Now It’s Graham’s Turn to Lead

Heather Graham feels lucky.

But luck alone can’t fully explain how Graham, in the business since the age of 17, finds herself with close to 30 feature films--including box office blockbusters “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” and “Scream 2”--to her credit. Plus, the actress has worked for such directors as David Lynch, Gus Van Sant and Paul Thomas Anderson.

Still, she insists, “I’m lucky like that.”

Among Graham’s memorable roles: the porn star in perpetual motion, known as Rollergirl in Anderson’s “Boogie Nights” (1997), the promiscuously ambitious starlet in last year’s “Bowfinger” and the hep swing girl in “Swingers” (1996).

Now Graham, who recently turned 30, has landed her first leading role, carrying “Committed,” a Miramax film written and directed by Lisa Krueger (“Manny and Lo”), which will open in New York and Los Angeles on Friday.

“I’m just pleased anyone would give me a lead role,” she says. “There aren’t that many out there; there aren’t that many movies for women. When I read this script, I thought it was funny, but it also affected me.”

In “Committed,” Graham plays Joline, a young woman with such strong faith in marriage that when her husband (Luke Wilson) leaves her, she tracks him down, embarking on a journey from New York City to El Paso, Texas.

Once Joline locates her wayward husband, however, she doesn’t attempt a reunion, choosing instead to stay on the periphery of his new life, while introducing herself to his boss, girlfriend (Patricia Velasquez) and neighbor (Goran Visnjic). As time passes, Joline’s commitment to her wedding vows remains unwavering, to the point at which she camps outside her husband’s prefab home in the desert, where she performs elaborate rituals to “protect” him from harm.

“The most important thing is that Joline takes on this mission as an adventure, more than a chore,” says Krueger. “Most people in that instance would be reeling from the pain and ego damage. She is actually galvanized by this simple adherence to a promise, as it answers something deep in her that goes beyond who the guy is. If you think about the actresses out there who could pull that off, there aren’t that many. The whole movie from the beginning rested on who would play that part.”

Krueger was familiar with Graham’s pre-”Boogie Nights” work, particularly “Don’t Do It,” a 1994 release that Graham says “no one really ever saw.” But Krueger did, viewing a rough cut because she knew the film’s producer and script supervisor. At the time, Krueger says, she remembers thinking: “I love that Heather Graham!”

Later, when Krueger spotted Graham’s name on a list of possible actresses who might be right for “Committed,” Krueger knew she had her Joline. “Boogie Nights” was finished and had just been celebrated at the Toronto film festival,” Krueger recalls, “but I didn’t know Heather was in it, I didn’t know what she’d been in since ‘Don’t Do It.’ I thought she might be a tough sell, but of course it turned out to be the opposite. Everyone was saying, ‘How did you get Heather Graham to do your movie?’ ”

For Graham the timing was perfect. The actress was looking for an opportunity to do more than her previous roles had provided. Graham says she was drawn to the spiritually rigorous Joline, not just because Graham describes herself as “New Agey” but because “Joline’s true to her word. She believes in her wedding vows. I like the idea that [marriage] is about forever. Everyone has some desire for that, even the craziest bachelor in his quietest moments wonders what it would be like to be with someone.”

The bulk of “Committed” was filmed in El Paso along the Mexican border in fall 1998. “Being in the desert in the middle of nowhere was kind of cool,” says Graham. “When we first got there, we thought it was the worst town we’d ever been to. There’s nothing going on. But by the end of the shoot, we all really loved it. It’s neat being that close to a whole other country.”

The rest was filmed in New York City, where Graham shares an apartment with her boyfriend, writer-director-actor Ed Burns. As to whether she and Burns are approaching more of a commitment themselves, Graham admits she thinks about getting married, “although not in the near future. I love living together; it’s so convenient.”

She and Burns also share a house in Los Angeles, which Graham considers more her home than Manhattan. Born in Milwaukee, Graham moved to the L.A. area when she was 9 years old, when her family settled in Agoura Hills.

