blythe doll and a Margaret Keane painting, Murphy's eyes are caked with yellow makeup and framed with long, doll-like eyelashes. A gold sequined headband holds back her teased blonde hair, and one hand is adorned with a silver glove, the fingers cut off. The young actress is arriving from a full day of shooting the photographs for the cover and its accompanying pages. "What I love about photo shoots is that it's like playing dress-up," says Murphy. "In between acting gigs, we get to do photos and play these characters and have fun. But when you see the pictures, and they look like you, it's disappointing." She's got one hour to spare before she "powerpacks" and boards the red-eye for North Carolina to start work on her latest film, Summer Catch, with Freddie Prinze, Jr. "I have less than an hour," she says with regret. "I was supposed to leave this morning, but I wasn't about to get on that plane-this is the cover of FLAUNT! I've bought every single issue since the beginning. Thank you for doing this magazine. I'm a magazine junkie, and I've read them all cover to cover."

It's hard to believe this is the same girl who played the mousy Tai Fraiser, Alicia Silverstone's makeover project in Clueless. I get the feeling a father must feel when he looks at his daughter one day and suddenly realizes she's become a woman - and Brittany Murphy has become a 22-year-iold woman with the doe-eyed face of a child. Hollywood is taking notice. "It's sort of wonderful. It's real wonderful." She coos, "It's cool to be learning more every year and being able to actually apply it in everyday life. To have a situation that you ordinarily wouldn't be able to deal with, all of the sudden, you can."

Murphy's taking on roles now that could only have happened with her grown-up appearance. She's being cast in sexier parts. "I don't know if they're sexier," she counters. "Well, there's Trixie, in which you play a lounge singer in a casino who dreams of stardom," I suggest.

"Okay, she's sexy," agrees Murphy.
"In Girl, Interrupted, you played a sexy laxative junkie."
"You're right."
"You're the sexy voice of Texas beauty school vixen, Luanne Platter, on King of the Hill."
"Yes."
"And in Cherry Falls, you play a virgin hunted by a serial killer."
"Okay."
"And in Summer Catch?"
"I play the town tart."

It's settled. Brittany Murphy's roles are becoming sexier.

Akin to the career path of Jennifer Jason Leigh, Murphy is choosing to do roles atypical to that of many actresses her age - the teen high-schooler or college girl. "But what is typical?" she asks. "I don't really ever want to go in that direction, but I don't have a game plan either. I know that I get a kick out of playing people who are different. When I read something, I go on my instincts. It just feels right. That's how it's been and I love being these people. I've been a waitress. I've been a rock star. I've had a grain of salt's experience at being in the Holocaust. I get to travel all over the place. Most people don't get a chance to do what they have a passion for. It's an amazing job. I'm very blessed. The major thing was that I started when I was 13, and I wanted to do this so bad. When I came to LA, the words "logistics' or 'competition' meant nothing to me. I went through it with blinders on and never thought of the other things that I've seen cloud other people's minds. A lot of times those things get in the way."

The actress was bitten by the acting bug, and headed to Hollywood with her mom at the age of 13 after landing a few commercials in New York. "Actually, I did a Skittles commercial that never aired." She says with a proud giggle. "The first one that aired was Pizza Hut for barbecue chicken pizza. I did that for six months and came to Hollywood for pilot season. But even as a child, I was always singing and dancing, performing, and entertaining. I just didn't know performing would come in the form of acting. But here I am, this is what I do, and it's really strange."

Where does this ability that actors employ to jump up in front of a group of people and do just about anything come from? "I think I have a screw loose," laughs the actress. "It's also the need to do it. You have to understand it's a living and breathing thing, and this is my air. What kind of a screwball needs to pretend to be other people in order to go on with their lives? I once saw Jerry Lewis on Inside the Actor's Studio. He was asked if he was happy, and - I'm paraphrasing here-but he said, "There's nothing sadder in life than somebody needing to make other people laugh in order to survive." It was wonderful. I'd pity the person who'd have to work with me if I had a desk job. I can't do anything else but perform."

Murphy will get the chance to perform, when and if production begins on another film, Piece of My Heart, about rock legend Janis Joplin, which she landed after singing at her manager's wedding. "I actually had a dream about Janis the other night," she whispers, leaning forward. "A really amazing dream. Anyway, what's happened with the film is called a stopgap, which I'm not really sure what that means. It was supposed to start last August. I screen tested for it last spring. There's a snag with the music, which was supposed to be available in Feburary, and evidently they're still battling for the rights. It's only two or three songs, but pretty important ones. I really thing that when all of the components come together- Janis knows that her movie is supposed to be made. When she's happy with it, that's when it's going to be made, whenever that may be. And I'm happy knowing that if she chooses me when the times does come around, I'll be ecstatic. It's been a year now. Every year that goes by I'm learning more, so it can't do anything but help by living some more life before getting to play somebody like that."

This fall, Murphy will be playing someone at the opposite ed of the sexy spectrum, this time in the form of a virgin in the film, Cherry Falls, directed by Geoffrey Wright (Romper Stomper). In this latest contender of the trendy-modern-teen-slasher-flick genre, there's a serial killer on the loose who preys on small tow virgins, including Murphy, the sheriff's daughter. In order to save themselves from the killer, the entire student body gives up their virginity at a huge orgy held at Donkey Kill Hunting Lodge. "It's called the Pop Your Cherry Ball," says Murphy with qa laugh.

