Liv ... And In Person
Joan Harting Bartham
Beauty MagazineThe small town girl turned big-time movie actress on getting married, gardening, and her new gig with Givenchy
Everyone knows the story by now: The daughter of '70's model Bebe Buell, she grew up in Portland, Maine, believing rocker Todd Rundgren was her dad. At around 10, she figured out that Aerosmith's Steven Tyler was actually her father.
By age 14, she was doing some modeling while living with her mom in New York City. But she quickly segued into movie acting, almost immediately landing a part in the indie gem Heavy in 1995. Her seemingly unstoopable, warp-speed career trajectory has included Stealing Beauty (1996), Armageddon (1998), Cookie's Fortune (1999) and Dr. T and the Women (2000)-culminating in the plum role of Arwen Undomiel in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And she's still only 26!
Yet upon meeting Liv Tyler, as I did in New York in June, there's no hint of the anxious self-absorption that afflicts so many who inhabit the celebrity vortex. She seems relaxed, open and appropriately self-assured. In fact, the only thing breathless about her is her beauty. "Lovely" is the word that leaps to mind when confronted by her wide-set, blue eyes and easy, wrap-around smile.
But the people at Givenchy, who've arranged this get-together, would no doubt prefer that "irresistible" be the operative term, since they've recently signed Tyler to a multi-million dollar contract as the face of their new fragrance, called Very Irresistible Givenchy.
I ask if being irresistible is every woman's goal. "I don't know. I know I want to be," she responds. "But everyone has a different idea of what that means. For me, being irresistible has to do with individuality and being spontaneous."
As far as her fragrance habits go, Tyler admits, "I'm a bit of a schizophrenic fragrance user. I get up in the morning and think, 'Who do I want to be today?' and select a scent on that basis. It changed in relation to the guy or friend I'm with, or the place." But, apparently, the transformative power of scent doesn't extend to her on-screen life: "I don't use fragrance in creating a character. Through in the course of wearing the wardrobe and inhabiting the role, it can happen that a particular perfume becomes connected to that character."
When our chat turns to the Givenchy's fragrance's classification as a vibrant, modem floral, based largely on a variety of roses, Tyler readily offers that "wild, climbing roses are my favourites-because you can't tame them. They just explode.
"I'm planting just those sorts of roses in my garden right now," she adds.
You mean down your kneed, hands dirty "planting"? Tyler admends her statement: "Well, actually, I'm having them planted. I've selected them, but I'll be away [from her newly-purchased New York house]."
Nervertheless, this lanky beauty's passion for gardening seems authentic. She's been quoted as saying, "I'm not one but like some of the roles I play in movies. I'm pretty much a domestic person, staying in, cooking and gardening. There's nothing so relaxing as gardening and then, sitting our and admiring your handiwork."
These days, Tyler doesn't have much time to hang around at home (with British rocker husband Royston Langdon of Spacehog, whom she married in March of this year). She's just flown in from Paris, where she shot the Very Irresistible ad campaign-including a mini-movie that serves as the TV commercial. And shortly, she's off to New Zealand for work on the third Lord of the Rings installment, due in theatres in December.
When it's noted that she also has a role in Jersey Girl, the 2004 release that stars Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, I can't help but ask if she's attending any big weddings in the near future. "Well, I haven't been invited," she laughs. "But there's pressure enough; it's scary getting married. I hope that whenever they do it, they're able to enjoy it. I'm so glad Roy and I were able to have a nice, peaceful, intimate wedding."