JEZEBEL MAGAZINE January 1999

ELAINE HENDRIX
A Southerner in Hollywood

POISED FOR STARDOM
Elaine Hendrix

by David A. Moore

Actress Elaine Hendrix is in town to make an appearance in the Egleston Children’s Christmas Parade. She’s booked for the weekend into the Westin Peachtree Plaza, so we agree to meet upstairs for drinks on the 70th floor in the revolving bar known as the Sundial. Only trick is, she’s on the sixty-sixth floor, the hotel is to capacity with fans of a Tennessee vs. Mississippi football game, a national soft drink company meeting and an insurance convention. To get to the top you have to come back down to the lobby and ride the scenic elevator up. Over the phone she says we’ll meet in the lobby in ten minutes. About 25 minutes have passed before she finally emerges. She’s wearing comfortably faded jeans and an artsy black sweater with her hair pulled up into a loose pile on top of her head. Despite the overall casual look, her face is buffed to perfection. She glances with a smile of recognition, quickly extending her hand and then offering apologetically, “It stopped on every floor,” she says with a shake of her hear. “It was awful.”

About 15 people are corralled onto the Westin scenic elevator. As we begin our ascent, a woman with a heavy New York accent in a black evening gown with a plunging neckline turns her back from the window and faces us with her eyes shut tightly. “I can’t look, I can’t look,” she says. Hendrix glances in my direction quizzically.

For the uninitiated, Hendrix, 27, is a hot new Hollywood property. Originally from Tennessee, she spent many of her formative years in Atlanta.

“I’m from Morristown, Tennessee,” she explains. “I lived there until I was about 15, then we came to Atlanta. I stayed here for about seven years.” Hendrix is an alum of the Northside School of the Performing Arts, a distinction she shares with two other notables in the entertainment industry. “Both RuPaul and Jasmine Guy attended Northside,” she says. “But that was before I got there.”

We’re finally seated at a table for two in the crowded bar. Hendrix glances out towards the southwestern edge of the city as the sun is quickly setting, casting the sky in a mix of yellow and purple. “The sky is so beautiful,” she says with wide eyes. She turns her head towards the north sky and points off-handedly. “That’s the direction I lived in and where I went to school.”

Hendrix’s penchant for performing was clearly cultivated during her time spent in Atlanta, where she was active in theater and dance.

“I was really into my school,” she recalls. “I was a cheerleader and I was on the track team. By the end of my junior year I was dancing professionally. I did shows for Georgia Pacific, Coca-Cola and the Arts Festival. After high school I performed in the traveling AIDS benefit, ‘Heart Strings.’

“I also liked to watch a lot of old movies,” she professes. “The ‘30s and ‘40s are my favorites. I love Bette Davis, Carole Lombard, Myna Loy, and Claudette Colbert. Katherine Hepburn is a genius.”

The only child of divorced parents, Hendrix maintains close ties with both dad and her mom, who resided in Atlanta until three months ago. “Her name is Mary Hendrix,” Elaine says with a glint in her eye. The company she works for – American College Testing Program – moved her to Florida.”

During Hendrix’s senior year in high school she got the break that cut a path for her towards Hollywood. “I won a model search,” she says with a chuckle. “That connected me with several agencies. I went to Italy, toured the southeast and made my first treks to Los Angeles with ‘Heartstrings.’ That was 1989.”

Despite all the positive experiences up to that point, tragedy struck Hendrix just two days after returning from Italy. Bicycling through Los Angeles, she was hit by a car. “I was hurt enough that I had to stop dancing for a while. I had whiplash, a sprained hip and back and I had to go through physical therapy. Once I was healed I permanently moved to L.A.”

Within a month Hendrix had signed with an agent and began auditioning for pilots. Six months later she snagged her first commercial, which got her a SAG card. Then came the guest spot thing on a handful fo television shows, including “Evening Shade,” “Adventures of Brisco County Jr.” and a mini-series for Showtime entitled “Fallen Angels.”

“But it was the remake of ‘Get Smart’ that kind of launched me out there,” she recalls. “It was like my first 15 minutes of glory. I had no idea it was like this realy coveted role. All these people were talking about me and I was completely clueless.”

The big break, however, was still yet to come. “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion” placed Hendrix in the role of Vogue Magazine editor opposite film stars Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino. “After that I did ‘Parent Trap’ with Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson. The whole cast and crew had great chemistry both on and off the set. We had a great time.”

Says Hendrix of the experience working with Quaid: “He was laid back and he laughed a lot. There was a movie Dennis did several years ago that was one of my favorites when I was like in junior high school. It was this sci-fi thing called ‘Dreamscape.’ He laughed when I told him about it. The chance to get to work with him was really cool.”

The process for Hendrix going from Georgia schoolgirl to Hollywood up-and-comer, the actress confirms, has been an experience she had little preparation for.
“I was so naïve when I first started,” she says with a knowing smile. “Had I known then what I know now, I probably would never have gotten to this point. In other words, it’s kind of commonly known in Hollywood that it’s not always the most talented people that get the job. Once you see how that really works and you know you’re not getting a job because the director owes someone a favor or maybe you’re too tall or something, it’s overwhelming. You realize, this is real. It’s very, very real.

“Hollywood is a great place to toughen yourself up,” she laughs. “There’s so much rejection and so much politics and other stuff that you have to deal with. You just can’t take it personally. If you to you’re gonna’ drive yourself crazy.”
Just around the bend are two more roles for Hendrix.

“In ‘Rescue Me’ I have a cameo role,” she says excitedly (the film is slated for a March 1999 release). “But the big one is ‘Superstar.” For the producers of “Saturday Night Live (SNL) Hendrix will appear in a lead role in the new film.

“It’s one of those movies that you’re either gonna’ love or hate,” she says matter-of-factly. “It’s very dark and very funny. Of course I hope everyone loves it.”

The film centers around the regular SNL character Mary Catherine Gallagher, played by Molly Shannon. “Mary Catherine is a Catholic schoolgirl,” says Hendrix. “When she gets nervous, she smells under her armpits. She’s infamous for it. She wants to kiss a boy more than anything, and she’s going to do this by becoming a superstar at the school’s talent show. The boy she wants to kiss, however, is my boyfriend. My character is supposed to be the most popular, perfect girl in school, but she’s really got all these problems. Molly’s character is actually in awe of my character, but we kind of end up going at it.

“The film is about high school like. Nobody’s really the good guy and nobody’s really the bad guy. It’s just teen angst drama. We do it so over the top, it’s funny.” Expect the feature to hit theatres in Summer ’99.

On the personal side, Hendrix informs us that she recently ended a three-year relationship. “It was a mutual thing. We’re the best of friends. It’s not really like we ended things. They’ve just changed, or evolved. So, yes. I’m definitely single again.”

So what is an eligible beauty like Hendrix looking for these days?
“I’m not really into dating,” she says disinterestedly. “I’m into my career and getting to know myself.”