Tribeca Film Festival: 'Don McKay' star Elisabeth Shue on Hollywood peaks and valleys

Earlier this week, I met with the Oscar-nominated actress Elisabeth Shue at the Direct TV Tribeca Press Center to chat about the peaks and valleys of a career that has now spanned 25 years, from "The Karate Kid" (1984) to "Leaving Las Vegas" (1995) to "Don McKay" (2009), an indie showing at this year's Tribeca Film Festival that I wrote about earlier in the week. The actress, now 45 and as beautiful as ever, spoke candidly about a variety of topics, as you can hear for yourself by clicking below...

• Shue on becoming an actor
• "I had met a girl who was on a commercial and was very in awe of the fact that she was on TV, as if it was impossible that human beings could even be on television, and I think that led me to want that same sort of attention."
  

• Shue on the early years of her career
• "I was still so innocent and naive about the business. I didn't understand it really was a business. I didn't know how much money ['The Karate Kid'] made, really, until 10 years later. Somebody said, 'It made over $100 million.' I said, 'Wow, that's amazing.'"
  

• Shue on 'Leaving Las Vegas' 14 years later
  
• "I knew the experience was very special from the beginning. I loved working with Nic so much, and I loved my character, and I loved the feelings these characters had for each other -- in this dark world, they still had such an innocent love for each other."
  

• Shue on her post-Oscar experience
• "It definitely opened a lot of doors, but in some ways it makes it more complicated -- you have higher expectations of what you want to do, and you have to be incredibly patient, which I probably wasn't."
  

• Shue on the outlook that sustains her
• "It's a business, and I've learned to accept it, and not take it personally, basically."

• Shue on her latest role in 'Don McKay'
• "It just came in the mail, and it was so obvious what a great part it was, and it was so obvious what a great actor Thomas Haden Church is, and so I knew, with those two pieces of the puzzle, I would just give my faith to Jake [Goldberger, the director], not knowing what he was capable of."

Photos: Elisabeth Shue in "The Karate Kid" (Columbia), in "Leaving Las Vegas" (United Artists), and on the set of "Don McKay" (Boston Herald)

Comments

[Matt Mazur]

Thanks for the excellent Tribeca coverage, Scott! Wish I was there!

[Mike Terry]

check out my son's song about Elisabeth Shue, written and performed by Peter Terry - http://www.myspace.com/peterterrymusic
enjoy!