Robin Wright, who gave up the role of Maid Marian in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" to have Sean Penn's baby, is back on screen - playing an unwed mother.
Almost equally ironically, Wright was cast in "The Playboys," which opens Wednesday, after Annette Bening dropped out of the film, screenwriter Shane Connaughton's first effort since the acclaimed "My Left Foot."Bening, like Wright, also gave up a major movie commitment - "Batman Returns" - to have a child out of wedlock. (However, Bening's withdrawal from "The Playboys" occurred before her pregnancy was announced.)
Of course, Wright's situation and the plight of Tara, her character in "The Playboys," are vastly different. Wright and Penn are settled comfortably in Los Angeles in an age where parenthood without marriage is rapidly becoming routine.
"The Playboys," which opens Wednesday, is set in rural Ireland in the 1950s, and the fiercely independent Tara and her sister are supporting themselves and her son as seamstresses. Despite considerable community pressure, Tara wants nothing to do with either of her two suitors: a boorish constable played by Albert Finney and a traveling actor played by Aidan Quinn.
Their differences notwithstanding, Wright says being a new mother contributed considerably to her understanding of Tara.
"Every little bit of reality helps, especially in that sense, because that was sort of the foundation of her character," Wright said. "In the opening of the movie she has a child, and that sort of alters her life for that reason. I was definitely in the mommying mode, so it was great being around babies."
Dressed in a chic dark blazer and pants for an afternoon of interviews at a Westwood hotel (her daughter was tucked away in a nearby room), Wright was all but unrecognizable as the attractive but hardly glamorous Tara. She sounds different, too - thanks to a dialogue coach who worked with all three principals, Wright carries off a credible Irish accent.
"That was the hardest part about working in this film," said Wright, who has played women of Irish descent in her last two films but is herself of English-Scottish ancestry "with a little Dutch."
In fact, she was pleasantly surprised to get the role, for which several young actresses were tested. "I hadn't auditioned for over a year, because I'd been pregnant . . . and I was so rusty, and ugh, I was awful. Thank God they need only a moment to cast you, so I have to give them credit for having imagination and faith."
"The Playboys" is Wright's fourth feature. "I never aspired to do what I do," she said.
Born in Texas and reared mostly in Southern California, her early career ambitions ranged from jazz dancer to Mary Kay executive ("because that's what my mother did"). Modeling gave her a chance to travel and ultimately steered her to acting. Her first job was as a regular on the NBC soap opera "Santa Barbara."
The character she played "was daddy's little girl, had her own ad agency, had about five husbands, was raped about four times, kidnapped about five," Wright recalled with a smile. In retrospect, she looks on her four years with the soap as the college education she never had.
Some actors have difficulty making the transition from soaps to movies, but Wright was cast in her first film during her first year on "Santa Barbara."
Granted, playing a runaway junkie in "Hollywood Vice Squad" was an experience Wright would just as soon forget - it doesn't even make her biography in "The Playboys" press kit - but at least she was in good company: The film starred Trish Van Devere and was directed by Penelope Spheeris ("Wayne's World").
A year later, she played the fairy-tale beauty of the title in Rob Reiner's "The Princess Bride." "They didn't even know what `Santa Barbara' was, they didn't even care," she said.
Then it was on to "State of Grace," playing the girl Sean Penn's undercover cop had left behind in a tough New York Irish-American neighborhood. Their on-screen romance clearly led to something more, but Wright does not like to talk about her relationship with the notoriously press-shy Penn, other than to say that, while unplanned, her pregnancy was by no means unwelcome.
"I've wanted a baby forever," she said. "I never had second thoughts about it once, not once.
"I think it would have been a difference five years ago. I mean, 21 to 26 is a major difference, I think, in a woman. Definitely, I've changed and grown dramatically in the last five years."
Wright also harbors no regrets over having to give up "Robin Hood," which became the big hit of last summer. "I think that was fate, because it's `The Princess Bride' revisited, really," she said.
"And I was very desperate to work, and I knew it was going to be a big movie, so it was sort of a political move - get in there, establish yourself, raise your quota, and have a little more power in the town. But it would have looked like an act of desperation, really, for work."
Now, Wright is at work on "Toys," directed by Barry Levinson and co-starring Robin Williams and John Cusack.
"It's about a toy factory that is taken over by a general who wants to make military toys and sell them to Europe. Robin Williams and John Cusack (and I) become the three musketeers, and we go undercover and we stop him and bring it back to its original function, which is making toys for kids.
"It is a comedy all the way, completely crazy, very bizarre, and it's a cross between `Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' and `Brazil' - those kind of movies. Very camp. Everybody looks like a doll or a toy."
Hence Wright's obvious blond dye job, which in fact gives her a sort of Barbie-doll prettiness. "I chose to do a character like that," she said. "It's fun."
"Toys" will probably keep Wright busy until June; after that, "Who knows?" she said, adding that she had no plans "because of having a family now. We have to take turns working, and things are up in the air."
Wright doesn't seem too worried about her career. "It's going beautifully," she said, adding she's been fortunate in not having to take roles she didn't like.
"Those are inevitably going to come along, when I'm going to have to do it for the money or for some sort of insignificant reason. But right now, why not live it up and really do what's true to the craft and me as an individual?"
- SPOTLIGHT ON ROBIN WRIGHT
Age: 26
Born: Texas (Dallas area)
Residence: Los Angeles
Marital status: Single, lives with Sean Penn and their daughter, Dylan, 1.
On deglamorizing herself for "The Playboys": "I wanted to go to the extreme. I wanted to do red hair, I wanted to wear really blue contacts, whiten my skin and go very peasant Irish. But they said, `No, . . . don't change your hair.' That's more my natural color with a little bit of sun highlights."
On working with Robin Williams in "Toys": "He's a madman. Like completely out of his mind. It never stops." (All said with a big grin.)
Career goals: "Just doing good-quality work on every end of the spectrum. Otherwise, what's the point? You're just sort of wasting the hours of the day."