You might say Kelly Preston's sex scene in Jerry Maguire a few years ago was a comeback performance of sorts.

We hadn't seen her around in a while, since she was busy being John Travolta's wife and looking after their son, Jett.

In Jack Frost, a sweet Christmas tale for kids, Preston's just a mommy -- albeit a sexy mommy -- and was "glad to play a wife and a mom like me," says Preston recently at The Essex House Hotel in New York.

Looking back on her screen roles, Preston can pinpoint the problem of her earlier parts, beginning after her screen debut with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Twins.

They were, she notes, a succession of "big-hair" girls with bad Farrah Fawcett do's until "I made a conscious decision not to do junk anymore."

Out went the curling iron and hairspray, in came the quirkier, bitchier, sleeker roles, as in Maguire, "which are really so much more fun to play," she says.

But now, she's back heating up her crimper.

Seems those big-hair girls can be just as bitchy and fun to play.

In her next film, co-starring Billy Bob Thornton, "I play a Southern, alcoholic, white-trashy girl with big-ass hair and really bad taste," she says. "It was so much fun."


More Artists