From: fakeaddress@mindspring.com   
      
   posted by Chimerical at the Haven:   
      
      
   ===>   
   For 'Spanglish' star, it takes time to be really neurotic   
      
   Bill Muller   
   The Arizona Republic   
   Dec. 17, 2004 12:00 AM   
      
   Tall, lithe and blond, Téa Leoni is the picture of unapproachable   
   Hollywood glamour as she walks into the room.   
      
   It takes her about 10 seconds to shatter the image.   
      
   "I went to the bathroom and dropped my ring down a toilet,"   
   Leoni reveals.  "Of course I got it back.  Are you kidding?   
   I'm not going to let that go."   
      
   When a reporter suggests that Deborah, her character in Spanglish,   
   occasionally looked like hell, Leoni corrects him, substituting   
   a scatological term.   
      
   It was in that same irrepressible spirit - of an ex-tennis player   
   and competitive windsurfer who's now a mother of two - that Leoni   
   embraced Deborah, an overachieving, narcissistic mom in a failing   
   marriage to a world-class chef (Adam Sandler).   
      
   Leoni said it took less courage to appear with smeared makeup,   
   as she does during an extended crying jag, than to "let your   
   imagination take crack and then literally play (the role)   
   physically.   
      
   "It's something else . . . to imagine something quietly in your   
   home, have a nightmare, you wake up from it.  It's another thing to   
   actually walk it around a room. . . . It can get a little scary."   
      
   But Leoni felt safe with director James L. Brooks (As Good as It   
   Gets, Terms of Endearment) who gave her "full rein to go as deeply   
   and frighteningly into the bowels of this woman as I wanted."   
      
   The more neurotic she made Deborah, the more compassion Leoni had   
   for the character, who has trouble connecting with her two kids   
   and her long-suffering husband.  The family dynamic changes when   
   Deborah hires a new maid, Flor (Paz Vega) who eventually moves in,   
   along with her young daughter.   
      
   Leoni has starred in major films before, including Deep Impact   
   and Jurassic Park III, and worked with director Woody Allen on   
   Hollywood Ending.  But Spanglish is her most complete role to date.   
   She credits Brooks with always allowing time to develop her   
   character and never rushing the production.   
      
   "Sometimes you're working on a film and it's like horrible 'Nam   
   flashbacks from the SATs," she says, "where you're looking   
   at the clock and 'Omigod, gotta get it, gotta get it.'   
   There's never that with Jim."   
      
   Leoni says she quit her late-'90s sitcom, The Naked Truth,   
   because she couldn't stand rushing her work.   
      
   "You do a sitcom, you get it Monday, you shoot it Friday," she says.   
   "And that must happen because there's a slot to fill and it's got   
   to be 22 minutes and it must happen, and I had to get out because   
   of that.  I couldn't stand the inherent mediocrity.   
      
   "I'm not saying that there aren't great shows out there, but can   
   you realize how devastating it can be, when you feel like your   
   work never has the time to be fully explored."   
      
   Working on Spanglish also reminded her to safeguard her own marriage,   
   to actor David Duchovny.   
      
   "If you're not awake, if you fall asleep at the wheel in any of   
   your most intimate and profound and important relationships, this   
   huge divide, this canyon can develop in a relationship," she says.   
   "It's sneaky and it's subtle and you can just wake up one morning   
   and find it there."   
      
   Leoni also said she relates to Deborah as a mom.   
      
   "We all wonder . . . if we're doing it right.  Are our kids going   
   to love us forever?"   
      
   She adds: "You always have that thought, Omigod, did I just destroy   
   the trust we have when I said we could go to Chuck E. Cheese later   
   and we didn't?"   
   <===   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)