Movies

Murphy's laws

Proving there's life after Ashton, actress Brittany Murphy gets busy on stardom.

By Michele Hatty

"Did you ever dream of having blue eyes?" Brittany Murphy asks in her trademark girlish-yet-gravelly voice. "My mom has these big, gorgeous, supple blue eyes, and I always dreamed about having them. When I was 12, color contacts came out and they were $250 a pair. I worked the summer baby-sitting our neighbor's three kids. I earned my $250 to buy my contact lenses, which did not fit my eyes properly and I wore only twice."

So much for the vanity of youth. Chilling out on the balcony of her boyfriend's eighth-floor apartment in Los Angeles' Wilshire District ("I call it the Pretty Woman Shagadelic Bachelor Pad," she reveals with a giggle), Murphy, 25, is using her beautiful brown eyes to take in more than what she calls a "stunning" view of the city. She's also enjoying the view of her life at the moment.

And what a life it is. The actress, who began working in "the business" just after that baby-sitting summer, is about to come full circle with the opening of this weekend's sweet comedy "Uptown Girls". In the film, Murphy plays Molly Gunn, the free-spirited daughter of a late rock star who runs out of cash and reluctantly becomes a nanny for a far too uptight 8-year-old ("I Am Sam"'s Dakota Fanning). Even better: For this baby-sitting job, she made much more than $250 (reportedly around $1 million).

"Uptown Girls" caps off what has been a whirlwind year for the actress. Last fall saw her hooking up onscreen (and reportedly offscreen as well) with Eminem in scene after steamy scene of the well-received "8 Mile". Then came a turn in February's hit comedy "Just Married", accompanied by a high-profile, PDA-filled relationship with "It boy" co-star Ashton Kutcher.

Now, with the release of the first film she's opening on her own, Murphy is trying to conduct a more low-profile romance with current beau Jeff Kwatinetz, 38, who co-founded the Firm, a talent-management company that counts Murphy as a client. Although she was known to gush about life with Kutcher, she has since become more careful. "One thing I did learn from the last relationship is not to speak about relationships in print anymore," she says. "It's a very happy love. A very healthy love. And that's all I'll say."

Murphy is the sort who clearly thrives on love of all kinds. An only child, she's close to her extended family. She chats effusively about her many cousins, including Katelyn Murphy, who plays a young Molly in "Uptown Girls", and she adores her mother, Sharon, who raised the actress by herself in New Jersey and L.A. Being close to her mom -- the two share a home in Hollywood -- "is the biggest blessing of my life," Murphy says.

It's with her mother's support and encouragement that Murphy has conquered just about every acting medium: television (she voices the character of Luanne on Fox's "King of the Hill"), Broadway, the movies. And now she's set to take on yet another career: music. This fall she plans to record her first album, although she's not yet sure what her style will be. "I was raised on a lot of jazz and hip-hop and R&B and blues, so I have a lot of artists I favor. I'm sure it'll be a hybrid of all that stuff.

"Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross -- those are my career idols," she says, citing old-school divas who have excelled at both acting and singing. "Jennifer Lopez, Eminem and Ice Cube have done incredible jobs in juggling both careers. Who knows what [my music] will end up sounding like, but hopefully people will really like it. I need to get it out of my body and into a microphone."

That's a plan that her "Uptown Girls" co-star Donald Faison -- who has known Murphy since they made 1995's "Clueless" together -- seconds. "She can sing," he says emphatically. "And I'm not talking Broadway tunes. I'm talking she can sing her some R&B. She's really soulful; she has a very soulful voice, too."

Faison, who plays one of Murphy's best friends in "Girls" and also joins the actress in the upcoming dog-centric comedy "Good Boy!", has watched her change from a shy 17-year-old into a sure-minded woman. "Brittany was a very quiet girl before," says Faison, a star of the NBC sitcom "Scrubs". "You would never guess that she would turn into the diva she is now. I'm not saying 'diva' in a bad way; I'm saying 'diva' in all the right ways. She's very silly. Me and her, we'd have tap challenges and dance-offs. We'd sing songs all day long on the set. She's just a really fun person to be around. She is very serious, yet she knows how to play."

At work or play, Murphy is intent on just enjoying every moment. This month she began filming the romantic comedy "Little Black Book" with Ron Livingston ("Sex and the City"), then in November she plans to head into a recording studio. "I have the best job in the world, and my life is very, very good," she says. "What could be better than that?"