The movie line that became Michelle Pfeiffer’s mantra: “I’ve been doing that my entire life”
Michelle Pfeiffer has played some very memorable characters across her long and successful film career. Few will forget the first time they saw her as the whip-cracking antihero Catwoman in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, giving Michael Keaton’s Dark Knight a serious run for his money. From cult favourites like The Witches of Eastwick to blockbuster hits like Ant-Man & the Wasp, Pfeiffer never disappoints.
In her capacity as a complicated screen icon, Pfeiffer has also been given the chance to deliver some pretty iconic lines. As Elvira Hancock, wife of Al Pacino’s drug lord in Scarface, she uttered the immortal phrase, “Don’t get high on your own supply”. Her aforementioned turn as Selena Kyle yielded many memorable quotes, almost all of which featured some sort of tortured cat pun. And who could possibly forget the many outstanding lyrics in her multi-award-winning song ‘Cool Rider’ from Grease 2: “I want a whole lot more than the boy next door/I want hell on wheels”. Words to live by.
When it comes to her own personal favourite quotes, however, Pfeiffer prefers one that was uttered by somebody else, although it does come from one of her films. Speaking to Town and Country magazine, the three-time Oscar nominee revealed her affection for a line from her 1993 collaboration with Martin Scorsese, The Age of Innocence.
“There’s a line… I’m not sure if it’s actually in the novel or just in the movie… that says, ‘Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it’,” she revealed, adding, “I’ve been doing that my entire life.” She then used her own 40th birthday party as an example of her self-deprecation. “I have an eclectic group of friends,” she continued, “They don’t necessarily gel, so I felt responsible—why aren’t they talking? Are they not having a good time? I felt responsible, and I think that was the last party I ever had.”
Adapted from Edith Wharton’s novel of the same name, The Age of Innocence is a period drama set in the high-class world of 19th-century New York, where Newland Archer, a prosperous lawyer played by Daniel Day-Lewis, is planning to marry an upper-class woman, Winona Ryder’s May Welland. This is where Pfieffer’s character, a beguiling Countess named Ellen Olenska, comes in. Archer falls head-over-heels for her, which not only threatens his marriage to Welland, but also his place on the precarious totem pole of New York society status quo.
This might seem a little tame by Scorsese’s standards, but the film is surprisingly extreme. The director himself once referred to it as “the most violent film” he ever made. This isn’t because of the extent of the aggression or even the quantity, but the shocking nature of the emotional manipulation the so-called ‘elite’ enforce upon each other. The violence on display here leaves no physical marks, but rather a series of emotional scars that follow the characters throughout their lives.
The quote that Pfeiffer referred to, which is read by the movie’s narrator, the legendary Joanne Woodward, is a symptom of this repressive world. This is a group of people who would rather do anything but actually enjoy themselves, even if it means living their whole lives without a hint of genuine happiness.
