Inside Out(45)

Hunter was a constant companion. He was more than an assistant; he was like a member of our family. He had been with me for the most intense period of my career, and for the death of my mother, and now, here he was, walking by my side through the divorce, witnessing my toy-shopping insanity without judgment. Not that he’s without a sense of humor: “I’ll be nicer if you’ll be smarter” is one of my favorite Hunterisms. His sarcastic wit was his funny but loving way of delivering a dose of the truth.

And the truth is what I was after. I think during those years in Idaho, when I stepped away from Hollywood at the peak of my earning power and my success, I was really trying to figure myself out. I had no interest in working. (The only thing I said yes to was a voice-over gig for a Chevy commercial because I was able to do it by driving down the road to a recording studio in Ketchum and then swinging by the girls’ school in time for pickup.) I had moments when I thought, Will I be okay if I never work again? Will this be enough?

I was searching in all directions for an answer. I read every self-help book I could get my hands on. I met with a Tibetan monk. I worked with a shaman from New Mexico. I had a Cherokee medicine woman come to conduct a ceremony at my house. I went trekking in Bhutan with Oliver. I hosted a weekend workshop exploring the power of intuition and intention with my old friend Laura Day. I was open to finding the truth wherever it might be—and I looked under every spiritual sofa cushion. My quest for insight and meaning was my work, at that time.


FOR ALL OF the advantages of living in a small town, it can also be restricting. Rumer, who was finishing elementary school when Bruce and I separated, had a hard time not only with our split-up but with finding a way to fit in socially with her schoolmates. That situation did not improve in middle school; as she was poised to begin high school, she decided she wanted to try something new. In 2002, she started her freshman year at Interlochen, an arts-focused boarding school in Michigan that’s like the Juilliard of high schools. She was the youngest voice major they’d ever accepted.

Around that same time, I got the opportunity to branch out myself. Drew Barrymore called. She was producing a sequel to her movie Charlie’s Angels, which had been a big hit two years before, starring Cameron Diaz, Drew, and Lucy Liu. She wanted to know if I would consider playing a new character named Madison Lee, a former Angel turned renegade, a good girl gone bad. “The part was written just for you,” Drew told me. I liked her a lot—in fact, I liked all the people who were involved with that film. But I was reluctant to leave Hailey and the cocoon I’d created there. Drew didn’t give up. “Think about it,” she said. “The shooting schedule is only twenty days.”

I flew to L.A. to meet with her. “Please trust us,” she said to me. “This part is only for you. And it’s only for twenty days.” For once, there’d be no way for me to start with my usual negative thinking on a film: Drew was begging me to come on board, and my agents were clamoring that this was a great opportunity. It wasn’t the project I’d imagined myself stepping back in to do, and I wasn’t entirely comfortable with playing a villain. What really pushed me over the edge, though, was how excited my girls were: they’d seen the first Charlie’s Angels, and the idea of me being in the second had them whipped into a frenzy. We were all ready for some excitement and a change of scene.





Chapter 18


I was in New York doing advance press for Charlie’s Angels, which had been a completely different experience for me: really physical, really female, really fun. It was the spring of 2003, and I had just finished shooting the cover of Vogue with Mario Testino. My friend Sara Foster called and asked if I wanted to have dinner with a bunch of friends. She mentioned that Ashton Kutcher was going to be there—an actor who’d been on television for a while in That ’70s Show and whose star was on the rise. He had a surprise hit with a hidden-camera show he’d created himself called Punk’d, and he was having a moment—he was in town to host Saturday Night Live that weekend.

We all gathered in his hotel room at the start of the evening; he had just finished rehearsal and needed a quick shower. He was prancing around the suite in a towel when I excused myself to call my girls. I was out in the hallway telling them good night when the door opened and Ashton, now fully dressed, leaned out. He looked at me with a serious, almost shy look on his face. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” he said, then quickly closed the door. In that moment he changed from a cute little player into someone deeply interesting.

That night at dinner, it was like nobody else was there.

He told me about growing up in the cornfields of Iowa. It was clear right away from the way he talked about his goals that he had a serious work ethic, a kind of small-town belief in putting his nose to the grindstone. He was tall and floppy-haired, and, like me, he’d started out his career modeling. But I liked that his handsomeness had something sort of skewed about it: he’d broken his nose a bunch of times, and it gave his face a quirkiness. He was gregarious and warm and animated, and I just felt so much sparkling joy in his company.

When everyone else was ready to go home, we still weren’t finished talking. I was staying at my apartment in the San Remo, which I got in the divorce from Bruce. I’d decided to sell it, so there was barely any furniture, just lots of space—three floors!—and stunning views of Central Park. I invited Ashton to come back there with me, and we stayed up the entire night, still talking, telling each other our life stories—and understanding everything the other person was saying. It felt like we were continuing a conversation we’d already been having for years. There was just an ease between us, a deep comfort—and a lot of electricity. It’s not every day you meet someone with whom you feel both totally secure and totally stirred up. Eventually, we fell asleep, side by side.