Pigs eat bacon. When Dakota and I realised that they're cannibals, we were a little grossed out 
Since her 1995 debut in Clueless, Brittany Murphy has accumulated an impressively diverse list of credits. The most recent include Riding In Cars With Boys, Don't Say A Word, 8 Mile, Spun, and Just Married. The 26-year-old, Atlanta-born star recently became engaged to talent manager Jeff Kwatinetz.
Did you find it easy to relate to Molly, your character in Uptown Girls?
I do, although I'm extremely different from every single character I've ever played. I was never formally trained, it was all 'on the job' training, but my approach is that the characters take over me. I surrender to who the person is, their soul, their essence and their heart. And I allow them to utilise my emotions, my tears, and my laughter, wherever they feel necessary. So in that sense that's how I'm similar to every single character, because it all comes from the same resource pool - me.
But were there any specific qualities that you recognised in Molly?
Well, one of the things that I love the most about her is that she has no prejudice. She grew up with tons of money, which is the polar opposite of my experience - I grew up wealthy in love. My Mom and I still live together, and it's always been the two of us against the world. She is my angel. With Molly I guess the similarities are a love of life and of humanity. She would spend just as much time with the Prime Minister as an eight-year-old child. She doesn't see colour boundaries, she doesn't see social status boundaries, she doesn't see those things, they don't occur to her, and they don't occur to me either. She really loves people and she wants to help them.
In that case, were you able to relate to your very young co-star, Dakota Fanning?
She's stunning, she just turned ten and is hysterically funny. She's charming beyond belief. She's so in tune with people's feelings and their emotions, we mirror each other. She's the only person I've ever met in my life who is Mini-Me in a lot of regards - and I flatter myself by saying that. We're very similar, but she's far more together than I am.
Never work with children and animals, they say. And you did both, with Molly's pet pig sharing some of your scenes...
We had fun with the two animals who played Moo, who are named Softy and Springer. They were raised and reared in New Jersey especially for the filming of Uptown Girls. We became quite close to them by the end.
So bacon was off the menu for the duration of the shoot, was it?
Actually pigs eat bacon. When Dakota and I realised that they're cannibals, we were a little grossed out. We finished a scene on the day we learned that about them, and we were starving but we saw the caterers had put fresh baked ham on the craft service table. Normally on a film you eat whatever you can, but we couldn't eat it that day. We found other stuff instead.
Is it hard to go from the dramatic roles you've done recently to a fluffy comedy like this?
No, this just came along. I had a real soft spot for it, the visceral connection of reading something and having it go from your head to your heart, to your soul. The character just drew me in. The script was not in its final form, and yet there was something that really appealed to me in the story. Half the reason for making it was to basically create a love letter to a little girl I once knew - I wanted to give her a gift. Then I realised it was a gift for children of every age.
