Michelle Pfeiffer Explains Her Disappearance From Hollywood

"I got so picky that I was unhirable," the actress says

By Zach Johnson Mar 28, 2017 3:30 PMTags

Where has Michelle Pfeiffer been?

It turns out the answer is pretty simple. "I've never lost my love for acting. I feel really at home on the movie set. I'm a more balanced person honestly when I'm working," says Pfeiffer, who last appeared onscreen in 2013's The Family (opposite Robert De Niro). "But I was pretty careful about where I shot, how long I was away, whether or not it worked out with the kids' schedule. And I got so picky that I was unhirable. And then...I don't know, time just went on."

"When the student is ready," she adds, "the teacher appears."

The actress, who has three movies in post-production, marks her return to Hollywood by appearing on the cover of Interview's April issue. "I'm more open now, my frame of mind, because I really want to work now, because I can," she tells director Darren Aronfosky. "And these last few years I've had some really interesting opportunities. And I have this weird synchronicity with Annette Bening. I was supposed to do Bugsy; I fell out of that. She did it, so she met Warren [Beatty]. That wouldn't have happened. And then she was supposed to do Batman Returns; She fell out of that. I replaced her. So, we're always kind of tag-teaming."

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Although Pfeiffer "disappeared" for a few years, she never lost her passion for movie making. "What's interesting is, there's always a lot of talk to young people about finding their passion, following their passion. But I remember reading somewhere that a lot of people don't have a passion. And there's this pressure to have one. It's perfectly fine not to have one," the actress explains. "But to be lucky enough to know what that is at such a young age is really a blessing."

Surprisingly, Pfeiffer didn't always see herself as an actress. "I'm from Orange County, Southern California, and couldn't have been more removed from the entertainment business," the actress says. "In fact, I didn't really even go to the movies much. My mother didn't drive. My father couldn't be bothered. So, I didn't really go anywhere. But what I did do is I would stay up really late watching old movies on television. I can't even tell you what they were because I was so young. But I remember watching what they were doing and saying to myself, 'I can do that.'"

After a stint in stenography school, Pfeiffer worked as a cashier at a supermarket. It didn't take long before the job made her "frustrated" and she searched for a career with more purpose. "I remember distinctly standing in the check stand in a fit of desperation and wanting to tell one of these customers where they could shove this cantaloupe. I thought to myself, 'What do you want to do with the rest of your life?'" the 58-year-old Scarface star recalls. "And it was acting."

But in the back of her mind, Pfeiffer must have known she was destined to be an actress—right? "I guess I did. I must have been a very dramatic child. Because my mother used to call me 'my little actress.' And maybe that's it," she concedes. "I'm discovering this for the first time."

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Pfeiffer—who next appears in The Wizard of Lies, Mother! and Murder on the Orient Express—also took theater classes in high school, which gave her the assurance to pursue acting as a full-time profession years later. "To be lucky enough to know what that is at such a young age is really a blessing. I actually got some really positive feedback from my teacher in high school. She said that I should take it seriously. It gave me just that little bit of confidence that acting was something that I innately knew how to do," the Grease 2 star says in Interview. "It tapped into that part of me that somehow knew when I was watching those movies on television."

In the beginning of her career, Pfeiffer rarely felt ready. "I didn't have any formal training. I didn't come from Juilliard. I was just getting by and learning in front of the world," she admits. "I've always had this feeling that one day they're going to find out I'm really a fraud, that I really don't know what I'm doing. I've taken a lot of workshops, worked with some really masterful teachers, and I don't know that my method has actually changed from the beginning. I still work pretty instinctually—it's a little bit like hearing the rhythm of the character in your head."

What did those years of internal struggle teach Pfeiffer?

"It's OK to fail. You try different things. Like a designer with Post-it notes, you throw out bad idea after bad idea until you stumble upon the good one. It's by accident. And that's what I did," Pfeiffer says. "I was young enough to think, 'OK, well, I have this safe job at Vons, a good job I can make a living at, with benefits, but what I really want to do is be an actor. And I'm young enough that, if I fail, I can do something else.' Somehow I had the courage to do that."