Monday, 8/25/97 Alicia to excess FILM: Alicia Silverstone is working overtime, starring in and producing 'Excess Baggage.'
By Mike Prevatt Daily Bruin Senior Staff It seems like just yesterday when Alicia Silverstone gained nationwide recognition in Aerosmith's "Crying" video, voted by MTV as the "No. 1 Video of All Time." Immediately after, she found stardom beyond small films and high hopes, despite being only 17 years old. That was 1993. In just four short years, Silverstone has two major motion pictures under her belt ("Clueless" and "Batman and Robin"). Now she is ready to unveil "Excess Baggage," a new film Silverstone both stars in and produced. The movie, out this Friday, is the debut of First Kiss Productions, headed by Silverstone and her assistant/best friend Carolyn Kessler. The 20-year-old Silverstone found the whole experience rewarding. "It's been about two years of my life," Silverstone says. "I loved every moment of it. It was all so challenging and fulfilling ..." "Excess Baggage," also starring Benecio Del Toro ("The Usual Suspects") and Christopher Walken ("The Prophecy"), tells the story of Emily (Silverstone), a girl who tries to get her father's attention by staging her own kidnapping. Emily doesn't count on running into professional car thief Vincent (Del Toro), whose life is turned upside down in the worst ways thanks to the anything-but-timid Emily. The film is the first in a two-picture deal with Columbia for Silverstone the producer. Sharing production duties with Kessler and Bill Borden, Silverstone's tasks ranged from casting to music supervision. "Everything was difficult, and I loved everything about it. I didn't not like anything because I learned from everything. I enjoyed having a vision and seeing it through to the end and being responsible for every aspect of the film." Extra responsibilities gave Alicia more of a voice when it came to the script and how her character was portrayed. She even shared her newfound power with co-star Del Toro. "Benecio and I were able to write a lot of this movie because you have your guidelines and you have a script, but we were ad-libbing throughout the whole movie. With the love scene, we improvised the whole thing about a week beforehand by ourselves, tape recorded it and wrote the scene like that." "She really had a deep connection with the way her character was conceived," adds director Marco Brambilla ("Demolition Man"). "When something didn't ring true to her, she was very sensitive about it. "The only difficult thing was the fact that ... you gotta shoot the scene she's in, so that makes it more complicated," Brambilla continues. "Otherwise, especially in pre-production, it was a great asset to have someone like Alicia who really gets the tone of the movie and gets the idea that we're not making a formulaic comedy ... it worked out very well that way." Del Toro was especially impressed with Silverstone's determination and passion. "She's 20 years old, she's acting in a movie, she's producing and she's fighting with everybody for what she really believes in. And she's not being a bully about it. And she didn't lose stamina, she's kept it up all the way through ... Good for her." "Alicia's a big reason why I did this film," Del Toro continues. "I did it because she was great in 'Clueless.' She's great to watch and she's down-to- earth. I'd work with her anytime." Like "Clueless," "Excess Baggage" centers around themes of youth, love and maturity. "I just really wanted to show something that I thought a lot of young people needed and could relate to," Silverstone says. "There's no way you can change a person, so you got to accept the person and then figure out how you're going to precede from there without that person being any kind of influence on you." The film's coming-of-age themes also center around relationships and love. Silverstone aimed to create a youth-oriented movie with more emotionally mature characters. "I mean, Emily and Vincent don't end up together (just) because they are attracted to each other physically," Silverstone says. "They don't meet each other and go, 'Let's go do it in the kitchen!'" Silverstone especially focused on parental love and teenage alienation. "I know a lot of people that don't have really good parents," Silverstone says. "But you don't live your life, successfully - that is, if you keep saying, 'My mom was so mean to me' or 'My dad was an alcoholic ...' because as painful as all those things are, you can't live your life that way. You can't find out who you are that way. You can't figure who you are on your own. The greatest lesson I could have ever learned was to accept circumstances the way they are, without any emotional attachment to it." Silverstone learned these lessons as a teen-ager, where she gained independence and achieved success early in life. But her accomplishments don't exist on terms we most associate Hollywood success with. "Everyone measures success differently," notes a more defensive Silverstone. "Success to me is not about how much money I make or how much attention I get from people. I'm successful because I have five dogs. To me, that's successful because I always wished I had lots of dogs and I'm very happy that I do. I think I'm successful because I have great friends ... because I'm generally a happy person. But at the same time, it's like, y'know, none of that other stuff makes me successful." With Silverstone's "success" comes the media attention, some of which is unflattering. However, like many public figures, she ignores the attention. "I basically try not to pay attention to that stuff. It's very uncomforting that everything I say gets written, because it's like tomorrow I might have the answers to everything, where yesterday I didn't have any answers." Despite what the media and business expect of her, Silverstone has seemingly found her own niche in the film world, but does she ever miss her friends or want to live the college life? "I'd like to go to college to learn specific things," says Silverstone. "The life and experience of college is not what I need or require. I'd like to learn political science and American history ... I never took those classes and I'd like to know them. But I'm getting such an education with what I'm doing (now) that when it's time to learn that, I'll go learn it. I don't miss hanging out with those kids because I don't know if I'd have the same things in common." In the meantime, as Silverstone continues to build her resume with leading roles and production credits, she still is "clueless" as to where she'll end up in the future. "I have no idea!" laughs Silverstone. "I may be in a tribe!" FILM: "Excess Baggage" opens on Aug. 29. (top left) Benecio Del Toro plays Vincent Roche and Alicia Silverstone plays Emily T. Hope in "Excess Baggage." (above) Silverstone stars as a rich but emotionally neglected girl. (left) Kistler (Harry Connick, Jr.) listens as his partner Vincent (Del Toro) tries to explain what happened to the stolen car that they were supposed to deliver to their boss. Previous Daily Bruin Story If you have MTV, you've seen her videos