by Diana Rico
Tucked away are Audrey Horne’s saddle shoes and tight sweaters. On a post-Twin Peaks high, Sherilyn Fenn is dressing for another role — that of serious actor.
PHENOMENAL fenn
If ever a young woman seemed completely comfortable with her sexuality, it’s Sherilyn Fenn. Whether tying a square knot with her tongue as the high-school femme fatale Audrey Horne in TV’s Twin Peaks, steaming up the screen in the cult classic Two Moon Junction or posing confidently for Dolce & Gabbana’s glamorous 1940’s-style fall advertising campaign, Fenn always comes across as powerfully in control of her image as a woman.
But this 26-year-old, who describes herself as shy, claims that the reams written about her controversial sex appeal constitute “the biggest misconception known. I am the most uncomfortable person with my body; I’m embarrassed wearing a bathing suit. What I am comfortable with is challenging myself, going after everything that scares me.”
Although Fenn’s beauty has stimulated comparisons with Ava Gardner and Vivien Leigh, this is one young actress who’s not about to follow in their tragic off-screen footsteps. “She’s got a brain and all the right emotional instincts, and that’s a great combination.” says John Mackenzie, who directed Fenn in the forthcoming Ruby. Set for late-January release, the feature film stars Danny Aiello as Jack Ruby, the Dallas mobster who shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Fenn plays a small-town woman who leaves an abusive marriage and gets a job as a burlesque dancer in Ruby’s nightclub, eventually becoming involved with the Mafia.
“When they first offered me the part I said forget it,” Fenn recalls. “But my agent suggested I read the script again. It’s a good role.” Screenwriter Stephen David described to Fenn his inspiration for the movie this way: “Imagine Jack Ruby as a piece of paper that has been scrunched up and tossed in the gutter. What if we pick it up and flatten it out? What’s there?”
It’s a question Fenn might be asking about herself these days. Twin Peaks, of course, had an immeasurable impact on her career, successfully obliterating — or at least forcing a reassessment of — the effect of the dozen or so less-than-prestigious teen- and B-movies she lent her talents to in the 1980’s. Bolstered by a new post-Peaks credibility, she now finds herself competing for better and better roles — and testing the range of her acting skills.
Typically, Fenn seems to have her future under control. She has just completed work on a first-rate film version of John Steinbeck’s Depression-era masterpiece Of Mice and Men, starring John Malkovich as Lenny and Gary Sinise as George. In the film, Fenn plays a character referred to simply as “Curly’s wife.” “I’ve read a lot of Tennessee Williams and my character reminds me of one of those southern women he writes about — confused and sad and lonely. Although she’s desperate and alone, she’s looking for somebody to communicate with. Anyone! That’s what is really admirable about her; through all her pain she’s fighting to have a life, to be happy.”
For Fenn, who was raised by her mother in the Detroit suburbs and moved to L.A. in her teens, a nine-year bid for recognition and respect in Hollywood has met with success. Certainly, the bright outlook for 1992 must please her. In addition to Ruby and Of Mice and Men, she’ll star opposite Forest Whitaker in the emotionally-charged drama Hit Man. The film, which has already opened in Paris, may sound like another piece of cinematic pulp but she insists it’s and “art film.”
Still, despite a new and improved pedigree, Fenn’s seductive image will no doubt continue to be her calling card. In the past, actresses who projected a strong sexuality, such as Marilyn Monroe, were taken less than seriously by the industry’s powers-that-be. Does Fenn ever worry that she might fall victim to that trap? “I’ll be taken very seriously,” she says assuredly. “People just haven’t seen as much of my work as they need to. As for the erotic attraction,” she says, laughing, “that has never hurt in Hollywood!”