THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 2, 1994 TAG: 9410010049
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
DATELINE: TORONTO LENGTH: Long : 113 lines
OSCAR'S CINDERELLA GIRL is out to prove that she's not just a supporting actress anymore.
With the movie industry still reeling over Marisa Tomei's surprise Oscar win for ``My Cousin Vinny,'' the stakes are high for her starring role in ``Only You,'' which arrives in local theaters Friday following its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
After all, Tomei's Oscar was for best supporting actress. Can she carry a film all her own?
``The Oscar hasn't changed a lot,'' the ultra-thin and ever-cheerful Tomei said, sitting at Toronto's Four Seasons Hotel on the afternoon before the premiere of ``Only You.'' ``Before it, the challenge was to break in. My background is in theater - New York theater. I wanted to break into films, but the real challenge was to do it without doing some really awful films. Now, the challenge is still to find good properties. This was, simply, the best thing I was offered.''
In ``Only You,'' she plays Faith, a woman who turns her back on her impending wedding in Pittsburgh to run off to Venice in search of the perfect man.
Norman Jewison, one of the most respected directors in the business, chose her for the part before she won the Oscar.
``My original idea for this movie was for someone quite different,'' Jewison said. ``I thought of it as being about an older woman - maybe a part for Geena Davis or Jessica Lange. But then I began to question myself, and I realized I was being rather cowardly about it. I wasn't thinking about a younger woman because I was afraid the movie would become something like a Valley Girl thing, too sophomoric. But romance is for the young. What I needed was a young actress who could be both romantic and funny.''
Jewison, who directed Cher to her Oscar in ``Moonstruck,'' said, ``I spotted in Marisa the same things as when I cast Cher - body language and timing. Then, I saw `My Cousin Vinnie' and I thought anyone who can steal a movie from Joe Pesci has got to be formidable. Robert DeNiro can't steal a scene from Joe Pesci. But the studio didn't want Marisa. They didn't think she was a big enough name. Then, she became `that girl' who surprised everyone by winning the Oscar over Joan Plowright. They changed their minds quickly, but they had to pay a great deal more to get her than if they had signed her when I first suggested her.''
The nominees in the best supporting actress category in 1993 included Plowright, Judy Davis, Vanessa Redgrave and Miranda Richardson. It was one of Oscar's biggest shocks when Jack Palance opened the envelope and read Marisa Tomei's name. Stories even circulated that Palance's bent for mischief, and the fact that he had a few drinks before the show, had prompted him to read the wrong name. (The Academy has put that rumor to rest, contending that such a mistake would be impossible.)
Tomei has heard the sniping. ``I expected to be welcomed into the club,'' she said. ``I didn't really expect a backlash. Now, I've learned to just not care what other people are saying - just worry about the work.''
With Michael Bolton singing his new ballad on the soundtrack and Robert Downey Jr. pursuing her across sun-drenched Italian scenery, the producers are hoping ``Only You'' will emerge as the top ``date movie'' of the season.
Faith is about to marry a stuffy doctor when a man named Damon Bradley, claiming to be an old friend of the groom, telephones to tell her he's sorry he can't attend the wedding because he's flying to Venice. She'd like to meet him - as a child, both a Ouija board and a fortune teller predicted that someone named Damon Bradley would be the great love of her life. Until now, though, she's never met anyone with that name. She rushes for the airport still wearing her wedding dress. In Italy, she meets a Boston shoe salesman and is led to believe that he is ``the one,'' but complications develop.
``Italy is supposed to be the most romantic place in the world,'' Tomei giggled, ``so I took along the appropriate black lingerie, but never got to properly use it. There wasn't any romance, just work. I never knew that making movies was so much about real estate. We moved all over Italy.''
To increase the pressure, director Jewison is obviously bent upon making Tomei look and act like screen legend Audrey Hepburn. She has the waif look and she even models Hepburn's signature sunglasses for several scenes.
Tomei doesn't welcome the comparison. ``Audrey Hepburn was impeccable. No one could possibly copy her.'' She has taken herself out of the running for the upcoming remake of the Hepburn romantic comedy ``Sabrina,'' which originally co-starred Humphrey Bogart and William Holden and now will feature Harrison Ford. ``It will only work if they use a total unknown in the title role,'' she said. ``No one wants to be compared to Audrey Hepburn.''
She won the Theater World Award for best new performance in her very first New York show, an off-Broadway play called ``Daughters.'' She made her Hollywood debut in the disastrous Sylvester Stallone comedy ``Oscar.'' Since then, she has starred in ``Untamed Heart'' with Christian Slater and ``The Paper'' with Glenn Close and Robert Duvall. (``It was filmed at a breakneck pace. Ron Howard, the director, told me, `We're going to do it at the same pace they put out a newspaper.' '')
Already finished is ``The Perez Family'' in which she stars opposite Anjelica Huston and Alfred Molina. She plays Dottie, a wild, young Cuban emigre determined to do whatever it takes to make her way in America.
The Oscar is history. ``It's packed in a box somewhere,'' she said. ``I don't know what to do with it.''
At 30, Tomei says that she, like her character in ``Only You,'' believes in romantic fate.
``Yes, I do want to be married, but, no, I don't feel any clock ticking. When I meet the right person, I'll know it. And, no, I'm not obsessed with my career, but on the other hand, I do want to continue acting. It's an investment. When you've gone this far, there's no turning back.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Marisa Tomei stars with Robert Downey Jr. in ``Only You.''
Photo
TRISTAR PICTURES
Giovanni (Joaquim De Almeida), Peter (Robert Downey Jr.), Kate
(Bonnie Hunt) and Faith (Marisa Tomei) drive to Positano in pursuit
of the man Faith thinks might be her soul mate.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY MOVIES by CNB