  Alicia Silverstone returns to the big screen in Alex Rider Operation: Stormbreaker, which debuts Friday. |
HOLLYWOOD -- With all the attention given Lindsay Lohan, you'd think Hollywood had never eaten its young before.
How quickly they forget Alicia Silverstone, who went from hot thing to has-been before the tender age of 25.
Back in 1995, Silverstone -- already embedded in the pop culture psyche thanks to a trio of Aerosmith music videos -- became a star thanks to the hit comedy Clueless.
Convinced she was set to become Gen X's answer to Julia Roberts, Sony signed the then-19-year-old to a rich production deal (about $10 million US for three films) that afforded her creative control over her movies.
But even before Excess Baggage (her first film under the deal) flopped, the knives were being drawn.
Want to know why so many young actresses starve themselves into sun-baked sticks?
Better that then the lambasting Silverstone received after putting on weight (among the cattier comments, she was labelled "Fatgirl" while starring as Batgirl in 1997's Batman and Robin).
By the time the Batman sequel tanked, Silverstone's career had all but fizzled.
The latter part of the 1990s would see her reduced to a sitcom punch-line (sample line of dialogue: "Why can't I drop off the face of the Earth like Alicia Silverstone?")
Not that Silverstone, who turns 30 this month, ever really went away.
She appeared opposite Kenneth Branagh in the Shakespearean musical Love's Labor Lost, starred in the short-lived TV series Miss Match and appeared on Broadway in a production of The Graduate.
She's just no longer the media bait she was then. For one, she's married. For another, she's healthy (and slim) -- something the animal rights activist credits to her vegan lifestyle. "I'm still a vegan, which is great because I don't have to worry about what I eat. As long as I don't have seven vegan cookies a day, I'm fine. I also do yoga and walk with the dogs and try to be active."
And she's lucky enough to work when she feels like it in projects she wants to do (as opposed to has to do) like Friday's Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker, an adaptation of the best-selling books about a British teenage secret agent.
While she waits to see if Stormbreaker launches a film franchise and therefore sequels, she's also just signed to star in an NBC mid-season comedy called The Singles Table, which begins shooting this week for a spring premiere. Among the cast members is John Cho of Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle fame.
"The pilot episode opens up on this wedding. There's this table in the back where all the single people are and they're all kind of bitter. John's character is really bitter because his wife is there, but she's on a date with someone else. My character, she's this doctor who's working all the time and doesn't really have social skills and doesn't date and she's realizing that's not the way she wants to be anymore."
Silverstone's own personal life couldn't be more different. Last year she married longtime boyfriend Christopher Jarecki, lead singer of the band S.T.U.N., after dating for eight years. Married life, she reports, "is nice. I don't think it's much different from being in a healthy relationship. I'm super-lucky to have him in my life."
And while she wants to have children, she's not sure when.
"It's too hard to plan with this kind of job. Everytime I think I'm ready I'm like, 'There's a job, I want to do that job.' Right now I'm in that toss-up area. I know you don't have to give up your career or anything like that, but you can't be pregnant and play some hot babe."
For Stormbreaker, Silverstone, who plays Rider's off-kilter nanny, spent six weeks in London. She signed on for the role after learning Ewan McGregor was on-board (albeit for a glorified cameo as Rider's James Bond-esque uncle).
"It just felt like a big pile of fun and it was. I didn't have to work that hard. A lot of the time I was just wandering the streets of London looking for trouble."
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
That her role is largely comedic -- and that The Singles Tables is a comedy -- is probably a testament to the enduring popularity of Clueless. "Before Clueless I had only done dramas like The Babysitter ... But then once Clueless happened, I don't think I was offered a drama again until recently.
"But I never thought of that. I never think about the roles funny or not. I play it the same, whether it's drama or comedy."
Along with possible Alex Rider sequels and The Singles Table, also in Silverstone's future is likely joining her husband on tour. He's currently working with a new band called Little Wolverines. "I hope it's in a more civilized manner because the last time he went on tour, there was about two years where I was doing Miss Match and The Graduate and we were barely in the same city. We both don't want that to happen again."
Even if it means enduring life on a tour bus. "I love going on tour, but it can be pretty gross. Some of the guys don't shower for days. It just smells vile."
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