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"I don't understand that stuff," says Silverstone, whose career went nova with the release of Clueless in '95. "For the last year, I thought I was, like, completely anonymous 'cause I felt anonymous. Then I'd turn around and there they were. It's like, cameras are following me around this year. Maybe it's, like, one of those 'Where is she? We gotta find out' phases."
It may be hard to work up sympathy for someone who, while still in her teens, was paid $10 million to star in a movie. But Alicia Silverstone has taken some lumps in the name of being famous.
The 22-year-old actress makes a "comeback" of sorts this week opposite Brendan Fraser in the goofy romantic comedy Blast From The Past. That's 18 months after the lukewarm Excess Baggage, the made-in-Canada feature that was to mark her producing debut under a deal with Columbia, and even longer since her unhappy experience playing Batgirl.
In that time, she's been mocked by the tabloids after an Oscar appearance when she'd appeared to have put on weight, has made enemies in certain corners of Hollywood, and has generally ridden out the maelstrom of being the "It" girl.
Most of it bounced off her, she says. Silverstone is fairly tough, the softness of her features belying the resilience of someone who's lived on her own since age 14.
But, though she'd never trade away the experience of Clueless, she says "I wouldn't wish (fame) on anyone. It wasn't a question of it happening to me too soon. It's a question of it's not a nice thing to have happen. I never was, like, going 'I want to be famous.' And if you want to be that, you have to figure out what's wrong with you first."
Blast From The Past director Hugh Wilson has his own take: "She had that big hit, so they gave her that big movie deal. They said to her at 19, 'Here, you can be a producer, here's $10 million.' This town is full of producers. And they read that stuff, and suddenly everybody hated her. It pissed everybody off, and she got roughed up for that reason.
"I met her and she was sweet as could be. But when she was cast, all I heard was 'Man, she's tough. Good luck.' But I was like, 'Don't worry about me. I directed The First Wives Club.'"
Blast From The Past stars Fraser as a kid who's been raised in a bomb shelter by parents (Christopher Walken and Sissy Spacek) who panicked during the Cuban missile crisis. Sent to the surface to look for a wife among the survivors, he comes upon Eve (Silverstone), a jaded L.A. single girl.
If it is part one of the re-emergence of Alicia, part two is Love's Labours Lost, Kenneth Branagh's planned '30s-style musical update, which will see her sing (!) standards like On Such A Night As This and No Business Like Show Business. "Standards are super fun to sing," Silverstone opines.
She isn't wearing a producing hat these days, though old habits are hard to break. "I knew (Blast From The Past) was a great movie, then I saw the trailer and I was like, 'That doesn't represent the movie! Who do I talk to? What do I do?'"
She makes no apologies for being an uppity teen-producer, a job she took on for the same reason she began acting at 12. "It was exploration and character discovery -- all things that my brain needed. 'Cause I was a perceptive little girl who was, like, walking around with lots of judgments about things. It was like I needed somewhere to put all that thought.
"I had my friends mad at me all the time 'cause, like, I'd get into huge discussions about religion ... And they'd be, like, 'Why are you talking about this? We want to talk about Boyz II Men.'
"In Hebrew school I'd raise my hand and go (little girl voice), 'Don't you think that's hypocritical?' The last thing I'd do is let anyone take who I am away from me. I might as well be dead."
"I'm like the luckiest person ever. I have the greatest friends, the greatest dogs. And I know it's important to be happy."