If you're young and successful in Hollywood, you're going to pay for it. That's a lesson Ally Sheedy learned after becoming a star with the 1985 Brat Pack movies "The Breakfast Club" and "St. Elmo's Fire."
"Hollywood is a very strange town," Sheedy said during a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "When success comes fast, they wait and watch for you to fail. And although it's a culture that idolizes youth, it immediately stereotypes young women."I have to go into people's offices and prove that I have a modicum of intelligence and that I'm easy to work with. I think a lot of that started with the Brat Pack stigma. You're allowed to have the success, then you have to pay for it.
"And while you're getting older and more experienced, nobody here is really interested in how you're growing as an actor. They don't gauge you by your talent. They gauge you by your box office. How much did your last film make?"
That's not a tirade, folks. Those are calm observations about some of the more unpleasant business aspects of show business.
To offset the Hollywood mind-set, Sheedy accepted the lead role in "Lethal Exposure," a TV movie shot in Paris. Two versions of the thriller were made - one in French, one in English.
"I speak French," Sheedy said, "and I very much wanted to put that to the test with French actors and a French crew. It was a great exercise and a wonderful experience. My French wasn't as good as I thought it was, but it got better."
NBC will air "Lethal Exposure" March 28, where Sheedy plays an American photojournalist working on a murder case with a maverick French police detective (Francois Eric Gendron).
Filmmaking - French style - was everything she hoped it would be.
"I know it's still a business in France," Sheedy said, "but it doesn't feel so much like a big industry. There seems to be more emphasis on creativity, on personal growth, on doing things creatively."
The former Brat Packer also appreciates the French's admiration for age and the wisdom that comes with age.
"You're allowed to age in Europe and still be a star," she said. "You become more interesting, not less marketable, as you get older. People love you for your quirks in France. It's very strange here. You must be a certain weight, dress a certain way and live up to an ideal image of something.
"It's totally different in France. You're allowed to be quirky. The feedback from the network, for instance, was that I looked too boyish and I wasn't wearing enough makeup. If we had made this in Los Angeles, they probably would have forced us to make changes."
You'll be seeing a great deal of Sheedy on TV this year. "Epicac," her episode of the cable anthology series "Kurt Vonnegut's Monkey House," will be on Showtime.
In July, Showtime will premiere "Chantilly Lace," a film about seven friends played by Sheedy, JoBeth Williams, Martha Plimpton, Jill Eikenberry, Talia Shire, Helen Slater and Lindsay Crouse.
"There are so many more good projects in TV for women," Sheedy said. "These were the projects that attracted me, and it didn't even occur to me whether it was TV movie or a feature. It doesn't really matter anymore.
"You can't afford to stop and make a distinction between TV movies and features. Television has completely changed the landscape, particularly for people like me who just want to work in good projects. You can't learn anything as an actress just waiting for features to come along."
Most filmgoers became aware of Sheedy when she appeared opposite Matthew Broderick in the 1983 hit, ` `WarGames."
"Yes, that was 10 years ago," she said, "but I came out here in 1980. And since I'm 30, that means I've spent almost half my life out in Hollywood.
"For the most part, they've been good years. I grew up in New York and that still feels like home. I go back there to take classes and study and do plays, but I really made a choice to settle here.
"Hollywood is OK. I live in Topanga Canyon, which I love. I have a couple of close friends, and I'm married now (last fall to actor David Lansbury, nephew of Angela Lansbury). I've made a life here."
After "WarGames," Sheedy starred in such films as "The Breakfast Club," "Twice in a Lifetime" (1985), "Maid to Order" (1987), "Betsy's Wedding" (1990) and "Only the Lonely" (1991). She played a psychic on the trail of a murderer in the Showtime movie "Fear."