Michelle Pfeiffer has spent a lot of her career being taken at face value.

Literally.

The actress' renowned beauty tends to overshadow her impressive talent and intellect, and as she once put it, "I've fought a long battle to prove that I can be more than a decoration."

Still, her appearance seems to have had a sort of camouflage effect, because it's allowed Pfeiffer, 51, to hide in plain sight for many years.

She's a bona fide movie star with a completely private personal life, no mean feat in her business. If people can't get past that dazzling surface, well -- that too has its advantages.

As art imitates life and vice-versa, Pfeiffer is currently starring in Cheri, a movie that's all about appearances and the passage of time.

Cheri opens in some Canadian markets tomorrow.

Based on Colette's famous novel, Cheri is a heartbreaking love story about a May-September relationship that's shaken by the judgments of others. The story is set at the turn of the last century in Paris.

Pfeiffer stars as Lea de Lonval, a famed courtesan who has arrived at retirement.

She takes on the romantic and sexual education of a 19-year-old boy called Cheri (Rupert Friend) as a favour to his mother, little knowing that the mentor/student relationship will blossom into love.

Friend says he was initially a bit intimidated to work with someone as famous as Pfeiffer. She says she never thinks of herself that way.

"Sometimes on set I'll be really perplexed by the way somebody is behaving, and I'll think, 'Oh, I did something -- they seem like they don't like me', or they seem aloof. It never, ever occurs to me that they're nervous around me. And then somebody will point it out to me."

She adds, "I guess you can take the girl out of Orange County, but ..."

Pfeiffer (who really did grow up in Orange County, Calif.) is somewhat de-glamourized in Cheri, with lighting and makeup in certain scenes that underline the age difference between her and Friend.

That didn't bother her at all, claims the actress. But she concedes that she was a bit put off by the hag special effects in 2007's Stardust.

"Stardust, I have to say, when I first put on all those prosthetics, was really upsetting.

"They were so hideous," she says, laughing.

"But there's a part of you in there, they sort of take your face and say, 'Okay, what if she were 200 years old?' And you see your mother in there and your grandmother in there. I did have kind of a strong reaction in the beginning."

At the start of her career, Pfeiffer was cast opposite much older actors, such as Al Pacino (Scarface, Frankie and Johnny) or Jack Nicholson (Witches of Eastwick, Wolf).

Lately, in such films as Cheri or I Could Never Be Your Woman, she's been the older woman to the younger man. What's up with that?

"It seems to be that either the public or our industry doesn't want people the same age working together in love relationships. They just don't like that. One of the lovers has to be 20 years older. Maybe that's why I didn't work for four years," she jokes, "because I had to wait until I'd shifted to the other generation, so I could be the older woman."

As the younger woman, Pfeiffer hit big in 1983 for her work in Scarface and starred in hit after hit: The Witches of Eastwick, Married to the Mob, Tequila Sunrise, Dangerous Liaisons and The Fabulous Baker Boys.

She slowed the pace after her marriage to writer/producer David E. Kelley (Chicago Hope, The Practice, Boston Legal) and the births of her kids in 1993 and 1994, but not before starring in Love Field, Batman Returns ("I did all my own whipping," she says of playing Catwoman), Frankie and Johnny, Wolf and Dangerous Minds.

And then there were I am Sam, What Lies Beneath, White Oleander and Hairspray.

Pfeiffer got well-deserved Oscar nominations for her work in Dangerous Liaisons, The Fabulous Baker Boys and Love Field.

What's changed for Pfeiffer since her career began 30 years ago?

"Now I enjoy the process a lot more," she says. "I feel like I don't have anything to prove to anybody except myself, and I'm a pretty harsh critic.

"Before I had a family, my work was really everything to me, and I didn't feel balanced unless I was working. And now I do. I have a full life, and I think as a result of that, I enjoy my work more now. I do it because I love it."

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