May 4, 1998; MONDAY; ALL EDITIONS
HEADLINE: DOOMSDAY AT 10 ;
SITCOM STAR TEA LEONI PUTS ON A SOMBER
FACE TO COVER THE END OF THE WORLD IN DEEP IMPACT'
BYLINE: JIM BECKERMAN, Staff Writer
If Tea Leoni never appears in a film opposite her husband, "X-Files" star David Duchovny, it won't be the end of the world.
"I will not work with David, I think it's not a very smart idea,"says Leoni, who has more pressing things to think about in her doomsday thriller"Deep Impact,"opening Friday.
In this new effects-laden disaster film, one of two similar movies headed for a collision course with theaters this year ("Armageddon"
opens July 1), Leoni plays an ambitious TV news producer who stumbles on to the scoop of the century, a giant comet aimed straight for the Earth, and due to cause the extinction of life when it crashes.
Until now, the 32-year-old Leoni has mostly been known as a sexy screwball comedian who made her mark on the cult Fox series "Flying Blind,"and as a tabloid journalist in the wobbly NBC show"The Naked Truth,"which may or may not be picked up next season.
Her movies, too, have mostly been fluffy fare: "Flirting With Disaster,""A League of Their Own."
So she had some qualms about appearing in a serious role, and opposite such acting heavyweights as Morgan Freeman, Robert Duvall, Maximilian Schell, and Vanessa Redgrave. "How about this cast?"Leoni says, still sounding a little starstruck.
Leoni found one thing familiar about"Deep Impact": the mob scenes.
Leoni is an old hand at mass hysteria. A year ago this month, she was battling her way through another kind of mob when her wedding to laid-back TV heartthrob Duchovny became one of the media events of the year.
"That was as close to being in a rock concert as I've ever come," she says. "We had a beautiful
ceremony. We had done what we could to keep it very private. It was my mother and my father and my brother, his mother and his sister and his brother. And that's it. That ceremony was blessed, it was one of the best moments of my life. And then it began."
At the hotel, a crowd gathered. And gathered. And gathered.
"That was when I first got really scared,"she says."There were so many people, and I'm not sure they were all there because they knew what they were there for. It's just a mentality, like, What's everybody looking at?'" She says media coverage is definitely on the wane, and good riddance.
"I think people are getting more used to the idea of seeing David and me kicking around town,"she says."I think a lot of the tabloid journalists have found out that we're not very exciting as a couple. We don't dash about town in limousines. We don't attend wild parties. There's not a chandelier in our house."
With"Deep Impact"in the theaters, and husband David's"X-Files" movie about to be released, Leoni is looking for some time to go on a real vacation. Known in Hollywood as a fanatical golfer, she's also looking forward to getting back to the links."My game is in a shambles,"she says.
Though Leoni describes herself as an "X-Files"fan, she also says,paradoxically, that Mulder, the character played by her husband, is not her type.
"I think that Mulder is certainly less awake than David. He's not as smart as David, either. Close, but not. As far as being a good dresser, Mulder is good, sometimes better, I'll give him that. Mulder is so unwilling to give a piece of himself to one person, and David is
so willing to give a piece of himself to one person."