Q: How do you play nasty so well?

Pfeiffer: That's so flattering. You know? I don't know. I didn't plan it. Both of the parts scared me a little bit because they were dangerous, a little bit risky and I didn't quite know what to do with them and that's always a good thing, I find, whenever I kind of take that leap and take a risk. Also, I trusted both of those directors and their vision.

Q: You took time off from movies. Are you glad you're back?

Pfeiffer: It's funny because Claire and I are sort of similar. I didn't see Claire since when I worked with her. So when I sort of watch her career and the choices that she makes, we're very sort of similar in our taste and the choices that we make. I mean I really admire her a lot. I have a lot of respect for her as a person, the way she conducts her life and the choices that she makes and obviously as an actress she's extraordinary.

Q: I've read you've passed up on a few things during your hiatus. Any regrets about missing any of those movies?

Pfeiffer: Yeah. It's probably just rumors. No. Uh-uh. No regrets.

Q: They probably kept coming to you with offers or did they finally get the message?

Pfeiffer: No things just kind of kept coming in the same sort of way. I don't know. Nothing seemed to prompt me to want to come back to work until a few years ago. But the Amy Heckerling script, I had read that a good two years before we made that, 'I Could Never Be A Woman' that's coming out in November, with Paul Rudd and I'm very excited. It's a really, really charming movie. And I had read that and I really, really wanted to make that movie for a long time, and then everything for me was just sort
of pale in comparison to that and so I just kind of kept waiting for that to get going.

Q: Will it get back to what it was?

Pfeiffer: Never. It can’t because it’s not the buildings. Yes, you could build the buildings, but it will never be what it was. And also because people have to get on with their lives. You have children and they have to go to school. Now some people’s children have gone to school someplace else for a year and a half already. You don’t know what’s going to happen. It could happen again. Do you go back and rebuild again? Can you afford to? You have to remember too that people are paying mortgage. Now they are living in Houston, but they still have to pay a mortgage in New Orleans so you have to sell for maybe $2,000 or whatever. I was lead to believe and maybe it was just my own lack of vision, that it was mostly just poor people, but the overwhelming majority are just homes. Block after block of middle class or lower middle class people who just had a piece of yard with a little grass in the back and fruit tree and just mile after mile after mile after mile of devastation.

Q: She's so talented...

Pfeiffer: She is. She's so smart.

Q: The audition process, you're at the point in your career where you don't have to do that, but looking back on your career, is that something that you feel / felt comfortable with?

Pfeiffer: I always really liked auditioning. In fact, I think some of my best work has been unfortunately in the audition room. I just, for whatever reason, I'm really a good, my personality is really good, I think under pressure like that. And I think in some ways the less time I have to think about it, because I'm a little bit, you know anal compulsive or
OCD or whatever and I get very perfectionistic and I think sometimes that can undermine me and I think sometimes if I just have to do it off the cuff and not have a lot of time to prepare, I work more instinctually, which I think is always better for an actor. But I loved
meeting, coming in, I mean I'd get nervous. I certainly would get anxious before an interview but I sort of fed off of that a little bit.

Q: Do you remember your first kiss when you were a teenager? Was it a big deal or something silly?

Pfeiffer: My first kiss was this boy named Mike. I don't remember his last name. And it was after school at the bike rack. And I think I was in sixth grade.

Q: What was it like?

Pfeiffer: All those kids were like, 'we're going to go kiss at the bike rack.' Oh okay. It's kind of like that's it? What's the big deal? I was not impressed. I don't think he probably was either.

Q: Now he is. What do you hope audiences take away from this movie?

Pfeiffer: Exactly the feelings you had. Yeah.

Q:Love and the glories of love and fighting for love?

Pfeiffer: Yeah.