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"What you notice right away is her eyes," notes a report instantly smitten with the exotic fox, Fairuza Balk (top left, at 18, just finished filming the TV movie Murder The Heartland). In Heartland, Fairuza played the 14-year-old girlfriend of Charles Starkweather, Nebraska's legendary mass murderer (a far cry from her goody two-slippers Dorothy, in Return To Oz, her first big screen role at age 9, 2nd from top right). "People thought I was funny-looking because my eyes were too big for my head" (and lots of hair, middle left). At 22, Sleuth thinks everything has evened out (2nd from bottom right in a peek-a-book top). Entertainment Weekly singled Balk out "for the Lolitaesque allure she brought to the naively romantic Shade" in the indie hit Gas Food Lodging, but it's her "bad girl" role this past year in the "Carrie meets Clueless!" boxoffice bonanza The Craft (co-starring Neve Campbell, Robin Tunney and Rachel True, top right) that won her wider appeal. "The success of (The Craft) blew me away, All of a sudden everybody's staring...and I'm thinking: Do I have food on my face? I mean, do I look weird?" Balk barked. "There were people knocking on my door and people at my windows. Like, autograph people...and crazy Christian people calling me a witch...". Which is what she played in the flick: "I had the fun role. I've played loonies before, but no one that's been able to blow people up and send them flying through walls, you know" (look what's flying through her top in a shot from the set, bottom right). "Fairuza Balk is incredibly open" (right) raved a reviewer. Ingenews Born: 1974 Fairuza's unusual name is actually Arabic: "My father plays Middle Eastern music and flamenco," she explains. "The name means turquoise and when I was born they were very, very blue." They were also very, very big (from Return To Oz, below). We can determine from the similar pose, at right, that her body has now achieved perfect balance! Though Balk seems to balk about Sleuth's assessment, complaining: "My fly's stuck...I didn't have a butt last week, honest. I was like, "I'm going to look pretty like all those other girls' and then three days ago, it's like (I'm) just eating everything." She's a meal on wheels in the romantic comedy, Tollbooth, bottom left. "Talk is that Balk generates plenty of heat" (better hose us down-middle left) "It's a very twisted story," the curvy cutie confesses. "We called it Apoca-Tollbooth Now." But Balk defends the flick's steamy sex scene. "It's not exploitative or anything, but it was kind of disturbing, I had to hop in bed with the guy the same day I met him. It was like, "Hi. My name's Fairuza. Let's doink in front of 70 people." Another odd-ball studio venture Balk walked into was Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead. Fairuza's a street hooker who tells Andy Garcia she has to "watch out for the Pussy Posse." Later on, she hollers "fuck you" 10 times in a row (she's definitely not in Kansas anymore!). "I have this knack," Fairuza feels. "If I know that someone is dangerous and I shouldn't be with them, then I'm like, "Hello," and inevitably I always get into so much trouble." Currently getting into her is boyfriend David Thewlis--12 years her senior and the balding bearded star of Naked. Asked what's "the one thing that you know you shouldn't do, but do anyway?" Balk beams: "Wouldn't you like to know." |