With A Love Song for Bobby Long, you're playing a southern professor–turned–alcoholic bum—just the kind of thing that gets a guy an Oscar nomination. . . .
That would be nice. [sighs] You know, the couple of times I was nominated I had these very personal experiences, like Paul Newman whispering in my ear during the Pulp Fiction Oscar night that he wanted me to win—and he was up against me. I felt like the Old Guard was wanting me to have it.

Did you always want to be a big star like Mr. Newman?
Well, we were very snooty in our family—we were true thespians right out of a cliché theater movie—and, oh my God, my mom would sit with a glass of wine and my dad would have a cigar, and they'd watch us put on a show for hours. It was all, "Oh, jeez, Helen, look at that, have you ever seen anything better?!" So I guess I wanted to be a good actor, mostly, and then the by-product was being a movie star.

Yeah, and with Saturday Night Fever and Grease, you became one of the biggest in the world.
Which was overwhelming. I mean, Saturday Night Fever was a very dirty, foul-mouthed film that was considered a slice-of-life, Mean Streets–type movie, and I just expected it to be a stepping-stone. And then it became this . . . thing.

How do you remember your first great flop, Moment by Moment with Lily Tomlin? Weren't you named something ridiculous like Brick in it?
That's close, but it's not Brick. . . . It was something that got a laugh, though. . . . Hmmm. Strip. I was named Strip. [laughs] I got really beat up for that and made a big mistake and went on a press tour for it anyway. Why? Because Universal was willing to send me a Gulfstream 2 to do it, and I wanted a free ride on that plane. [laughs] But then I came back with Urban Cowboy, and it's still a classic.

Around that time, you all but gave Richard Gere his career by turning down American Gigolo and An Officer and a Gentleman. Then you did it again by turning down Chicago, saying that you didn't see how a story about "pissed-off hookers" would work on the big screen.
I was wrong. [laughs] But you gotta understand that I didn't think the lawyer's part was exciting, and I'm used to getting the exciting part, like the girls' parts were exciting. It's like when I was fourteen, me and my girlfriend did Funny Girl as the class project: I played Omar Sharif's part and she played Barbra's part, and even then, I was like, "She's got the good part; I'm no fool!"

Well, you sure got to play the "exciting" part in Staying Alive, that notorious Saturday Night Fever sequel in which you appeared oiled-up and in a loincloth.
How 'bout that? It was "'80s hot!" [laughs]

Yeah, well, I'm convinced Paul Verhoeven used it as a blueprint for Showgirls.
That's hilarious—I never even thought about that!

And thus began your long decline until Tarantino rescued you with Pulp Fiction.
Actually, I was back on the cover of this magazine before Pulp Fiction with Look Who's Talking. The cover read "Look Who's Talking Back." [laughs] Then four years later, Pulp Fiction put me back to the kind of profile I felt I belonged in.

And since then, through hits and misses, you've remained there. And, um, through fat and skinny, too—Mike Nichols once said that taking a meeting with you, foodwise, was "not unlike taking a meeting with Henry the Eighth."
[laughs] He's right. I was very indulgent and made no bones about it. And that's the thing: I don't hide my love of food. Once, years ago, I had a trainer that used to think that I would hide, like, candy bars in drawers, and I said, "Let's get one thing straight—I do not hide food, I'm out with my food!" [laughs]

And we love you for it. So, listen, a tombstone figures prominently in Bobby Long. What do you want written on yours?
"He just wanted to be comfortable."