Film star enjoys life after 40

Lea Thompson stars in Hallmark movie

STUDIO CITY, Calif. — Thanks to the three "Back to the Future" films, actress Lea Thompson was already a movie star in her 20s. That's enough to rattle some performers for the rest of their lives. But not Thompson.

"I think it's always difficult just dealing with how you age gracefully, how you redo your time when you're not chasing little kids around, and how you deal with the transition of becoming a mature woman — how you deal with that gracefully in a society that's telling you you're over," she says in an office conference room here.

MCT

Lea Thompson

"You don't feel over. You feel like, 'I'm just starting." '

Thompson has worked most of her life and, at 46, that's not changing. She presided over three TV series, including her sitcom, "Caroline in the City," and has costarred in scores of films like "Article 99," "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Some Kind of Wonderful."

"I have a sunny disposition about it," says Thompson, who's dressed in a white gauze top, pearl and gold necklace, loop earrings and navy-blue pants. "I'm not one to sit and whine about parts and everything.

"But it's the truth. It's a 20- and 30-year-old's world. On the other hand, it's nice to not have the pressure. When I think of my 20s and I was a movie star doing movie after movie, and movies coming out and doing publicity. And in my 30s when I was doing 'Caroline in the City' and the pressure of all the awards shows and the dresses and the publicity and how mean everybody is. I was just always nervous, and it's not always as pleasant as people think it is."

Thompson, who started in ballet, learned in her 20s that fame is fickle. "It's a short ride," she nods. "I had the wisdom even at that point to know it wasn't real, that it wasn't because I was so fabulously special that I was doing all this stuff. It was because I was young and pretty and talented, but I knew it was not necessarily me. I was a piece snapped into a business machine. I knew that. It's ridiculous to feel ashamed about not having a huge career, because no one does."

Having said that, Thompson — who has been headlining in the long-running mystery series, "Jane Doe," on the Hallmark Channel — is starring in the channel's latest film, "Final Approach." This edge-of-your-seat thriller features

Thompson as an Federal Aviation Administration agent whose husband (Dean Cain) is trapped on a hijacked airplane. The film premieres May 24.

Thompson is so grounded now it's hard to believe that as a kid she had a rough start. Her parents divorced when she was 6 and her mother tried to rear her five children. "My mom lived through a lot of stuff and a lot of stuff I'm going through in terms of being vivacious and talented and wanting to express yourself — like wanting to get your talent out," she says.

"You know, talent is like a little bomb ticking inside of people. You can't sit there, it's no good. And she did the best she could do in the time. We were poor, and my parents got divorced, but a lot of it was really good. I had to take care of myself, I had to motivate myself.

"I had to work through pain and come out the other way. Some people go through bad stuff and become resentful and angry and bitter, and some people go through bad times and they turn it into something good — compassion, when you have to love someone who's really creepy to you is a great lesson. You really have to try to feel why they're bad or mean or cruel. Instead of being, 'Ehhhh, they're horrible.' It's a chance to be a better person."

The cruel source in her life was her ballet teacher, who did her best to convince Thompson that she was defective material. "She controlled my life from the time I was little. ... She was really, really talented, but she was insane and really mean to me. I'd work and work and work and never got the part. She would say horrible things, 'You're nothing. You're not even good enough to be a Las Vegas dancer. You ruined my ballet.'

"My whole childhood was like that. I had to keep working and working. And those kinds of teachers are invaluable because you have to figure out how to overcome resentment and injustice. So I learned a lot."

Married for 19 years to director Howard Deutch and the mother of daughters, 17 and 13, it would seem that Thompson has it all together. But she admits she isn't always so confident.

"I remember one moment that really changed me. I was standing backstage at David Letterman ready to go on, and I was freaking out. It's really hard when you're a people-pleaser. You want to be everything to everybody — funny, sexy, cute, lovely, serious, blah, blah, blah. 'How should I be? Should I be sexy, funny, wahhhh?' I was freezing back there and I swear to God I heard a voice just say, 'You are enough.' They pushed me out on stage and that was pivotal to me. I just remember that voice. What I was trying to tell myself was, 'Don't try to be EVERYTHING, just be you and you are enough. Just be present and that'll be good enough."