Old movies, coats just make her day

ON Saturday, the 24-year-old star of “Elf” will be a presenter with Jake Gyllenhaal at the Sundance Film Festival’s annual awards (9 p.m. on the Sundance Channel). On any given Sunday, however, the actress, born and raised in Pacific Palisades, is likely to be attending a film festival or shopping expedition of her own devising in Los Angeles, where she lives with her boyfriend, actor-rocker Jason Schwartzman.

Movie mania

I spend most of my time hanging out with my boyfriend. I like to see movies, and fortunately there are a lot of old revival houses in Los Angeles. So on a Friday, we might go to the Silent Movie Theatre on Fairfax or the New Beverly or the Egyptian, which is a great theater and has great programming. Sometimes I go to the Wednesday matinee at the Bing Theater at LACMA, where it’s all elderly folks falling asleep.

A special quest

Friday night is a little more peppy. After a movie there’s a place on La Cienega called Real Food Daily that has vegan food. I started eating fish recently but I can’t give up the vegetarian lifestyle. When I stay up late, it’s usually because I’ve rented an interesting movie from Cinefile on Sawtelle or Vidiots in Santa Monica.

On Saturday, I rise at the crack of 11. I don’t eat lunch. I prefer breakfast, so I might make brunch. And I like to bake, so I might make devil’s food cake from scratch; I’ll go to Whole Foods or Erewhon to make it more like health food. Then I tool around Los Angeles, maybe take a hike or just walk around and drink coffee. I try not to shop but I probably end up on Melrose because there’s a lot of variety and you don’t find the average things you’d see in a department store. I mostly like old clothes, so I’ll look at Wasteland, and if I’m thinking upscale, then I’ll look at Barneys, but the clothes tend to be very expensive, so I keep myself under strict limits.

I have a terrible weakness for coats, though. It’s not that I spend so much money because I buy old ones, but I have to use rolling racks for all of them because I have so many. And I’m still looking for the perfect coat, double-breasted, small shoulders, a little short Jackie-O coat. An old Courreges coat would be the ultimate. I saw a picture of Audrey Hepburn wearing one, and as much as everybody wants to be Audrey Hepburn and I don’t want to be that girl ... I think she dressed really well.

If I’m not on a fruitless search for the perfect coat, I might go record shopping. I like Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald, the Beach Boys, but my taste is eclectic so I’d probably be looking for something weird, pre-1980s. I’m an iPod girl and I record music on my M-Box with Pro-Tools and Logic, so I might spend some of the weekend playing music. I sing and have an arsenal of instruments, none of which I’m an expert at, but I can play piano, guitar and a four-string banjo. Sometimes I’ll go with my boyfriend, who knows every music store in town -- and they all know him -- and Black Market Music on La Cienega is a good place to shop for instruments.

Bargains

On Sunday, I’ll go to the Rose Bowl flea market if that’s on and keep looking for the perfect coat or a cool old record player or cheap furniture. I like getting a good deal. Then I’ll go to Disneyland at night and enjoy the happiest place on Earth and ride all the rides. No Teacups, though -- it’s Space Mountain. And Pirates of the Caribbean? Great ride! And of course, I’d have my boyfriend with me, so it would be a good time. Even if we did nothing -- even if we just sat in a gray room, on a gray day, in a gray chair with a gray cat -- we’d still have fun.