An article originally published in XSeSS Living CDZeene, Vol. 2-2
By Chris Drozd.
After years of playing the sane one, Courteney Cox talks about building her career, going for the laughs and taking chances.
Anybody who's ever watched Courteney Cox in "Friends ' " "Family Ties ' " or even "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" is struck by, well, how normal she seems, a force of calm and reason amid assorted kooks and crazies. She's built her career by playing the straight woman, the attractive foil to her zanier celluloid counterparts. And while on "Friends" she is starting to develop a comic voice of her own, she is still, as most of us twentysomethings, struggling to define herself and add depth and resonance to her career.
At first glance, Courteney appears as sane and centered as the characters she plays. She is simply dressed, wearing a grayish sweater, blue jeans, loafers and very little make-up when we met. Courteney seems like what she is: an unpretentious woman-on-the-go from Birmingham, Alabama, albeit without a trace of a Southern accent.
Falling into acting.
Maybe the reason why Courteney doesn't look or act stereotypically "Hollywood" is that she was spared the often mind-warping Showbiz Childhood Thing. She grew up in the Catholic-Jewish neighborhood of Birmingham with no more clue to what she would do as a grown up than the rest of her friends. After studying architecture for a year at Mount Vernon College, in Northern Virginia, she went to New York City for the summer on a whim, fully expecting to be back on campus in the fall. Instead, she casually picked up a number of modeling jobs to pay the rent, and she "fell into" her first role as a Springsteen fan who was pulled on-stage to dance in the dark with the Boss.
Although the Springsteen video didn't exactly make her career, it did open a lot of doors. She says, "People wanted me to tell them what Bruce was really like. Was I his girlfriend? His sister? Who was I?" After the video, Courteney hosted a music show called 'This Week's Music," which she remembers as one of her toughest assignments because she had to play herself and not a character. "It was the most Frightening thing I've ever done in my life. Try saying 'Eurythmics' when you're really nervous. It was like the hardest word I ever said: I stuttered ... Eur-eur-eur-eur..."
Still, intrigued by the idea of an acting career, Courteney persevered in her new vocation. Her determination paid off when she was cast as the bright, perky girlfriend of Michael J. Fox on "Family Ties."
Climbing the learning curve.
The series, however, was difficult for Courteney because she was learning her craft on the job. "Literally, I think I learned how to act right after being on "Family Ties." I was on the cover of "TV Guide" and people were saying, 'She's the hot new girl on television,' and I didn't know what I was doing. I had no idea!" Courteney says she learned a lot from her fellow cast members, but she lacked the experience to have true confidence in her abilities.
Following the series, she did several less-than-memorable feature films that, despite their disappointing box office performance, gave Courteney an invaluable opportunity to experiment and become more comfortable in front of the camera. She says, "It was like, oh, I get this, now. I can let it all go, and be uninhibited."
Back on the fast track with a commercially successful film and another hit TV comedy, Courteney now has the confidence to actively seek out challenging, and even grueling, roles. For example, the HBO movie, "Sketch Artist 2: Hands That See'--to be released on home video this May--let her take on a dark, serious role that she feels is her best work to date. She played a blind rape victim who had to identify her attacker solely by the feel of his face. And, of course, she appeared in the huge hit "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective," opposite Jim Carey's relentless, farcical Sam Spade-ish character in an inane tale of a search for a missing dolphin. Although she reluctantly followed the pet detective's lead, her role was still her usual type-strong, independent and responsible.
Just friends.
Her current hit television series, "Friends," airs Thursday evenings, on NBC. Courteney plays Monica, the strong, hyper-competitive female lead. She and her five hip co-stars joust with life's day-to-day dilemmas and themselves, sometimes nipping at, but ultimately supporting, each other. "I watch this show and, wow! It's the quickest show on television," she declares enthusiastically. "We've got the A-story, the B-story and the running gag. There is so much going on, with so many of us, no one can get bored. The options are unlimited. I can see this show running for a long time."
The "Friends" ensemble cast of six includes roommates Joey (Matt Le Blanc), a good looking, cool guy, actor and Chandler (Matthew Perry), a frustrated, office-bound, middle-manager; Ross (David Shwimmer), the dismayed, recently divorced older brother of Monica, and his pet monkey, Marcel, who live upstairs; Monica (Courteney), who is of course assertive, sarcastic and comparatively normal; and her roommates: college friend, air-headed Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) and rich-girl, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston). They hang out mostly in the Central Perk Coffee House and in Monica's apartment saying funny things, to a live audience.
