Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 28, 1992 TAG: 9202280344
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANA KENNEDY ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
CALCULATED CAREERIST OR A SPACE CADET? ACTRESS IS A BIT OF BOTH
When Daryl Hannah was 10 years old, she was so shy and withdrawn that a doctor told her mother to put her in an institution. Instead, her mother took her to a Caribbean island."She just let me run wild," recalls Hannah. "I had no idea why we were down there. I had a great time. I was able to adjust much better when I came back."
Despite her early island cure, Hannah, 31, never has been accused of appearing too down-to-earth. But in her case, childlike spaciness often has proved a winning career strategy.
Adulthood is not something that Hannah has embraced. Asked to describe herself, she giggles, hugs her long legs to her chest and and rolls back on a hotel couch.
"Prepubescent," she says dreamily, adding in even less audible tones. "I have the mood swings of a teen-ager. My friends always tell me I'm immature."
Her latest role, as Chevy Chase's girlfriend in the new action-comedy, "Memoirs of an Invisible Man," is a familiar one. (The film opens today at the Salem Valley 8 and Valley View Mall 6.) She plays a beautiful anthropologist who falls in love with a man rendered invisible by a freak accident.
She is required to be wide-eyed, gentle, innocent yet sexy. It's the kind of character feverish studio heads are likely to dub "woman-child."
And it's a part not unlike the naive mermaid in "Splash," the waif-like performance artist in "Legal Eagles" or the fey astronomer in "Roxanne."
Hannah says her goal is "at least one good, meaty" role in the next few years. But since Hannah on-screen is very much like Hannah off-screen, minus some of the sweetness, it may be hard for casting directors to see her in more grounded roles.
During an interview in a Manhattan hotel room, Hannah is fending off a cold. She's tall and very thin with tousled blond hair hiding part of her face. She wears blue jeans, a black jersey and black combat boots.
She appears outwardly wan and fragile but possesses a steely petulance that apparently has served her well during her long journey from Caribbean isle to Los Angeles, where she lives with longtime boyfriend, rocker Jackson Browne.
Grill her for awhile and notice that there's very little talk of drug problems, broken romances, stints in rehab. The conversation veers more in the direction of "The Wizard of Oz" and winter sports.
Raised in Chicago in an affluent family, Hannah says she was enthralled by "The Wizard of Oz" as a child.
"I wanted to BE in `The Wizard of Oz,' " she says. "I wanted to BE Judy Garland."
In an era when many movie stars think fame is a license to confess all, Hannah's otherworldliness, however studied it may be, is a throwback to another time.
"I've chosen not to live my personal life in public," says Hannah. "I think my career should speak for itself. I don't go out to all those [celebrity] places because I don't want to. I find them stressful. I don't have the desire to exploit myself. When I have time off I like to be out snowboarding or something."
Which means she won't talk about her relationship with Browne or her widely reported friendship with John F. Kennedy Jr.
"I just won't comment on any of that," Hannah says politely. "I keep thinking, if I don't say anything, maybe people will stop asking."
Hannah is aware that she has sometimes been painted as a canny careerist who merely plays at being a female Peter Pan.
"I daydream a lot," says Hannah. "I'm spacy, especially in situations that make me nervous. I think people have trouble with the idea that a person can be intelligent and shy at the same time. I'm not a premeditated person. I never really thought out or planned my career."