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The Blonde Ambition of Jessica Simpson
January 28, 2008

I spoke on the phone with Jessica Simpson last week regarding her star turn in Blonde Ambition, a comedy in the Working Girl mode, which was released last week by Sony. Not unlike her character of Katie in the film, Simpson was a positive, perky and personable presence.

VB: It looks like you were having a good time in Blonde Ambition—there was a lot of smiling and laughing on the screen…
SIMPSON: It really was a lot of fun. It was my first experience of trying to carry a movie and I was surrounding by a great cast of people who were all very talented and extremely encouraging. The director, Scott Marshall, I really believed in him and he really believed in me and I think he bought out a lot of the good in me and a lot of what my fans have always like to see.

VB: I liked seeing you do a whole bunch of physical humor, whether you were falling down or riding your delivery bike down the street…
SIMPSON: I’m always the first one to say ‘I’ll fall on my face!’ It’s fun to give yourself completely when you’re doing a role like that. The physical aspect of this kind of movie I truly enjoy. It’s a very important part of comedy. I think of the best comediennes, someone like Goldie Hawn or Meg Ryan, they use their bodies and their styles to portray really fun characters.
VB: The skirt blowing over your head sequence was right out The Seven Year Itch with Marilyn Monroe.
SIMPSON: If you look in the corner of that scene, the movie theater on the street is actually showing The Seven Year Itch.
VB: I didn’t pick that up!
SIMPSON: I’m a detail person--I notice things like that.
VB: Tell me about working in a comedy with such established funny men as Larry Miller and Andy Dick.
SIMPSON: Larry Miller is a genius at comedy. I feel that a lot of my strongest scenes in the movie are with him, because I can play off his energy. It was so much fun for me. He gave me a chance to react to him and not just act out the role of Katie.
VB: In an interview, he said that it’s rare in his career that he can be in a movie with someone like Jessica Simpson and come off like a desirable middle-aged man.
SIMPSON: (Laughs) He had me laughing a lot while we were making the movie. Everybody had everybody else laughing on set. And I truly believe that Andy Dick is a comedic genius--he would make up things left and right while we were all trying to hold a straight face during a take. He definitely just throws himself out and will do any- and everything.
VB: The movie was filmed in its entirety in Louisiana, which stood in for New York.  
SIMPSON: They did a pretty good job of making Louisiana look like New York, don’t you think?  We also did a couple of days of re-shoots and fill-ins in New York. 
VB: Did the filming in New York give you an additional shot of energy?
SIMPSON: It was kind of distracting because there were a lot of paparazzi around, and a lot more tourists and onlookers. I don’t how people shoot movies in New York and focus--I don’t know how the work gets done! Blonde Ambition is a cute little independent film, so we didn’t have the budget to shut down an entire street.
VB: You’re active in so many areas--TV and movies and clothing and, of course, music--and you’re day-to-day life is always being monitored by the paparazzi. Do you sometimes feel that public isn’t paying attention to the right thing when it comes your acting and singing and so on?
SIMPSON: Yeah, I think that people can have a misconception of who I am as an artist. People can forget that with your celebrity. I just try to do the best that I can do to the best of my ability and I trust that everything is in God’s hands and I’m just kind of doing what I’m supposed to be doing. And I just keep a smile on my face and keep trucking. People want to bring me down constantly and they constantly want to talk about my life and a lot for me lately has been in a negative light, but I’m really a very happy person and I’m in a very good place in my life. So, it’s interesting what people think about me.
VB: I guess they’re going to think what they’re going to think…
SIMPSON: Oh they can keep it up--I’m headstrong!

Posted by Laurence Lerman on January 28, 2008 | Comments (7)