Liv Tyler Keeps Her Perspective
Onscreen, Liv Tyler is the quintessential glamorous movie star: gorgeous face, curvy bod, sexy gams. But know what? In real life, the actress who has graced such films as "Armageddon," "Dr. T and the Women" and Bernardo Bertolucci's "Stealing Beauty" is a homebody: She does her own laundry down in the basement, cooks dinner most nights and lounges around e-mailing girlfriends.
"I don't live a very posh life. There are no drivers waiting or people doing everything for me. I pretty much live like a normal person. . . . It's not good to have a life without responsibilities, you know?" said the 23-year-old at her home in downtown Manhattan. In her new film, "One Night at McCool's," a black comedy produced by and co-starring Michael Douglas, Tyler vamps it up as a maddeningly manipulative femme fatale named Jewel who uses sex to get what she wants. Matt Dillon, Paul Reiser and John Goodman play three guys who are obsessed with her.
"It was very hard to watch myself be so sexual," she said of screening the film. "Oh, my God, I had my eyes closed for half of it! Jewel is nothing like me. I had to really let myself go. . . . My sexual side isn't something I'm usually aware of - unless I'm seducing my boyfriend!"
Recently, Tyler became engaged to Spacehog lead singer Royston Langdon. She also has spent the better part of a year and a half commuting to New Zealand to film an adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkien trilogy, "The Lord of the Rings." She plays Arwen, an elfin warrior princess, a character expanded from that of the classic fantasy novels. The first of the three films premieres this Christmas.
Indeed, life is good for Tyler, who two years after moving from Portland, Maine, to New York at age 12 began modeling and doing television commercials. It was an easy transition to film acting. At 17, she won a key role in "Silent Fall," then made "Empire Records," "Heavy" and "Stealing Beauty." Her real breakthrough came courtesy of rocker dad Steven Tyler when she co-starred in Aerosmith's 1994 video "Crazy," which blanketed MTV.
Tyler candidly confesses that acting is "terrifying. One minute you're being friendly with the crew, and then suddenly everything switches and you're the one standing in the lights - and nobody's gonna help you. When you don't plan what to do (in a scene) and just see where it takes you, you're really in a vulnerable place. I do struggle. But I try not to be so hard on myself because it makes life painful."
Still, once the shoot's over, promoting a movie - with press conferences and "scary'' talk shows - panics her. "I'm so fiery already and have so much adrenaline that when I get nervous," she said, "it just overflows. Sometimes I feel like I'm gonna pass out."
