Judd's ready for the big time

You're a Hollywood casting director with a bigbudget script on your desk and a list of ideal female leads - Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan, Michelle Pfeiffer, Cameron Diaz, Sandra Bullock, Julianne Moore, Catherine Zeta Jones. When one declines, the next on the list is approached and so on until the role is cast. And the pecking order remains fairly static until either a star is born or one breaks through from the next echelon down.

Ashley Judd falls into the latter category. At 34, the southern gal with dream-girl looks has been working in Hollywood for a decade. Only now is she firmly ensconced on the A-list and next year will play Catwoman in the film of the same name, a role which is nobody's cast-off. "That sucker is mine," says Judd, with the predictable glee of one who has worked so hard and waited so long.

That Judd has had to hover on the sidelines for years is nonsensical. Few actresses deliver a complete package - looks, talent, charisma on and off-screen. Judd has it all, and an intellect which none of her leading ladies can profess to match.

There's one obvious explanation: Ashley Judd is too smart for Hollywood. She is big on having "original thoughts". This is not one of them. Judd knows it and the Hollywood powermongers know it too.

"Do you mean I might have to downplay my intelligence for the schmucks here?" she laughs. "No, I think that being perceptive and having interests is an asset. And I can read movie scripts and relate in ways other than the superficial."

Hollywood is a whirlwind of meetingsthe industry's chosen method of sealing its deals. For years, Judd has been intimidating those meant to be conducting these meetings, tipping the power dynamic, and leaving men and women flailing in her wake. No one likes to be made a fool of, and Judd does not suffer fools gladly. She talks eloquently, and directly, distracted only by her cock-a-poo dog Buttermilk sat in her lap. There is no hair-twirling or fidgeting, and she exudes a businesslike confidence.

She is turned out like a fashion plate, her hair back to its natural brunette colour after a spate of blondeness. She wears an orangey Armani dress with spaghetti straps and a flower on each. She has strappy sandals, nail varnish to match, and a flower in her hair. Judd adores flowers and is an avid gardener back in Tennessee. " Gardening is never solved, which is such a good metaphor for life, I think." It's almost impossible to picture this paragon of perfect grooming getting down and dirty in a flowerbed. In the course of our conversation about her new film, The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Judd drops a veritable cornucopia of multi-syllable words. Verisimilitude, benediction and cohesiveness are just a few which pepper her tangential talk. It seems she can speak authoritatively on any subject, but would rather discuss basketball than movie business.

"It's an intellectual sport," she explains, as if one of such intellect would consider immersing herself in anything that wasn't. "All my available sport brain cells are devoted to it." If one's work were left to speak for itself in Hollywood, Judd could simply wrap up a DVD of Divine Secrets and send it to anyone who hasn't yet figured that she's arrived. As the film's discombobulated protagonist, Vivi, Judd slides effortlessly from headstrong teenager to irresponsible mother, child-beater and brokendown alcoholic.

Ellen Burstyn plays the older Vivi, while the film also features other celluloid grand dames - Maggie Smith, Fionnula Flanagan and Shirley Knight. Divine Secrets is most impressive for the quality of its female performances and Judd's is its stabiliser.

"The harder and grislier things are, the more fun they are. I still haven't found a part I can skate through." You have seen her before, of course, in roles she has fought hard for. In 1996, she starred in her first blockbuster - A Time to Kill, based on Michael Crichton's best seller. It made a star of her thenboyfriend Matthew McConaughey but not of her. She went on to date Michael Bolton, complaining later that he couldn't keep up with her at Scrabble, and Lyle Lovett.