Interview

GO: At the fashion shows last fall I saw so many girls fall on the runway. I guess maybe they never wear high heels in real life, but, you know, I think if they had more athletic training, they would probably just glide in those six-inch platforms.

MJ: Girls who are dancers tend to be much better models than girls who just got picked off the street. Dance is a discipline, just like martial arts. No matter what you do, you have this sort of confidence that no one can take away from you—every time you step somewhere, you’re sure of where you’re going.

GO: Were you always confident? When I first met you, you must have been 20 years old, and you seemed like a very well-adjusted person. I mean, I don’t want to be judgmental about a whole profession, but for
a model, you seemed to be very well-balanced.

MJ: Well, I feel like confidence is something that ebbs and flows. I mean, I was given a lot of love and attention from my family growing up, so for sure I had a natural confidence. But because I started working so young, there was always that stress and that worry of, “Am I good enough? Am I making the right choices? Am I living up to the potential that my mom and my dad thought that I had?” I think that the confidence was always there on the outside, but on the inside I was having a lot of doubts. But the fact that I could introduce myself into a situation with this seeming act of confidence—I think that helped. I think a lot of kids who don’t have that confidence tend to be really insecure and sometimes end up just taking the wrong path, or trying to make up for it in other ways. So I feel like if I give my daughter anything, I want to give her that feeling of confidence. I was in acting classes from the age of 9, dance classes, music classes—my mom put a lot of energy and attention into me, so no matter what happened in my life, I always had this basis of discipline. So I really worked hard for everything I had from a very early age.

GO: Of all the things that you’ve learned, what was hardest for you? I mean, whether it was kickboxing or interviewing . . .

MJ: I guess the most difficult thing for me was living up to my mom’s expectations. I was always scared that if I didn’t do things in this certain way, then my mom just wouldn’t think I was great. That’s something that was difficult for me growing up. And it made me rebel against her when I was a teenager and move out of the house and do some pretty stupid, dangerous stuff just because I was trying to prove that I was independent and my own person and that I didn’t care what she thought, when in reality, I very much did.

GO: Oh, Oscar just came with a hamburger for me. So what’s with you having a dog named Oliver Cromwell? You know, Irish people don’t go for that.

MJ: Are you Irish?

GO: Yeah.

MJ: And Oliver Cromwell was the hammerer of the Irish, so all of my Irish friends are offended.

GO: What if I had a dog called Adolf Hitler?

MJ: It’s not like that.

GO: Kind of.

MJ: Well, not really.

GO: A dog named Stalin?

MJ: Well, I would think that sort of Irish history is pretty distant at this point . . . Calling the dog Oliver Cromwell was sort of meant in jest, because I was reading a book on the Stuart dynasty, and, you know, Oliver Cromwell obviously played a huge part in completely annihilating the Stuarts.

GO: Yeah, I guess he wasn’t all bad.

MJ: When we got this puppy, I knew he was going to be huge, and it sort of popped into my head as a name—like the Lord Protector, Cromwell. And he so looks the part, but he’s also very friendly. He’s not like the real Oliver Cromwell at all. But, I really didn’t mean to offend anybody . . .
GO: We forgive you. So when Sarah Palin was running for vice president, did you think about that Alaska connection with Resident Evil: Extinction [2007]?

MJ: What?

GO: Apparently Palin belonged to a religious group that believes that in the end-time the good people are going to go to Alaska for salvation, like you did in that last Resident Evil.

MJ: Seriously? That’s hilarious. Sarah Palin kind of turned me off so badly that I just wasn’t following much about her.

GO: Well, that was kind of in the fine print of Sarah Palin.

MJ: I mean, of all people to be in line for the presidency . . . I was like, “Oh, what a great role model.”

GO: Well, now that you’ve made it to the top rung of being an action hero, have you thought about running for governor of California?

MJ: [laughs] No, but I hear that the governor is looking into making movies again. I can’t wait to see Arnold Schwarzenegger on the big screenagain. I think everyone would want to go see his movies.

GO: You should go toe-to-toe with Arnold.

MJ: Well, it would be kind of hard, because, you know, Arnold is amazing. No one can beat Arnold. But when I make action films, I’m pretty serious about them . . . I don’t know. We would probably have a pretty epic battle.