Graham’s father was an FBI agent and her parents ran a tight domestic ship. Still, Graham and her younger sister, Aimee (who’s also an actress), reveled in flights of fancy that involved playing Peter Pan and Tinker Bell dressed in their mother’s old clothes. By 16, Graham was auditioning for and landing commercials, episodes of the TV series “Growing Pains” and a TV movie co-starring O.J. Simpson.

But when she was up for a part in the dark teen comedy “Heathers,” Graham says, her parents balked at the use of language. “I was 18, but I hadn’t graduated from high school,” Graham recalls. “I was offered the job as the mean Heather, but my parents read the script and said, ‘No go,’ and if I did it, they’d kick me out of the house. So I decided that I’d rather graduate from high school. But it would have been fun to be in it.”

“I remember the first night,” Graham recalls of moving to a condo in West Hollywood after graduating from high school. “I could stay up as long as I wanted. There is never a happier moment than when I realized I was an adult with total independence.”

‘Drugstore Cowboy’ Got Her Noticed

In 1988, Graham appeared in her first feature film, “License to Drive,” opposite the two Coreys, Haim and Feldman. But her big break, she says, was her portrayal of Nadine, the teenage drifter who ODs in Van Sant’s “Drugstore Cowboy” (1989).

“As an actress, I couldn’t get meetings for movies,” Graham recalls, “then after ‘Drugstore’ I got all these meetings. But I was so young I think I had a hard time following up and making decisions, although that film definitely broke me into a different space.”

From there, Graham appeared in Lawrence Kasdan’s “I Love You to Death” (1990) and the second season of David Lynch’s TV series “Twin Peaks” (1991) as well as the “Twin Peaks” theatrical movie, “Fire Walk With Me.”

Yet, as Graham entered her mid-20s with a solid slate of roles, she discovered she’d lost “that feeling of joy.”

“I kind of forgot why I was [acting]. Obviously you want to be successful, but if that’s your main goal, it’s empty,” she says. “You have to remind yourself why you got into it. I enjoyed acting the most when I was a kid, pretending for no other reason than to be in this imaginary world and have a good time. I feel like I lost that for a while and then I got it back.”

She credits “Boogie Nights” with reigniting her enthusiasm. “That movie really inspired me. I don’t know why, but I wasn’t insecure. I wasn’t thinking about what it could do for my career. I was excited about the writing, the story.”

Graham is currently filming “Say It Isn’t So,” a comedy co-written and produced by the Farrelly brothers. In it, she plays an untalented hairstylist who catches the eye of Chris Klein (“American Pie”). The only problem is, she may be his sister. “It’s kind of like a love story,” Graham explains, “with crazy, wacky, gross jokes.”

She and Burns Team Up for ‘Sidewalks’

In February, Graham filmed Burns’ “Sidewalks of New York,” in which she plays opposite Stanley Tucci, as his wife. Working with Burns, she says, was “good and bad.”

“It was kind of scary. I was worried that it would make or break our relationship. The good side was that he gave me the script to read and I could tell him that a girl would never say that, and he’d ask me what I would say. He rewrote a few scenes based on my notes. That’s the kind of input you don’t get with other directors. Because he was my boyfriend, I could nag him and get on his case.”

Next up is “From Hell,” for the Hughes Brothers (“Menace II Society”), based on the graphic novel about Jack the Ripper, with Nigel Hawthorne as the infamous murderer and Johnny Depp as the Scotland Yard detective who tracks him down.

“I play this prostitute who is one of his targets,” Graham explains. “It sounds stupid when you describe it like that, but it’s beautifully written, a mystery. It made me feel scared, like ‘Silence of the Lambs’-type scared.” For the role, the blond Graham will dye her hair red and--for the first time--attempt an English accent.

With so much to look forward to, Graham says it’s strange to think she’s been in the business for more than 13 years.

“I think I was thrown into an adult world at such a young age, but at the time it was great to get out of my environment and get into an adult world. Sometimes, though, I wish I’d had those crazy college years, where you can be irresponsible. Still, it’s lucky that I’ve been able to support myself as an actor my whole life.”