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"I don't want to do it forever," Flockhart says. "It will be good for a little while and then I want to move on to different parts." In movies, plays and perhaps even more TV shows.
She also remembers she had a life before TV-generated notoriety transformed her into a star, a divisive symbol of the modern woman and a gossip columnist's dream. The petite, 102-pound dynamo used to be a major player on Broadway.
"But the first time that anyone has known me in any kind of big public way is Ally McBeal," Flockhart muses in a guarded yet intriguing interview on the eve of her first significant movie release. "You sort of lose your history, as if life started there."
So she will tolerate a few snickers or raised eyebrows from unknowing fans who check out the marquee for William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and discover she is doing The Bard. In original Elizabethan English.
Flockhart has the history. She has done Juliet in Romeo And Juliet on stage and Cordelia in King Lear. Flockhart has also essayed other complex roles in plays such as The Glass Menagerie (her Broadway debut) and The Three Sisters.
Back to the stage
Now Flockhart is poised to confirm published rumours that she will return to the New York stage in a new play this summer, a prospect that thrills her. "I'm really excited," she says of getting back on stage. "I miss it a lot. I miss the whole process of it because I think it's tied in to missing New York. It's my home, although I'm actually starting to like Los Angeles."
Meanwhile, Flockhart plays Helena opposite Christian Bale's Demetrius in this new movie version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, opening Friday. The cast includes Kevin Kline as Bottom, Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Everett as the fairy royals and Stanley Tucci as that rascal Puck.
Oddly, Flockhart detested the play as a teen. "I remember reading this when I was in ninth grade and thinking: 'Well, this is an insipidly ridiculous little play! I hate it!' I was much more attracted to the tragedies." She read it again when the new movie version was offered. "I've grown up and I have such a deeper appreciation and love for it that I never had before."
For director Michael Hoffman, casting Calista Flockhart was just common sense. "I knew her from the theatre. I'd never seen Ally McBeal and I still haven't seen Ally McBeal. It sounds great." It even sounds Shakespearean in its comic themes, he says. But it was not a factor in his choice.
When Hoffman did cast her as Helena, the TV show had started up but had not yet clicked. Flockhart did not have her Emmy nomination yet. The show had not yet become part of coffee-fuelled talk in offices around North America every Tuesday morning. Audiences had not yet seen a frog funeral or an Ally daydream/nightmare or a catfight that left Ally slightly bloodied on the floor of the coed washroom.
"So," continues Hoffman, "I didn't understand that I had cast this ... (he searches in vain for the word -- I suggest 'phenomenon' and Hoffman nods in agreement) ... yes, this television megastar, until after it happened.
"People keep saying: 'That was such a clever piece of casting.' Well, good, but to me it was more about seeing her on stage in Sophistry And Sons with Ethan Hawke and in The Three Sisters and just knowing her and having read her for a couple of other projects.
"Also, as a type, she ascribes to the archetype of the waif, or the orphan. Somehow, she's this frail thing with this great spirit inside and I thought for Helena this is so fantastic."
Flockhart gets the last laugh. People coming out of an early preview screening of Midsummer with me were giddy with pleasure, as if Hoffman had uncorked a bottle of champagne and we all floated out on the bubbles.
Last laugh? "Maybe a laugh along the way," Flockhart allows, giving herself just a fleeting moment of I-told-you-so satisfaction. "But I never thought of it that way."
She wouldn't. At 34, Flockhart is experienced and mature enough to know the pitfalls of celebrity. To know how brittle her relationship is with the public and the media that connect her to it. To know how easy it is for the thing to get a little sick. Especially when the issue is her weight.
Rosy cheeks
Flockhart is incredibly thin. According to a high school boyfriend, she has always been that way, despite eating meals in a normal, healthy manner. Today, there is a rosy, natural colour in her cheeks. She looks like she ate breakfast (reported in People magazine as a daily routine of oatmeal with a banana and honey, egg whites, spinach and yogurt). Damn, she just looks good. The People article last November addressed the weight issue directly, as well as accusations she suffers from anorexia.
"I eat normally," she said then. "I eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I don't have a messed-up relationship with food." Flockhart's denials were vehement. Anyone who thinks her thinness is a sickness is "making a big mistake," she said. The sickness is society's obsession with her.
Now Flockhart is wary of even mentioning the subject. She backed out of an appearance on NBC's Today show, set for last Monday, because TV officials refused requests to avoid questions about her weight.
During my interview session -- there were no restrictions -- Flockhart says she was manipulated into doing the People interview. "I didn't really feel obliged," she says of speaking out. "I was blackmailed." Flockhart doesn't elaborate. Instead, she grins, rises out of her chair, spins delicately and sails out of the room, doubtlessly happy that her exit was scheduled anyway.
A few minutes earlier, however, she skirted the issue by describing how she deals with the media spotlight.
"I think one has to ignore 99% of it and maintain your sense of humour. I think a lot of the tabloid stories are written so well. They're very clever and they're very funny. So I think it's important to focus on what is really important. Don't read them. Don't dive into it. Don't get caught up in it."