A sit-com veteran, Courteney is not intimidated by the pressures of performing for a live audience. In fact, she enjoys the rush that instant feedback can bring. She says, "Comedy should be done live. On "Friends,' when I have a relatively funny line and the audience is already with me, it's great because they either know my character, love the show or love the person I'm speaking to. When they laugh at that first line, inside I'm saying, 'If you think that was funny, wait 'til I say my next one!' It's such a gratifying feeling."
Until she snaps...
Although Monica's development as a character has been accompanied by some growing pains, Courteney is trying hard to bring out the funny side of Monica. She says, "Monica isn't the easiest character to write for as opposed to, say, Shwimmer's character, who is so inherently funny--he's vulnerable, his pregnant wife left him for another woman, the three of them are in Lamaze classes together, and he has a pet monkey that is a constant source of agitation. 'There you go,' the producers always say. 'It's just so easy.' But the writers are starting to get me as a character. We're just trying things. Monica is a dry character who can deliver the straight, combative Chandler lines. She's the grounded, nurturing mother of the group. Great listener. A little uptight. She's very giving and caring, until..." Until what?
"Monica is always the perfect, neat together person until she snaps. Anger is the right word, but maybe it sounds too rough or stern. I think Monica's best humor comes out of her getting frustrated, being mean or screaming. The other characters will push her or forget to consider her feelings and then, sooner or later, she goes over the edge. Her humor also comes from her trying to be a kook, or doing those offkilter things that no one expects - like in the drunken, tap [dancing] episode. Everyone looks at her and goes 'What?'
What will come as a surprise to Monica-fans everywhere is that the network originally wanted Courteney to play Rachel. She says, "They thought I was too vulnerable to play Monica, but my agent sent over some tougher, stronger work that I had done. In a couple of weeks I got a call to go back over to the network. I went, and by that evening, they agreed, "All right, you're Monica".
Against type.
Would Courteney consider a down and dirty badgirl role to break out of her maddeningly sane type? Sure, for the right project. "I recently read a script that was very sensual and very dark with a lot of sex. But, I didn't really like him [the lead male character], and she [the female lead] wasn't that great of a person either, and they were having sex. Who cares! I thought, if I were really pulling for her, or for the guy, or even for the other characters, then I could see it." There's also the matter of her family back in Birmingham. "It would be tough if I ever got a really, really sexy role:' The nude scene in "Blue Desert," by the way, was done with a body double. "Mom had to do a lot of explaining for that one," she says.
Of boyfriends and other things.
Only when the question of Michael Keaton came up did Courteney exhibit a trace of, well, Monica-like irritation. "We just broke up. No, we didn't. We're still together. [Pause.] I can't wait to say that one day, though." How long have they been together? "For a half a century .. [short pause] ... a quarter of a century .. [short pause]..for five years, over five years." In showbiz-land, most marriages don't last that long, and Courteney, although she certainly isn't waiting around for The Question, is aware that she has come to a crossroads. She says, "We're at a transitional time in the relationship. We both realize we have to take steps. Then we'll see what happens. I don't know the answers yet. I know that, eventually, I'll want to be married and have children. I think that's the way to raise a family. I mean, I want my husband to have a big responsibility in raising a child, and I'm from the South. I mean, I do want to get married. And then I want to have a kid. I don't know if it's going to work out that way, necessarily. But that's the way I was raised."
Handling stress and moving ahead.
How does Courteney handle the stress that can come from a super-active career and the ups and downs that come with any relationships She has turned to Yoga and a what was originally a dancer's rehabilitation type of exercise, called Pilates, both to stay in shape and maintain her focus. "The biggest struggle is to stay focused through the pain of the postures--it takes unbelievable concentration! Staying within yourself or maintaining quantumness is the key." She continues, "Life's so hard anyway. Every minute is hard. But if you can do something really difficult in Yoga, and learn to stay in it, as opposed to running from it, then the payoff comes. Hopefully, as things in life happen to you, you can say to yourself, 'OK, I can handle that.' For me, it's just learning to cope."
And it seems to be working. When I called Courteney at the studio to follow up on this interview, she sounded almost serene despite the hectic activity going on around her. Certainly she'll need all the focus she can get if her career remains on its current upward trajectory. And, since like many of the characters she plays, Courteney is strong, sane and determined, there is little doubt of that. But, I think, we'll soon see some edgier, sexier, zanier on-screen incarnations of Courteney Cox that will make us wonder...