Sunday, June 12, 2005

Brooke Shields / This much I know / Finding a therapist is like shopping for a husband

This much I know

Brooke Shields

"Finding a therapist is like shopping for a husband"

Brooke Shields, actress, 40, London

Interview by Lucy Siegle
Sunday 12 June 2005 16.41 BST

always had that Little Miss Perfect tag. People can't wait to label you, and it didn't help that I was a perfectionist anyway. In that way I was my biggest enemy. I always wanted to be better, whether it was acting or at school. It doesn't make life easy.

Having my daughter has made me ease up a bit. Especially when it comes to tidying the apartment. The trail of destruction a small child causes is quite unbelievable.

I don't know of many women who don't have a fraught relationship with their mother. Mine had a reputation as the stage mom from hell, but I believe she behaved like a tiger out of necessity rather than personal drive. I'm her only child, and she was a single mother. I don't feel the need to reconcile it any more.

It's assumed that I've spent my whole life being unhappily moulded. In reality, I've rarely been forced into anything that I haven't wanted to do.

Tom Cruise did not have a uterus last time I checked. So I'm not sure how he is qualified to criticise my use of medication when I was suffering from postnatal depression.

As you get older you accept you can't slavishly follow fashion. I mean, I like the low jeans, but I don't want to bend over and show everybody everything I've got back there.

The assumption that people are going to do the right thing is really quite naive. I always thought, 'If I tell the truth, they'll like me.' My mother shielded me from the bad things in this industry, a lot of the ugliness.

I feel older when I look in the mirror, but not aged. When I look now I can see into my eyes. It's less about worrying about whether I need a facial or some aesthetic problem. I also feel pretty fatigued, but that's what comes of doing a show like Chicago.

What you accept for yourself, you won't necessarily accept for your children. There is no way I will ever miss any of my daughter's school recitals or plays. I don't care what I'm working on, I'm going to have it written into my contract. I'm much more willing to stand up for her than I ever knew how to do so for myself.

The problem with my hair is that it's not curly or straight. It's kind of bent. I cut it short once, but I couldn't cope with all the maintenance. Then there was the time I had it feathered and permed on the same day. That was a bad day.

Finding a therapist is like shopping for a husband. In my opinion the best ones are in New York. I've always been a therapy fan. So many people have so many opinions in your life; even if they stem from love they're going to be biased. There's a lot to be said for getting an outside opinion.

While the world said I was exploited, I just felt like the kid who got all the toys. In fact, when I see the way things are done today, I'm amazed at how mild those scenes I did in Pretty Baby and Blue Lagoon as a young actress actually were. I was never on my own. I might have hung out at Studio 54, but once the pictures were taken I went home to bed.

I can hold my alcohol these days. I know the difference between giddy and sick. Don't trust all those people in LA who say they don't drink. I think they must all drink like crazy when they get home.

I've been through all mobile ringtones, but there's only one with birds that doesn't wake the baby up.

I think some people think of me like their pet. There was this guy at Princeton, one of the footballers, who would have beaten up anyone who looked at me the wrong way, which was pretty comforting when people were trying to sneak in to get pictures of me in my dorm or through the shower grate.

I've never been naturally fashion conscious. I'm the kind of person who sees a whole outfit in a magazine, runs out and buys it but looks like a clown. I'm not like Gwyneth and all those fashion-savvy girls, although someone told me they all have stylists.

Some of what you go through in postnatal depression is so absurd that I can only laugh now. It would be too much to handle otherwise.

THE GUARDIAN