Bijou Phillips used to make gossip-page headlines. The daughter of the Mamas and the Papas founder John Phillips, she was a model at 13 and at 15 had moved into her own apartment in New York City, where she became a nightlife fixture best known for appearing in those creepy Calvin Klein ads. Ten years later? With four films in the can ranging from thriller to musical, Phillips is also quickly becoming one of the busiest actresses in Hollywood. We found a sliver of downtime in the starlet’s schedule and talked to her about her pile of upcoming new movies, computer games and bleeding for her art.
STUFF: Your biggest project right now is Zodiac, a film about the famous Zodiac killings, directed by David "Fight Club" Fincher. What was that like? BIJOU:Zodiac was amazing. David Fincher is a genius. You walk on the set like a little VW Bug, and you walk out of there a Ferrari. In one scene, I was working with 40 different directions. It’s a lot to handle. You’re almost out of your body, with someone else pulling the strings.
Was that hard to deal with? It was great! Most directors just give you "Great, try it again" and "OK, we got it." This experience was unbelievable.
You’re also playing a rock chick in What We Do Is Secret, the story of punk rockers the Germs. What was that like, coming from a musical family and being a musician yourself? We rehearsed for three months, and I learned to play the bass. Your fingers are blistered, you’re sweating your balls off and you want to chop off your hand by the end. I was supergluing the blisters on my fingers and covering them with duct tape. We recorded all the songs by the Germs live and played to our own recordings in the movie. It was guerrilla filmmaking, but I can’t imagine doing a movie about the Germs with a big budget. That would be so wrong.
