Comeback queen

Kim in Cellular

10 April 2012

At 50, remarkably, Kim Basinger remains the Golden Girl the world remembers from such Eighties blockbusters as

Her hair is a honey halo, her lips plush, and her body, wrapped in a tailored black suit, is a map of undulating curves that only two hours hard work in the gym every day can achieve.

"I sweat," Basinger says, "to stay like this,'" her moonlight-and-magnolia voice betraying her Southern Belle roots.

But if the exterior is almost miraculously unchanged, the inner Kim is another matter.

After 27 movies, a string of psychological disorders - everything from agoraphobia to panic attacks - and the bad showbiz marriage to end all bad showbiz marriages, Hollywood's most fragile blonde is at long last confident.

"Oh, gee wow, I'm still shy and a loner," Basinger blurts. We're sitting in a room at a beachfront hotel in Santa Monica and the actress seems willing to discuss it all: age, fame, love, even her reviled ex-husband, Alec Baldwin, the man she divorced in 2002 but who has kept her in and out of court for close to five years.

"But I can find a lot of things to do by myself. I don't mind being alone," she says, fixing me with brilliant blue eyes and a dazzling smile. "I don't mind being me."

These days she doesn't even mind her sex-symbol label.

Trying to escape it once led her to reject both Basic Instinct and Sleepless In Seattle, which sent her career into a tailspin it's only now pulling out of, despite the Best Actress Oscar she won in 1997 for LA Confidential and another comeback in 2002 as Eminem's drug-addicted mother in 8 Mile.

(Being sued and made bankrupt for dropping out of Boxing Helena at the last moment didn't help either).

Now Basinger is just amused that her steamy bedroom scenes with twenty-something actor Jon Foster in the forthcoming critically acclaimed The Door In The Floor have set tongues wagging (and possibly won her the role of Mrs Robinson in the mooted remake of The Graduate).

"I used to think that the whole looks thing was horrible," she shrugs. "But the Europeans taught me more about that than anyone. They truly cherish that thing, whatever we call it. For them, it's cool to be sexy."

Basinger's new self-assurance is the best thing about Cellular, the gimmicky thriller she's here's to promote.

She admits to drawing on her own experience of panic attacks to play a schoolteacher who is kidnapped by a vicious Jason Statham and locked in a bare room with only a broken wall telephone for company, yet it's her fierce refusal to break that impresses.

Instead she takes on her tormentors and exacts revenge. "It felt good," Basinger says. "Victory feels good."

What did she draw on for that? The smart money is on her custody battles with Baldwin over their nine-year-old daughter, Ireland.

This was a long-running PR war which saw him ordered to undertake anger management while Basinger was instructed not to discuss the case, after agreeing to share custody in a complex settlement which nevertheless leaves her the primary care-giver.

So she can't respond to Alec's younger brother Billy's claim that she is "a black widow spider" or explain what she meant when she admitted fantasising about her ex-partner's death.

Small wonder that this staunch animal-rights activist (she and Ireland share their LA home with 21 animals) recently auctioned her 3.7 carat diamond engagement ring for more than £33,000 and handed over the proceeds to the Performing Animal Welfare Society.

Ask her what qualities a man would need to get close to her now and her response is instantaneous. "Trust... That and a sense of humour and someone who is secure in themself. But the most important word is non-judgmental."

And what does she loathe in a man? "Narcissistic behaviour," she laughs. "Narcissistic abusive behaviour!" she yells.

Nor is she ready to date quite yet. "I'm not advertising or anything." There's a moment's silence before she says, through gritted teeth, 'I always say God and a sense of humour got me through it [her divorce].'

That, and Ireland. "I'm not sure how the ordeal has affected her," Basinger says, thoughtfully.

"She's been through a lot and she's had to mature so quickly. But I try to keep her as childlike as I can." Which isn't always easy.

Basinger understands that a movie star's existence is surreal. "Remember when I did Playboy years ago and someone said, "What if you ever have a kid? What will you tell her?"

Of course I had no idea. And then Ireland and I were going through my pictures one day and she saw it. She said, "Mum! You didn't!" And I had to say, "I did it. I wouldn't do that again, but I made that choice at that time and it was no big deal."'

The big deal today is definitely her daughter. Basinger has taught her that appearances aren't everything and she isn't keen on the idea of Ireland following in her footsteps: the childhood beauty pageants, the early career as a model, the TV series and soaps.

She wants Ireland to be confident because Ireland has helped to make her confident.

Her greatest personal accomplishment, she says was when she made a speech at her child's school last year. "I found myself standing there thinking, "Look at you, look at you!

"You know, Ireland pushes me out of my shyness. She even came into my wardrobe and told me what kind of jeans she wanted me to wear - those really low-cut ones that show your navel that I've been so against wearing.

"Of course, I didn't go as far as showing my navel but I wore the jeans and made the speech and I... I was great. I was so proud of myself when I walked out of there.'

Cellular opens Fri 24 Oct.

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