AMANDA PLUMMER. A FACE THAT'S HARD TO PICTURE IN A ROLE THAT'S HARD TO NAME.
Young or old? Cute or ugly? Crazy or cool? After 20 years in show business Amanda Plummer is still an enigma. East Coast or West? Married or single? Gay or straight? At 37, Miss Plummer is still, to many, an unknown. With her hair bleached blonde but devoid of makeup, Plummer is dressed in designer chic from the brim of her big felt hat to the hem of her fandango-dancing flares. However, she runs around the photographer's studio look for a worn-out cardigan with a hole in the shoulder and a button missing because she's cold. Kind of spoils the look, but you get the impression that Plummer wears her clothes not as a fashion statement, but because she likes them.
Plummer began acting when she was a baby, the only child of actor Christopher Plummer and actress Tammy Grimes. She says "I've been around for a while, so some people think that I'm a veteran film acterss, but I'm a novice in film, my affinity lies with the stage." This is not strictly true: she has an fairly healthy celluloid reportoire under her belt, having had pivotal roles in Sidney Lumet's Daniel (her first movie), Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King, Alan Rudolph's Made in Heaven, and in a lighter vein I Married An Axe Murderer and the pretty atrocious Needful Things, in which she fell off a roof with a knife sticking out of her back and blood pouring out of her mouth. And then, of course, there was this stint on TV as the handicapped janitor's handicapped girl friend. This year has seen her play Honey Bunny, a would-be stickup artist caught up in the whirlwind that is Pulp Fiction, and Catherine de Medici in Nostradamus. the enjoyable portrayal of the 15th-century visionary's life.
Plummer describes herself as an "an old lady". Not the usual response from a Hollywood type when you ask them their age- most just laugh in your face. She leans forward, her eyes closed momentarily. "I am a very old woman. But I wish I was older. I get on better with [older people] than anything else. I want to become one." She touches her face and smiles. "I can't wait for all those lines- old women are so mythical. I'm going to be old soon and I'm thrilled."
Plummer's avant-garde early years would seem to be the heart-seed of her eclectic approach to life. The oversized personalities of her parents alone would be enough to make for an unusual child, but being brought up all over Europe and the States, with such luminaries as Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole and Beatrice Lillie wandering in and out of her childhood left indelible footprints on her mind. Without the distractions of other siblings, how did Plummer relate to the adults around her? "I was always watching and listening- I never spoke." This formed an isolation of its own but I enjoyed my solitude. I had long periods of silence until I was probably in my mid-20's. I found it hard to put one word next to another to make a sentence. I was obsessed by vision and the need to see. My eyes and my ears were more important than my mouth. They were the most active part of my body"--except when she was on the stage.
The stage has welcomed Plummer with open arms, unafraid of what she calls "her uncommercial face, full of lines and angles." She won her first Tony for her Broadway debut in the revival of A Taste of Honey and the second for the title role of Agnes of God. I ask if she wanted to be in the film version directed by Norman Jewison. Plummer bounces out of her seat and within seconds is kneeling on the floor in a parody of her screen test- "Hoo! Are you kidding? I flew myself to L.A. and demanded to be seen. It was my right. I auditioned with Jane Fonda- we did the prayer scene. I gave them this profile, I gave them that one, as it was a question of fuck the acting. But my Agnes wasn't right. Meg Tilly- whom I love with my life- was perfect as Agnes. She was what they needed to make that film. Norman made the right decision, but it was hard at the time."
Quentin Tarantino, on the other hand, had earmarked Plummer years ago after meeting her at the premiere of The Fisher King, where she was hanging out with best friend Tim Roth. Still an unknown entity [it was after the completion, but before the release of Reservoir Dogs], Tarantino was full of his usual confidence. "I'm going to put you two in a movie together," she recalls him saying. What was it like to work with the enfant terrible of modern cinema? "Quentin is very dynamic. He's a big man, and when his arms wave he pulls you in. He gets into the arena with you, which, in my experience, most film directors don't. And his filming! He has a rythm that Tennessee Williams would bow to."
We talk about True Romance, the Tarantino-scripted movie, and in particular, the Dennis Hopper/Christopher Walken scene that is beyond classic. Walken is another friend of Plummer's, and the person she considers to be the greatest actor. "I look up, up, up to him- he is legions high above me. We just finished making a movie together; he plays an angel and I play his unwilling slave. Can you imagine? Christopher Walken's slave?"

The article is accompanied by two small color photos of Amanda with bleached blonde hair- one with her hands over her eyes, one holding a cigarete and looking pensive.