[[ARTICLES]] Trumpeting Blair

On screen, spunky and spitting fire ... off, really just 'The Sweetest Thing'
November 26, 2008 - Michael Elkin, Arts & Entertainment Editor

Selma Blair is dressed to kvell in "Kath and Kim"

Photo by Chris Haston/NBC

Pyrotechnic and pretty, Selma Blair sets "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" aflame.

And now the acclaimed actress lights up the small screen with her turn as a vacuous vamp with mother issues that would have Oedipus putting his eyes out all over again in "Kath & Kim," a new Thursday-night NBC comedy just given an extra order of episodes.

Extraordinary with that certain X factor that has made her the "It" girl on screen, Blair bewitches and bedazzles even as she once claimed to be "an unlikely leading lady."

Lead on, Selma: Still believe that? "You know, either way I'm going to sound yucky, whatever way I answer that," she hedges.

Yucky? Yup, part of the appeal of this yuppie-ish actress whose every good intention to showcase her talent paid off in "Cruel Intentions" (1999) and whose ability to raise hell had her hellbent to do the sequel to her starring role in "Hellboy." (Both are now out on DVD.)

Or was that raising ... Hillel? The youngster once known to her Michigan mishpocah as Selma Blair Beitner was raised in a proud Jewish family, which sent her off to Hillel Day School packed with a pareve lunch.

Now, at 36, the blazingly pretty Blair -- Selma's alabaster skin clearly caught the eye of Vogue earlier this year -- maintains her mitzvah ways. Hers was a traditional Jewish ceremony when she wed Ahmet Zappa in 2004. (The chupah did develop a tear or two; she and the rocker zapped their vows, divorcing in 2006.)

There is nothing traditional about her choices, however. Isn't trading an image as "The Sweetest Thing" for a flame-thrower (the "Hellboy" series) akin to tossing a match at your career?

Obviously not, as this maverick seems well-matched to stretch and, in the case of "Hellboys," be incendiary.

Blair with flare? Make that flair, and no less likely a place to show it than in "Kath & Kim," on which her daughterly duties include taking out the white trash.

But her portrayal surely has curb appeal. "For some reason, I find Kim kind of lovable," says Blair. "I mean, irritating for sure.

Selma Blair helps "Hellboy" Ron Perlman deal with interlopers.

Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

"But lovable."

They love me, they really love me -- trumpeting Blair has been a movie-trade-magazine mantra. Blair has been bringing in fans, too. Besides her silver-screen honors -- she was a standout in "Legally Blonde" -- there's the golden-girl greeting she gets by being named to this year's "Rosh Hashanah Hotties: The Top 12 Jewish Hollywood Beauties" -- 12 for 5769, a very hot year -- by scandalist.com.

Scan the list and see she's in good company, this Jewish actress who's on a first-name basis with her Jewish appellation of Batsheva.

Golden Rules Rule

Judging by what she says -- and acts -- it's no coincidence Blair grew up acknowledging that the golden rules rule; hellgirl, too? Nope, after all, her mother was a judge.

And Mom was the mother of all mothers -- in a good way, unlike Kath (Molly Shannon), whose mother smothers with day-old leftovers of advice.

While Blair was the cool kid on the block in Southfield, Mich., Kim is the blockhead of the trailer park tradition that trails her in what may be called "The Philadelphia Story," only with unsightly excavations.

Blair, which project projects the inner you? "Kim is nothing like what I was growing up," relates Blair. "I am close with my mom."

Close call to call Kim the anti-daughter? "I don't think Kim's completely the anti-daughter," she muses.

"I think, at the heart of it, she really does love and support her mom and really wants to be with her so much. She just depends on her mom too much, so it's a little tricky."

Signing on to their roles, along with Molly Shannon, at an NBC party.

Photo by Trae Patton/NBC

Trick or treat -- it's certainly a change from her roarin' fire of a role in "Hellboy" (and two straight-to-video DVDs), in which Blair's Liz Sherman has to learn to temper her temperature from Fahrenheit 411 to a cooler calm.

(Though, in the flicks, Liz is romantically linked to the title character -- pregnant with twins -- there is no basis in fact that Blair's former husband was a hellboy of his own; she has nothing but the best of praise for Zappa, whom she has called "a lovely man.")

In a way, the whole career has been picture-perfect, reflecting, perhaps, that Blair earned her degree in photography from the University of Michigan. Maybe that's a snapshot of things to come in Kim's "career"?

Negative. "I think Kim wants to be in front of the camera for sure; I don't think she'd be a photographer."

Wrong frame of reference? "She'd do something probably a little" -- is that the sound of trash cans clanging in the back? -- "louder."

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[[INTERVIEWS]] Selma Blair: Women: Details

Selma Blair

After her deliciously sapphic role in Cruel Intentions, the smart and sexy Selma Blair became a teen-movie queen. But, as fans will soon find out, nothing matures an actress quicker than a pervy Todd Solondz script.

