Catching Up With Alicia Silverstone

Photo: Matt Hoyle

Your new films, Butter and Vamps, are pretty camp. How do you reconcile being this earnest activist type and taking on all of these campy roles?
I do love being campy. Think about The Crush (1993), my first movie ever. It's so campy. I wasn't trying to be -- I was trying to make that character as believable as I could -- but there's just this fun flavor to it. Vamps is that kind of movie. It has the clever, witty things that seem to speak to gay boys. They'll all want coffins after seeing it.

What about The Performers, your Broadway show about porn stars?
I love being on Broadway. I said three months ago that I really wanted to do another play and then, all of a sudden, here it was. I read it, and it just felt like a really fun adventure.

An adventure co-starring Cheyenne Jackson.
I was just with a friend, and he was telling me Cheyenne is gay, and I didn't know that!

Your character Cher in Clueless (1995) unknowingly fell for a gay. Do you have a thing for guys who dig guys?
I've had so many crushes on gay boys. My first love was so gay, and I didn't know. I used to defend him because everyone would say he was gay, but he'd say he wasn't. Then, about six years later, he had the big talk with me.

Speaking of being an outcast, do you think vampire movies like Vamps are partly about the feeling of somehow not fitting in?
Yes. In Vamps, my character Goody has to keep this painful secret: She's been around for hundreds of years, and her best friend thinks she's only 40. She'll say things about past events and talk about them like she was there and then have to blame it on watching the History Channel.

The beginning of the film is about how fun and magical it is to be out all night partying and to never get old. But then you don't understand why you're around so long. Keeping up gets hard, and she really just wants to be herself.

Vamps opens November 2. The Performers premieres November 14 at New York City's Longacre Theatre.