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A Hollywood star takes a five-year break and now comes back as a villain

Michelle Pfeiffer had no intention of spending nearly five years away from the silver screen. 8220;You know,8221; the 49-year-old actress says matter-of-factly, 8220;it just happened8221;. A few years ago, Pfeiffer, her uber-TV-producer husband David E. Kelley and their children, Claudia Rose, 14, and Jack Henry, 13, relocated from Los Angeles to Northern California.

8220;It wasn8217;t like I made a conscious decision to not work. Honestly, four years just went by.8221; Actually, Pfeiffer did return to work two years ago in Amy Heckerling8217;s May-December romantic comedy, I Could Never Be Your Woman. It8217;s now scheduled for later this year.

In the meantime, Pfeiffer seems to be everywhere this summer. She does a delicious comedic turn as the villainous former beauty queen Velma Von Tussle in the musical comedy Hairspray and plays a ruthless, decrepit witch named Lamia who seeks to regain her youth in the fantasy Stardust.

Pfeiffer is still stunning. She8217;s tall and whippet-slender. Dressed in blue jeans and a crisp white shirt, Pfeiffer seems at ease with her beauty.

Talking of her hiatus, the three-time Oscar nominee says, 8220;I have been working since I was 14. I have never taken a break. I think maybe my psyche was just telling me not to work for a while.8221;

Not that she was idle. Pfeiffer laboured full-time as a wife and mother. 8220;It8217;s all the mundane stuff. I try to be everywhere all the time. Of course, we know that8217;s impossible, but I am going to make it work 8230; damn it!8221;

Pfeiffer admits she felt rusty when she started to film the Heckerling comedy. But by the time she finished Stardust, 8220;I felt all cylinders were going again and I realised I still love doing this. I feel like I have come to a peace with the balance of work and being a mom.8221;

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In Stardust, Lamia tries to capture the incarnation of a celestial star Claire Danes in order to cut out her heart, thus restoring the witch8217;s youth and beauty. Pfeiffer was drawn to the project because of director Matthew Vaughn. She8217;d seen his film Layer Cake and was impressed that 8220;he took a relatively simple movie and brought a specific style to it and put his stamp on it.8221; As Lamia, Pfeiffer had to endure 4 1/2 hours of makeup to become a sagging, hairless harpy.

8220;Normally, if I am doing a kind of glamour thing, it is like, 8216;Here we go, having to look perfect. They are going to fuss with me8217;,8221; the actress says. 8220;But the interesting thing was after having been the hag, the glamour stuff was like being natural. It was like a relief to be glamorous.8221;
Susan King LAT-WP