Read More http://www.details.com/celebrities-entertainment/women/200202/selma-blair#ixzz0zunBfagj

Unless you live in Europe, where the censors are decidedly more open-minded, you'll probably never see the shot in Todd Solondz's Storytelling in which Selma Blair is bent over and violated against a wall. A few months ago, when the pervy director (Happiness) screened this delicate sequence for the Motion Picture Association of America, the ratings board insisted that he give the scene a little more of a Disney feeling. Solondz, in classic passive-aggressive fashion, put a big red square over the shot. Red square or not, Storytelling remains a Todd Solondz film, and Blair still appears full-frontal. Not to mention the line she's asked to scream repeatedly—a line, frankly, that we probably shouldn't print ("Fuck me, nigger"). "I don't think that scene is such a big deal," Blair says, from the Hollywood dog park where she's decided to spend a recent afternoon. She pauses to pet her one-eyed mutt, Wink. "I wonder if it will be."

In Storytelling, the 29-year-old actress plays a college student who, after having an affair with a cerebral-palsy afflictee, is eager to get it on with her African-American creative-writing professor, played by Robert Wisdom (Face/Off). "When we shot that scene," Blair says, "it was a really strange atmosphere. The apartment was really hot, Robert was sweating all over my back—it felt very real. But in a way, it was easy. I was naked, doing things that were horrifying, but I felt bold, like I had the permission to break taboos. It was refreshing."

Blair's speaking loud enough to be heard—regardless of topic—over the incessant yelping and woofing; she seems to enjoy it whenever a pack of canines crashes into her, scattering purses, leashes, and the usual bark-park flotsam and jetsam across the lawn. Fetching in short hair (cropped after Storytelling's pink dye nuked her chestnut locks), a jean jacket, and shell toes, she has an easy humor and blunt nature that suggest an actress who knows exactly where she stands; a kind of punk-rock princess, too girlie to be Natasha Lyonne, too savvy to be Sarah Michelle Gellar. Take, for instance, the 1999 teen romp Cruel Intentions, which found her swapping saliva with Buffy. Blair now regularly finds herself discussing the teenage-lesbian-fantasy smooch with legions of drooling fans. "There's a funny scene in Not Another Teen Movie that spoofs the kiss with this 70-year-old woman in my part," Blair says. "They even had the spit string like Sarah and I had. I thought it was pretty cool. I've become an in-joke." Blair's comic ease isn't lost on her colleagues. "Some actors can be a bit standoffish at first," says Jason Lee, who co-stars with Blair opposite Julia Stiles in this fall's A Guy Thing. "Not Selma. She'll say and do whatever she wants, regardless of who's in the room. It's admirable."

This month, Blair turns up again in The Sweetest Thing, which concerns a raunchy club hopper (Cameron Diaz) who turns to her girlfriends (Blair and Christina Applegate) for help trying to land Mr. Right. Apparently, the set was yet another lesbian-fantasy session. "They're pretty hot girls—I wouldn't mind romping around with those two," Blair says. "No, no, just kidding. We did what girls always do: We talked about guys, discussed penis size—if they're lucky, we say it's big."

Blair's childhood sounds like urban Jane Austen: She and her three older sisters—Mimi, Katie, and Lizzie—were raised in Southfield, Michigan, by their mother, whom Blair describes as a "damn sexy" federal judge. After graduating with a fine-arts degree from the University of Michigan, she took off for New York, thinking she'd be a photographer or an actress, whichever worked out. In the short term, what worked out was broke, waiting tables, and sleeping at the Salvation Army. "I was so poor I had to choose between beer and a sandwich for lunch," Blair says. "And I'd think, hmmm...beer is cheaper, and I'll get a buzz, so beer it is." Fortunately, an agent caught her in an acting class and Blair was able to upgrade her diet. Solondz had a similar reaction: "Selma really popped out at me when I met her," the director says. "She makes the text richer than you thought it would be."

Though Blair posed nude for student painters in art school, when asked about the art of onscreen exposure, she tends to draw attention to her stick-thin frame and distinct lack of boobage. Like any smart woman, she can turn what could have been a physical liability (in some eyes, at least) into a charming mea culpa. "I'm a tomboy!" she screams at her chest. "No, I'm kidding. But I think my body type is probably a little odd to see on screen. I don't have that curvy figure, and no implants. I don't get asked much to do your typical sexy nude stuff because the American public wouldn't know what to make of me."

At least Hollywood hasn't sucked all the humor out of her, like it does to certain young actresses (insert mental picture of Leelee Sobieski reading her 9-11 prose poetry on Leno). When offered an opportunity to share any final thoughts, Blair ends the afternoon with her own pomo haiku: "If your readers ever want to see me, I'm stripping Monday nights at Crazy Girls in Hollywood and I go by the name of Lucky," she says with mock earnestness. "You'd hardly recognize me! And if they have the teen crowd in, I wear my Manchester Prep costume from Cruel Intentions, and I take it all off."