Throwback Thursday! Alicia Silverstone, Rolling Stones 1995
Alicia Silverstone
#THECRUSH
WHO:
Alicia Silverstone
WHAT:
Rolling Stone Editorial
WHEN:
September 7th, 1995 Photographed By: Peggy Sirota
OUR FAVORITE INTERVIEW QUOTE:
" 'I have realizations,' she says, entering a dreamy place most reach only
with the help of drugs or an injury. 'Like that life's bigger than us.
People forget that, but I'm always aware of it. Like when I'm in the
bathroom looking at my toilet paper, I'm like 'Wow! That's toilet
paper?' I don't know if we appreciate how much we have. I just want a
few things I can treasure."
"Ballad Of A Teenage Queen"
In 1995 an 18- year-old Alicia Silverston graced the cover of Rolling Stones Magazine wearing an all pink ensemble against a pink drop. Inside, Silverston has her own editorial spread with the fitting title "Ballad Of A Teenage Queen", which includes a couple of lovely pictures and an interview from the popular starlet, who had gained popularity that year after the premiere of 90s popular film (and one of our all time favorites) Clueless (1995) and as the lead video girl in 3 Aerosmith video- 'Cryin', 'Amazing' and 'Crazy' (1994) .
'Cryin'
'Amazing'
'Crazy'
Inside, Alicia is interviewed by Rich Cohen; who starts off the article labeling Alicia as a "kittenish 18-year-old movie star whom lots of men want to sleep with." He then follows up with a quote from Silverstone, who has no desire to be seen as a sex kitten. "What people think about me, of doing with me – it can be gross." Silverstone, a teenager at the time of her success, was trying to balance her life with her profession; "she tries to balance the inaudible pangs of adolescence (Let's get
crazy) with the audible pangs of agents ("you can't get crazy, you have a
photo shoot") and saves her good looks and enthusiasm for a party that
has never been thrown."
Silverstone grew up spending afternoons at the race track with her father, Monty, in San Francisco, who is a published author (Monty's Betting Tips). Cohen goes on to describe how Alicia started her career from her father taking pictures of her from a very young age. Cohen describes Alica and her fathers relationship as speculative venture. "By the time she could walk, he was running her as you would a fine
horse. While she was in third grade, he took pictures of her; one of
which she still keeps tucked behind a couch in her living room.
"I look
at it sometimes," Alicia Silverstone says, crossing the room and pulling
up a black-and-white poster-size photo: a 6-year-old bikini-clad Alicia
on all fours on a white shag rug. "I look just the same as I do today,"
she says, gazing at a photo that brings to mind underground rings and
police sting operations. "We went to a modeling agency with these
photos, and they started sending me out on shoots. That's how I was
introduced to the working world – as the flower girl in all these phony
weddings."
Cohen continues the article describing Silverstone's girl next door charm and undeniable beauty; "she's a pretty girl, but she's the kind of pretty girl who feels she must
apologize for being pretty by calling herself short, fat, dumpy,
homely, ugly, awkward, or whatever. The kind of girl, that is, who tries to
paint herself as a regular girl and in the process alienates a lot of
girls who next to her really do seem sort of regular....."
"she has the brand-new look of a still wet painting- touch her and she'll smudge."
Alicia realized that she was interested in acting after her freshman year of high school. She wanted to be in control of her own image. This came about after a high school party Alicia attended as freshman, after a rumor had spread that she'd got "drunk and had sex with some the guys". "While this experience taught Silverstone how the hint of sex spreads
faster than the fact of respectability, it also taught her about image
and how easily you can lose control of who people think you are. "So I
decided to control just what I could, and that was my dream," she says.
"I always wanted to be an actress. So when I was in eighth grade, I started taking acting classes with
Judi O'Neill, a teacher who came up from L.A. to San Francisco once a
month and held workshops." After only a few classes with O'Neill, he took Silverstone to L.A. on scouting trips; within a year Alicia had signed with Kessler and was cast in the The Crush.
(Silverton in The Crush)
Alicia was perfect for her role in The Crush; "I was looking for Gloria Swanson from Sunset Boulevard in a 14-year-old
body mixed with Sue Lyon from Lolita," says Alan Shapiro, who directed
the film. "It was a lot to ask of someone who had never really done it
before. Whereas some actors are concerned with looking cool, Alicia
threw herself into it with abandon. She's completely willing to make an
idiot out of herself, which any real artist has to be willing to do.
She's a very intense girl."
Alicia is determined to have her name be known as nothing more than a talented actress rather than an 'object of sexual fantasy'; "I can't speculate on how people see me," she says. "But I do wonder
how they can see me as a sex symbol. I can't see anything about me that
equals sex. It's strange to think of what other people might be thinking
of me. "And it's not nice to get written about," Silverstone says. "When
you're written about, it's like being dragged out. All of a sudden,
people are fixating on you. It's sad. Not long ago some person was going
around the Internet claiming they were me, saying lewd things in my
name. 'Come and get me' and other stuff I don't want to repeat. I don't
want people to know who Alicia is. I want to be an actress. I want to
create other people. I don't want other people to create me."
After the premiere of The Crush, Silverstone caught the eye of Marty Callner, who was looking to cast her as the leading lady for the Aerosmith video 'Cryin', and then later 'Crazy'. Although landing the lead in the Aerosmith video was a huge success for Silverstone; she feared that all people would identify her with "I'd like to correct the idea that the videos came first," she says,
folding her arms. "That's absurd. I'm not a video star turned actress.
I'm a serious actress who spent a few days making videos. I've done a
lot more than videos, you know."
Alicia landed her role in Clueless, when director Amy Heckerling saw her on the 'Cryin" music video during her treadmill workout. "I was minding my own business on my treadmill watching MTV when I saw
'Cryin' and just went cuckoo bananas. She's funny and beautiful –
anyone who shows even a glimmer of that mix becomes a major star. I'm
thinking of people like Sally Field and Goldie Hawn."
Her role in Clueless (which is inspired by Jane Austen's Emma) would for ever be praised and remembered in pop culture. However, unlike her character Cher; Silverston is far from a "self-consumed, materialistic, thoughtless teen". "I don't care about clothes, I don't dress up, I look like crap all the
time. But the quality we do share is wanting to please everyone.
I'm
just now learning you have to separate your life from the life of your
family, that your needs are different. Everyone goes through that." She
signals Samson, who bounds across the room. "Some people just go through
it later than others. Kids in college go through it, but slowly. They
evolve. But since I'm out in the working world, I've had lessons most
people don't get until their 30s. So I feel ready to confront the big
things."
Later in the interview, Cohen and Alicia discuss her dating life and her no type lifestyle. Boyfriends? "I had a boyfriend when I was in junior high," Silverstone
says. "He was a Mexican named Willie. My next boyfriend was Chinese. She's always had unusual boyfriends," says Monty Silverstone.
"Multinational fellows. To me, they're all nice fellows, but they
couldn't make the films, any of them. She's a bit like Marilyn Monroe, I
guess. She just likes the plainer type guy."
A lone wolf, Silverstone confesses that she likes being alone; except with her dog Samson. "Sometimes when I'm alone," she says, standing, "I make a whole moment of it." A lot of these moments involve Cat Stevens
and some involve laundry. A lot of people are not allowed in such
moments. I'm not allowed in such moments, and neither are you. The real
Cat Stevens? Even he would not be allowed in such moments. Samson is
allowed in such moments."
