Fisher Takes Comedic Turn in ‘Laws’

As a child, Frances Fisher didn’t have the acting bug. Not until after high school, when she was working as a secretary at Firestone Synthetic Rubber and Latex Company in Orange, Texas, and played the ingenue Nellie in a community theater production of Tenessee Williams’ ‘Summer and Smoke,’ did the bug bite her. ”’I found it was much more fun to go work in the theater every evening than typing and filing and trying to pretend I knew how to take shorthand,’ Fisher says. ”She was inspired to become a theater professional by John Holland, a New York actor who had retired to Texas and who encouraged her. ‘If it hadn’t been for him, God knows where I’d be, but I don’t know if I would have become an actress. I realize how important the things adults say to children or young people and how it can change the course of their lives,’ says Fisher, a Palisades resident whose latest movie is New Line’s ‘Laws of Attraction’ with Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan. The movie, directed by Peter Howitt, opens Friday nationwide. ”In the film, Fisher plays the comedic role of Sara Miller, the mother of Ashley, the uptight lawyer played by Julianne Moore. Sara is a youthful, fun woman who looks like a contemporary of her daughter and is much more adventurous and free-spirited. ‘I love her spirit and her optimism,’ says Fisher. ‘She’s lived, she’s made mistakes, she’s moving forward, she’s not done in her 50s.’ ”In terms of casting, Fisher says she and Moore didn’t have any qualms about the fact that biologically Fisher’s not old enough to be Moore’s mother. In fact, Sara has Botox and plastic surgery to look as young as her daughter, which led to one of Fisher’s favorite lines in the film: when Brosnan’s character, lawyer Daniel Rafferty, asks Sara, ‘Are you really 56?’ she replies, ‘Parts of me are.’ ”In real life, Fisher, 51, lives in the Huntington Palisades with her 10-year-old daughter Franny. Franny’s father is Clint Eastwood, whom she sees often; she and her mother recently spent the Easter holidays with him. ‘We’re doing the modern nuclear family kind of life,’ Fisher says. ”Fisher, who is well known for her dramatic roles in films such as ‘Titanic,’ where she played the mother of Rose (Kate Winslet), ‘True Crime’ and ‘Unforgiven,’ says of ‘Laws of Attraction’: ‘I’m hoping it’s a movie that sticks around for a while so people can see I am funny.’ Other recent credits include ‘The House of Sand and Fog,’ ‘Blue Car’ and ‘The Lyon’s Den’ TV series. ”After leaving Texas at the age of 20, Fisher worked as an apprentice at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, which involved building and painting sets, sewing costumes, running props and lights and helping the director. ”One of the actresses she was cueing had a 3-year-old daughter and invited Fisher to come to New York City to study acting. ‘I found myself living in the maid’s room on Park Avenue, taking care of a little girl and taking classes during my down time.’ After that job ended, Fisher continued taking classes and acting in off-off-Broadway productions while tending bar to support herself. She broke into television doing commercials, then was able to quit her bartending job when she auditioned for her first soap opera and got the part of Deborah Saxon on ‘The Edge of Night.’ ”After the bohemian artist in her felt like she was getting ‘too settled,’ she quit the soap after four seasons and immersed herself in theater, studying with Stella Adler, and with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. ”’I think being trained in the theater was really the right path for me. I had some great teachers who just drilled into us: You have to really be there to represent the playwright’s thoughts and ideas; it’s not about showing off or being an exhibitionist for your own purposes.’ ”Fisher entered the film world through director Henry Jaglom, working as a production manager one of his movies. He later cast her in some of his improvisational films, including ‘Babyfever’ and ‘Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?’ Her first big-paying job in film came when Norman Mailer cast her as a former porn star who went into real estate in Santa Barbara for his film ‘Tough Guys Don’t Dance.’ ”’I made more money in six weeks doing that movie than I had earned in a year doing theater. I thought maybe I should focus on film, so I could continue supporting my theater habit,’ Fisher says. ”’At 36, I came out to Los Angeles because I wanted to get myself into the film business, not realizing that 36 is a very ripe age in the eyes of people in the industry. But my mind didn’t work that way; it still doesn’t because I’m theater-trained, and I just see that I’m going to work forever.’ ”Fisher moved to the Palisades in 1996, looking for a place with a good school system to raise her daughter. ‘I looked everywhere from Malibu to Beverly Hills, then I discovered the Huntington. I kept focusing on one house and ‘I thought, man if I could have a house like that it would be perfect.’ It turned out that the house was for sale but had no for-sale sign. A realtor told her about it after she had looked at 40 houses. ‘It was so meant to be.’ ”She was also attracted to the community after coming to visit a friend for the Fourth of July parade. ‘The Fourth of July sold me. I felt as if I had gone back in time. I also love the Sunday farmers’ market. I think it’s a wonderful way not only to get fresh produce but to socialize and see each other,’ says Fisher, who also wouldn’t mind seeing a first-run movie theater in town. ”Fisher has been a judge at the town’s annual Youth Pageant the last two years. ‘I love being part of the pageant every year. It gives me hope for the future of young people.’ ”When asked about her advice for young people interested in acting, Fisher responds: ‘The advice I always give is that if you could think of anything else you might be interested in, pursue that also, because it takes so much willpower, dedication and perseverance to continue in this business. There are a few people who get lucky early, but to stay in the game takes a lot. ”’If you have a proclivity for loving acting, being creative and enjoying the process, you’re a good candidate for being in this business. If you’re there to become famous’get realistic, do something that feeds your soul, not your ego.’ ”Fisher has been showing her daughter old movies to give her a sense of show business history. ‘We’re on a Marilyn Monroe kick; she was a wonderful comedic actress.’ Franny attends public school here and has acted in local Theatre Palisades Kids productions as well as professionally. ”In addition to her work on television and in big-budget movies, Fisher continues to work in theater and on independent films. ‘It’s frustrating when you put your time and energy into something and nobody sees it,’ she says of her work on the 2002 feature ‘The Rising Place.’ ‘It fell through the cracks; it wasn’t edgy enough for film festivals, people didn’t want to see things with serious themes [treated] in a soft, gentle way.’ ”Fisher just wrapped the film ‘Mrs. Harris,’ which deals with the true-life story of Jean Harris (Annette Bening), who killed her former lover Dr. Herman Tarnower (Sir Ben Kingsley), the Scarsdale Diet author, in the 1980s. It was written and directed by Phyllis Nagy. ‘It was wonderful being on set with her,’ Fisher says. As a theater director, Nagy rehearsed the cast extensively. ‘We’d do things in two different takes and move on.’ This past week, Fisher and Franny traveled to Washington, D.C., to take part in the women’s march on Washington for reproductive rights. She is also a board member for the Screen Actors Guild, the Environmental Media Association, the Sherman Oaks Hospital Foundation, and she is a member of The Mother’s Council, whose goal is to create and sustain a culture in which all children flourish.