Life Lessons from Juliette Lewis

Welcome to Life Lessons. This week, in honor of her performance in Yellowjackets, we unearth a very special issue from 1993 featuring the iconic Juliette Lewis. The Showtime series has everyone raving—the gays, the critics, the industry insiders, Twitter—with a Lost-esque plot featuring a stellar cast, a dose of female empowerment, and the perfect amount of cannibalism. On our July 1993 cover, the photographer Bruce Weber captures the magnetic allure of a then 20-year-old Lewis, who had already had films with Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen under her belt. For the story, Lewis spoke with Wolf Schnider from an Arizona hotel room midway through filming the Oliver Stone thriller Natural Born Killers, which only solidified her place in Hollywood’s highest echelons. So sit back, grab a pen—you just might learn a thing or two.  

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“The way I approach auditions is like a car salesman. Well, maybe not a car salesman, but I have to sell the director on the idea that nobody can do this part but me. Whether that’s true or not, I kind of make them believe it, and then I get the part and deliver.”

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“The mind of someone who kills is totally irresponsible. Murderers are total losers. They can’t communicate with other individuals, so I don’t think, ‘Wow, what strength.'”

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“No, I like it [acting], because I feel I control it—it doesn’t control me. I’m the one creating these feelings. It’s stressful in that sometimes you lose sleep because you have to wake up really early.”

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“My mind will go, ‘What if I can’t do it?’ In the scene even, my mind will be saying, ‘What are you doing? You suck, you suck, you suck.’ Like that.”

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“When I was fourteen, I said to myself, ‘Around the age of eighteen or nineteen is when I should be getting known.’ I’m fine with my career right now. I don’t have any complaints. I have other interests.”

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“People say I’m cocky, but am I supposed to sit here and be insecure and not know where my future’s going or not realize that moviemaking is the greatest thing to happen to me? I’m appreciative of my life and my situation. Very much so.”