From: FYIWinnipeg.com
"I embraced the challenge of being totally despicable and unlikable, but it wasn't easy. Initially I was reluctant to push the envelope. I found myself trying to soften her edges," Pfeiffer says of her character.
In I Am Sam, which opens Friday, Pfeiffer plays Rita Harrison, a driven, self-important lawyer who is tricked into defending a mentally challenged man whose young daughter has been taken from him by social workers.
Sam Dawson (Sean Penn) has raised his daughter Lucy (Dakota Fanning) by himself but, at seven years old, Lucy has almost reached her father's mental age.
When the courts insist Lucy must be put in a foster home, Sam picks Rita's law firm from the telephone directory because there are four names listed in the title. It sounds important and he wants someone very important to defend him.
Almost by default, he gets Rita, who is more used to badgering people than trying to understand their plights.
The first time Rita drives Sam to a hearing, she terrifies him by weaving in and out of traffic, shouting at fellow motorists and sniping at him. Still, he hopes she'll do the same to the lawyers, social workers and judge.
"I thought I was Cruella De Vil in the driving scene. I was convinced I'd turned into the ultimate dragon lady, but (director) Jessie Nelson said that's where the humour in the film would be."
Pfeiffer coyly insists: "I will never admit to seeing anything of myself in Rita. I threw a TV remote once and that's all I'll admit to as far as temper tantrums go."
But she admits it was "ultimately liberating to play Rita and be so emotionally excessive. It certainly prepared me for my next role in White Oleander. Audiences will see a real nasty side of me in that one."
In White Oleander, which is scheduled for a fall release, Pfeiffer plays a free-spirited poet who murders her lover.
The 43-year-old has received Oscar nominations for her performances in Dangerous Liaisons (1988), The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) and Love Field (1992), but these achievements have often been overshadowed by references to her physical beauty.
People magazine chose her as one of its 50 most beautiful people in the world and Empire magazine named her one of the 100 sexiest stars in film history.
"This physical thing is something I've had to deal with since I started making movies. I learned very quickly that part of how you look is how you are cast," Pfeiffer says. "It was not until Jonathan Demme cast me in Married to the Mob that people started treating me as serious actor. I consider that a real pivotal point in my career."
Pfeiffer feels that "people in general and Hollywood in particular objectify beautiful women. They cease to see them as human beings.
"It's particularly damaging if you grow up being told you're beautiful because that becomes a part of how you see yourself. Fortunately for me, I was a tomboy growing up. I always felt I was too big and awkward and I had this horrible pixie haircut."
Pfeiffer admits she is past the point of feigning modesty.
"There are definitely times when I feel beautiful, but at other times I want to crawl under a rock.
"Everyone has seen those pictures of me in the supermarket rags when they caught me rushing off to the grocery store. Even I wonder what that woman was thinking, appearing like that in public. How I feel and how I look really depends on how long I've spent in makeup."
The truly beautiful things in Pfeiffer's life these days are her eight-year marriage to Ally McBeal and The Practice producer David E. Kelley and their two children, Claudia Rose, 9, and John Henry, 7.
Before she met and married Kelley, Pfeiffer was married to thirtysomething actor Peter Horton for several years and had a three-year relationship with actor Fisher Stevens.
"David and I are really compatible," she says. "We're both such homebodies. Our idea of a great Saturday is watching a movie after a quiet dinner.
They're also devoted parents.
"David takes the children to school every day that he's in L.A. and I pick them up. We love being parents.
"I make my film choices around my children. Unless they are on vacation, I won't take films that require me to be away from home for any length of time."
Pfeiffer says neither of her children has shown the slightest interest in acting.
"I was a very precocious child whose mother let me stay up way too late at night watching old black-and-white movies. That's where my love of acting and movies was born.
"Except for a brief period of telling everyone I wanted to be a psychologist, I can only ever remember wanting to be an actor.
"And I mean an actor as opposed to being a movie star," she adds. "I still don't want to be a movie star. I just love acting so I don't have to be the star of a film to be in it.
"Mine is very much a supporting role in I Am
Sam, but it gave me the opportunity to work with Sean Penn and to challenge
myself."