By Tim Nasson
Beverly Hills – If you’re not one of the millions who are devotees of The Food Network, you may not yet know who Paula Deen is. With the release of Cameron Crowe’s latest film, “Elizabethtown,” that is all about to change. The $64,000 question – and longest sentence in this feature – is: How did Paula Deen, a natural in front of the camera on her daily television show, “Paula’s Home Cooking,” yet who had never acted before, nor had any ambitions to do so, get a highly coveted role in one of 2005’s most talked about movies?
“Well, dear,” begins a pleasantly plump Paula – who has no qualms whatsoever about her healthy figure – to me, her left arm planted firmly on my right arm, as we sit next to each other in a suite at The Four Season at Beverly Hills on a recent Sunday afternoon. “Let me tell you.” So begins the story that is so interesting it could only be invented in Hollywood.
“I was busy getting married.” Deen, who had been divorced for twenty years, was getting married on her live television show, no less. “And I got a telephone call from Paramount on the Thursday before my wedding.
“I had no idea what [Paramount Pictures] wanted. I thought to myself, ‘They are too far away to do any catering for,’ and decided to wait and call them after I was done gettin’ married.
“While we were on our honeymoon, my husband asked me if I had called Paramount. So I finally picked up the phone, called and realized they hadn’t called me about catering for them. They wanted me for a Cameron Crowe movie.
“I didn’t know why the wanted me, but I listened to their pitch. They were looking to cast a woman who could talk and cook at the same time and they were having trouble doing it. Cameron’s agent was in bed watching The Food Network, and caught one of my shows and decided right then in there, while she was in bed, that I was the one she wanted for ‘Elizabethtown.’
“After a couple of more phone calls, one of them finally with Cameron, I agreed, yes on the phone, to do my best but also told him that if I wasn’t doing a good enough job that I wanted him to send me back home to Georgia.”
Deen, after agreeing to the role, flew out to Hollywood to meet Crowe and fellow “Elizabethtown” cast members, Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst and Susan Sarandon for an official reading.
“I was picked up in a limousine at my hotel and driven to the Paramount lot, and brought into the conference room to read, and I almost fainted,” says Deen. “Not only were the stars who were in the movie with me at the table, but so was Tom Cruise. Since he was executive producer of the movie he wanted to be there. And he even read a part for someone who wasn’t there. What a day that was. I was so nervous but excited at the same time. I can’t believe Tom Cruise and Cameron Crowe didn’t ship me right back to Georgia that very afternoon.”
Deen, who can now be called a bonafide movie star, has not let that label go to her head; and from all indications, never will.
After sitting with Deen, (who owns “The Lady and Sons Restaurant” in Savannah, Georgia), for a half hour it is easy to see why America has fallen in love with her and her television cooking show.
Paula Deen is the same person in person; bubbly, personable, hilarious, smart, witty, endearing; as she is on television and the movies; a far cry from most ‘television personalities.’
I asked Deen what life was like on the set of “Elizabethtown,” knowing that movie sets are so much different than those for television shows. “It was amazingly un-Hollywood,” she exclaimed, getting serious. “It was really comfortable for me on the set every day that I was there. Cameron told me to just be myself, and that is what I tried to do.
“I even got to work next to Cameron’s real mother. She played my sister, I think she played my sister, in the movie, and was in the kitchen scenes, where we filmed most of our scenes, a lot and she and I got along really well.
“But do you want to know the best part of working on that movie?” Deen asks me, not pausing for me to reply. “It was the catering. I enjoyed that craft food services so much. It was hog heaven for me. I had heard that all of Tom Cruise’s movies had the best catering and this was no exception.”
OK. We know how Deen got her big break in Hollywood, but how did she find her way into the hearts and kitchens of America?
“Oh my. That’s an even more unbelievable story,” says Deen, taking hold of my arm again. “Let me tell you.” Click here for Paula Deen’s offcial website
