  Michelle Pfeiffer will dazzle theatre-goers this Friday for the first time since 2002's White Oleander. Pfeiffer plays a conniving stage mom in the remake of Hairspray.
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LOS ANGELES -- The last time Michelle Pfeiffer starred in a film, Lindsay Lohan wasn't of legal drinking age and Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were Hollywood's canoodlers du jour.
In other words, it may as well have been the Napoleonic Age.
"It was never by design or a conscious decision -- 'Oh, I'm going to take some time off,' " the 49-year-old Pfeiffer says of her on-screen absence since 2002's White Oleander.
"It was that I had worked really hard for a long time. I had done two or three movies a year for decades and there was a lot going on with the family at the time. I was really involved with the kids and I had other interests I was pursuing, too."
Pfeiffer has two children with her husband of 13 years, TV mogul David E. Kelley.
"Before I knew it, years had gone by. But I was never feeling this big urge, 'Oh I have to go back to work.' "
Nonetheless, Pfeiffer is hearing the c-word -- "comeback" -- a lot these days. She may not agree with it per se -- after all it implies being lost in the wilderness of community theatre -- but she understands it, considering she has a pair of high-profile films due out this summer. (This doesn't include I Could Never be Your Woman, a film the actress shot nearly two years ago, which is presently mired in distribution limbo.)
On Friday, she vamps it up as a brittle, conniving stage mom in the musical fizz-fest Hairspray opposite John Travolta, Christopher Walken and newcomer Nikki Blonsky.
EVIL SORCERESS
Then in August she stars as an evil sorceress in search of eternal youth in the Princess Bride-esque fantasy Stardust.
"The challenge for me has been finding things I love enough that are going to make me want to leave something I'm loving ... which is my life and my kids."
She signed on for Hairspray "excited about being able to sing again. That was actually a carrot. The dancing was what I was most excited about, even though I don't do a lot of dancing (in the movie). I just float around the stage more than anything."
For Pfeiffer, it marks a return to a genre that, in retrospect, nearly derailed her career. One of her first gigs was, you may recall, the disastrous Grease 2. She was met with considerably more enthusiasm and acclaim when she draped herself across a piano as a slinky lounge singer in 1989's The Fabulous Baker Boys.
Stardust, with its themes of beauty and immortality, also struck a chord.
"(Director Matthew Vaughn) had this idea of the obsession some women have with age and beauty and somehow incorporating it into this character who is ancient ... and poking fun at the degree some women will go to have eternal youth. So as scary as she is, it's poking fun at that."
However, just because Pfeiffer is acting again, don't expect her to resume her once-daunting work pace -- or to grant any insights into the film industry. "I'm not paying that much attention to Hollywood. I've just been too busy. I should be more concerned (about working)."
Not surprisingly, then, she is characteristically coy about future projects. She smiles, "I'm dragging my feet a little bit."
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