Leoni Online: The Articles -- Premiere

Leoni Online Articles Premiere Magazine December 2000

Motherhood hasn't slowed her down a bit. Watch how she can lure Nicolas Cage away from his Ferrari in The Family Man.

Just the other night, Téa Leoni was forced to sit through her new film, The Family Man. You see, the 34-year-old actress has always hated watching herself, but she figured she had *matured*. Besides, her husband, actor David Duchovny, insisted. And guess what?

"I was so upset, I had to go home," she says, laughing and swatting away flies at a cafe in Venice, California. "The first thing I said to David was, 'I'm going to file my teeth down.' I'm out there like Brer Rabbit!" Wait. She should clarify that: "It's not any indication of self-loathing. I just don't like to watch me."

Luckily, she's alone in that opinion. The Family Man (due out December 15) [note from alfornos: the release date has been changed to December 22 so as not to compete with Mel Gibson's What Women Want] stars Nicolas Cage as Jack, a millionaire who long ago left his college sweetheart, Kate (Leoni), at the airport and never looked back. But after bragging to a stranger on Christmas Eve that he has no regrets, Jack wakes up in the life he could have had: married to Kate, living in suburbia, with two kids and a dead-end job. Leoni's task is to show him that real love can kick more ass than a red Ferrari. Not easy, but the actress's barbed vulnerability and spiky sexuality prove to be ample compensation. "Kate is really the captain of this relationship," Leoni says. "I thought, this is going to be tricky, because I didn't want her to appear like a Stepford wife, but I didn't want her to be a nag, either. That scared me. There must be something extraordinary, some reason that this life is going to look good to him, and I think we can all agree it's not the minivan."

Two years ago, after high-profile performances in Flirting with Disaster and Deep Impact, Leoni took time off to give birth to her daughter, Madeleine [sic] West. Not an ideal moment to step out of the spotlight, but hardly a difficult decision: "West is the sun; she's the moon," Leoni says. "She's God's Barbie, as far as I'm concerned." But wasn't she afraid that the hiatus would..."Kill my career?" she asks, laughing. "It did! But it wasn't like I fell off the Empire State Building. It was more like I fell off a brownstone. And nobody can hurt you when you've got what the three of us have. I feel a bit invincible." Well, except for those teeth issues, anyway. Article courtesy of Premiere Magazine, written by Sean M. Smith's . Transcribed by Alfornos.

Affiliates | view all affiliates

Leoni Online is strictly a fan site and not affiliated with Ms. Leoni in any way. Material from this site may be reproduced as long as proper credit is given. This site is a Web-Glitter production and is hosted by Fan-Sites.org. © gertiebeth 1997-2007.
~~Stalkerazzi~~