Interview with Michelle Pfeiffer - Dangerous Minds

by Kastle

It used to be that blasting music and outrageous clothes were enough to turn your parent's hair gray and earn you some time in the principal's office. But children today have more on their minds than the latest back-to-school fashions and studying for tests, the homework they're doing is downright deadly. In the new film, Dangerous Minds, Michelle Pfeiffer, portrays an inner-city teacher whose struggle to teach is as tough as keeping her students alive long enough to learn something.

While this is a movie with a message, Pfeiffer says that is not the reason she chose the part. "I'm not a big message person, I'm leery of actors with messages. Being a celebrity, you get asked to do a lot of things. I'm always leery to put my name on things I don't know a lot about and I never really feel I know quite enough about anything!"

She added, however, that she has some strong thoughts when it comes to education, so much so that she could see herself becoming politically active about it. "Education is everything, you can really move mountains through that, particularly people who feel very limited by their environment. It's the one thing they don't have to feel limited by."

What Pfeiffer likes most about Dangerous Minds is that it shows children that they have the freedom to do or become anything. "I think there's a strong theme of choice, that no matter how deprived your background, whether it be socio-economically, or from the educational system, or your family, you do have a choice."

Coming from mainstream public schools, Pfeiffer describes her own education as, "OK. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good." She says she learned more from her experiences in acting than in school. She blames this on the fact that the school system couldn't keep up with her own dangerous mind.



    "Education is
    everything,
    you can really
    move mountains
    through that."


The actress herself was lucky enough to come across a teacher who virtually changed the course of her life. The acting teacher says she doesn't even remember Pfeiffer, but the star remembers the few words of encouragement. "She said to me one day after doing a skit, 'I think you have some talent.' That was it and I never forgot it. Then, when I was about 19, I had tried junior college, trade schools and graduated in 3 years with honors and hadn't learned a thing. I was trying to figure out what I can do. The seed had been planted and I thought, I guess I can act, she told me I could. I don't know if she hadn't said that to me if I would have become an actress."

Pfeiffer admits that going to school today is very different from generations past, "What used to be - children are to be seen and not heard - we don't really live by that anymore, thank god! But children now have other issues, like how to stay alive."


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