First Virgin Suicides and now Cherry Falls. Are we going to see a slew of virgin-killing movies? I have to wonder.

"I certainly hope not!" she exclaims with a big smile. "And if so, I'm ashamed that I'm a part of it! I hope people can see the humor in this film. It's a real popcorn, yell out loud in the theater, jeer at the actors movie. Don't hold it against me. Try and see the humor in it. I thought it was very funny."

Her aversion to aviation seems to be taking her mind away from the interview. "I so hate flying," she whispers out of the blue. "I was supposed to catch the earlier flight with a friend of mine who's also working on the film, but now I have to fly alone." Murphy looks at her watch and her eyes begin to tear again. "I…I…I have to go," she says believable apologetic. With one swift move, she's up on her feet , dashing for the door, and disappearing into the night.

Two weeks have past since I first met Brittany Murphy. She's just returned on the dreaded flight from East to West Coast. We reconvene in the Valley, same time, same location., She's half an hour late, again. From behind the stalks of brilliant orange and purple gladiolas, her big eyes appear, but this time, without the circus makeup. "Oh, God, I'm sorry…but here's a peace offering," she says, smiling and handing over the flowers. The recent flight is still on her mind. "Any flight when you arrive in one piece is a good flight," she laughs. "or just when you actually arrive. I don't know where my fear of flying started. I've been flying since I was a baby, and alone since I was four. It was probably around 13 when a few life-changing fears happened at once. The other fears subsided, but the fear of flying stuck. "But anyway, I had so much fun in North Carolina working on Summer Catch. You know how actors talk about having to wait around a lot? I don't get jobs like that. This was one o those. It was like being on vacation in normality with hushpuppies everywhere! It was right on the ocean, with an ice cream shop, and a 24-hour Wal-Mart Superstore. It's the greatest store on earth. It's huge, new and fabulous! I can't wait to go back. They have everything. It's a great place to go when you don't want to sleep."

And Murphy doesn't sleep. It's not that she can't sleep, she doesn't want to. "The amount of time that not sleeping gives you, rather than sleeping, is incredible," she says. "Last night I went to sleep at seven in the morning-it was light outside. I don't stay up talking on the phone; I hate doing that. I read magazines a lot. I basically do everything from write to paint to read to dance around the house to watch television to take photos to tease eyebrows."

Whether it's a lack of interviewing experience, the ability to control an interview, or just being herself (who's quite a talker), it's hard to get anything out of this young star. She dances around questions like she dances around her house on sleepless nights. She'd rather chat, laugh, and laugh some more. It's just the way she is. "You know how everyone has themselves, and then they have a spectacle of themselves?" she asks. "A lot of interviews are just me being a spectacle of me. And that's all people will ever see. Whenever I'm at a point when a lot of people want to read about me, then hopefully I'll have had enough practice at this. A wise person once told me to make sure each answer has a period at the end. I feel like I answer in dot, dot, dots, semi-colons, dashes and run-on sentences."

Well, you're no longer clueless, I offer as advice. People are reading about you now.

Murphy laughs uncontrollably. "There was this picture of me a few months ago in a magazine, that said "Not Clueless Now." I'd never been to a movie premiere. I didn't know that actors get hair and makeup people before these things. I'd always wondered how these stars always looked so great and had such fashion sense. It was an icky day, humid, near the beach, and I decided to straighten my hair, which I thought was really glamorous. I looked like one Swedish meatball stacked on top of another meatball, which was my body. I thought I was all glammed up, and nobody told me. I always look kind of shocked in paparazzi photos. The press line at a movie premiere is a very strange thing."

This past week, Murphy has been pretending to be Drew Barrymore in preparation for a role in a film which lenses in August called Riding in Cars With Boys. While Riding stars Barrymore is busy with the completion of the remake Charlie's Angels, Murphy has been reading her lines in order for the studio to cast the male costars. "It's a true story," adds Murphy, "by a woman named Beverly D'Onofrio. It's one of the best scripts I've ever read. Penny Marshall is directing, and she's great. She's awesome. She's so great to be around. She's really inspiring, and she loves what she does, just like I do."

"If I couldn't perform at all, I don't know what I'd do. I'd sing if I couldn't act. But not yet, I want to do them both properly. Not that there's a proper or improper way, except for the obvious, which is to screw both of them up. At least right now, I can do one of them halfway decently. I have time. I have nothing but time on my hands."

And if Murphy couldn't perform at all?

"Just put me in a box," she replies, her eyes widening. "Why don't you just cut off my arms and legs? I'd fight my ass off to perform. I just wouldn't let it happen. I'd do something. I'm show-people. If there was no industry, I'd perform on the streets. I'd be a gypsy traveler performing on the road."

All Rights Reserved and copyrighted to FLAUNT Magazine
Flaunt Magazine Young Upstarts Issue, June/July 2000 page 76-83

I recommend you buy the magazine, it is well worth it just to have your own copy of these pictures (scans are NEVER as great as the originals). Also there is a cool as hell, HUGE pull-out of Brittany that I couldnt even scan, it was so large. So contact Flaunt Magazine and ask for this back issue at:
mail@flauntmagazine.com
or call: (323) 836-1000 and they can tell you who to call for back issues.

Questions or comments? Mail me at: seareaver@aol.com

Please note: I am not Brittany Murphy, I just run this fan page.