Everybody has a story, including Selma Blair, who follows up her turn as a buttoned-down Harvard preppie in Legally Blonde with a very different take on college life. In Todd Solondz’s Storytelling, the 29-year-old Michigan native plays a pink-haired coed who gets a harsh life lesson after bedding a sadistic professor (Robert Wisdom). Over the telephone from Manhattan, where she enjoyed a 24-hour break from her next film–A Guy Thing with Julia Stiles and Jason Lee–Blair pondered some facts and fictions.
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Why were you so eager to go to work for Todd Solondz?
Todd has a vision. Not everyone does. I have been doing so much teenage stuff, and smiling all the time. I wanted the chance to wipe that silly grin off my face. It was so refreshing to play a flawed character, a human being. Not that my character in Legally Blonde wasn’t a human being, but it’s a happy, Hollywood version of a human being. It’s very refreshing not to have to go for the funny. And I thought it was very courageous for Todd to make this movie.
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Speaking of courageous, your sex scene with Robert Wisdom is pretty exposing.
And I have pink hair! It is a testament to Todd’s vision that I would lop off my hair, bleach it white and then dye it cotton-candy pink. I looked like a stuffed animal. And then I had to take my clothes off. That’s as vulnerable as you can get. I think I lost any hope of ever being America’s sweetheart with this movie. I don’t know how I’ll take my mom to it.
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Maybe Mom ought to skip this one.
You know, my mom is from Jenkintown and Germantown. My grandfather founded Penn Fruit, which is the oldest supermarket chain in Pennsylvania. I love Philly. I spent big chunks of my childhood there. We’d always stay at the Barclay Hotel. We’d go to the park and feed the birds. I used to love Bookbinder’s. I thought it hung the moon. And I loved getting Philly hoagies and steak sandwiches. It was the best.
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Fact or fiction: You never wanted to be an actress.
Fact. I was in New York, trying to be a photographer. But it was such an elite world, a very hard world to break into. I was also taking acting classes just so I’d have a place to go every day. An agent saw me and thought I was cute. The whole teen thing was taking off. She snatched me up, got me a commercial for the Theater of Virginia and I was hooked.
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Fact or fiction: You made your film debut in In & Out.
Fiction. I was cut out of the final film but I was on the set for months, getting to watch my favorite actress, Joan Cusack, at work. If Dianne Wiest had been in the film, I would have felt like I died and gone to heaven. I really fell in love with acting on the set of that movie.
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Are you happy with the way your career is going at the moment?
I was happy with a commercial for Theater of Virginia! I’m happy to be here talking about what little career I might or might not have. I’m happy to be in A Guy Thing. I’m happy to be in Todd’s movie. I could die right now–career-wise. I never thought I’d get a job. Forget acting. Any job. I was afraid to leave college. But I guess God provides.