Hailey Matthews/late 1989 interview

This interview was filmed after Matthews and her family moved to Los Angeles.

Transcript

 * INTERVIEWER: Tell me about your acting business got started.
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: Well, my parents were stars at the time. My father is an actor, working as a filmmaker, and he works with his own production company in New York called Johnson Studios which was now closed, and later moved stuff to the new production company in Los Angeles, named George Johnson Entertainment. and my mother is an England actress. And I followed in my mother's footsteps.
 * INTERVIEWER: What year when you started acting?
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: I started acting in the spring of 1976 when I was nine, I told my parents that I wanted to be an actress.
 * INTERVIEWER: What is your first film credit that your in?
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: Audrey Rose from 1977. Including my mother in this film.
 * INTERVIEWER: What do you do when you have spare time?
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: I like watching TV, listening to music, playing on my computer, all that stuff.
 * INTERVIEWER: What state when you born in?
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: I was born in the busy city of Brooklyn. Loud and busy city. I was in my bedroom, I hear cars honking, music playing, all that.
 * INTERVIEWER: I heard that you played a role as Female Gang Fighter from My Lucky Stars in 1985.
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: Yes, that's right.
 * INTERVIEWER: How did you get a part of a role?
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: Well, you see, After finishing my study about puffed sleeves which was my favorite part of the dresses, My Apple II computer which I had for three or two years, just stopped working, I don't have my money for the repair that computer so I said to myself, "I need a new computer." I came down the stairs and I told my parents that my computer it stopped working. One of my parents was my mom, She said to me, "Hailey, there's a new computer that I think would be a perfect replacement for that computer." And she showed me a new computer that I saw was an Apple Macintosh 512k. You know about Apple Macintosh right?
 * INTERVIEWER: Right,
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: Anyways, and I said, "Oh, cool, that's what I wanted, I wanted a cool computer like this one." And then the phone rang, my mother pick up the phone, and who answers the phone? it was my agent. My mother give me the phone to me, and I said, yes. My agent said to me, "How do you like to do an action movie?", And I said, ok. I said, "I haven't done action movies since my acting career got started." He said, it's not gonna be filmed in Brooklyn, He said to me, "It's gonna be shot on a soundstage at the movie studio in Queens, New York." I said, Oh, well, ok. and he said, "it was 10 days' work, it will pay you $500 a day." I said, "Well OK, that will be interesting." And I said, "I just looked down on the Apple Macintosh 512k, it cost about $2,795, while my money in my wallet was about $100. Perfect timing for that. And then he said to me, "Well since the original actress who played Female Gang Fighter, Patricia Gonzalez, got fired from the role since the role was played by a 22-year actress, you have to play a villain for Female Gang Fighter role." And I said, "oh no. I don't play a villain role like that." It's bad enough to know that I was cast in the role of Karen Packer for a local New York sketch show, The Funny Yorker, which I did for two or three years. I said, "No." If somebody told me to play a villain role, no thanks. I said to my agent, "Well, I need the computer. Please send me a script." They give me a reworked version of the script, and I read the whole thing except the clothes-ripping part, and I said, "That was a terrible script!".
 * INTERVIEWER: (laughs)
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: Anyways, and I said, "Nobody likes this stuff. It ruins the original plan of the movie, it ruins the original writing of the movie's script, so you know what? I'm not gonna do it." And my mother was like, "Ok, I'll leave the script on the kitchen table if you changed your mind." So I go back to my bedroom thinking about what if I did not get a part of the role. and a few hours later, I changed my mind, I told my parents that I will play the role, and she gives me a phone and I called my agent, and I said, "Since I need a new computer, I'll do it". So I got a part in the role of a Female Gang Fighter, I work the movie for 10 days, and I got paid $500 a day So that I can able to buy that Apple Macintosh. And that's what I got a part of.
 * INTERVIEWER: I heard the stories floating around that you have the most difficult scene in My Lucky Stars that led to leaving show business for 5 years.
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: Yes, but I did not leave the show business because I was taking a break from acting for 5 years so I can take some time.
 * INTERVIEWER: What happened?
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: Well, on November 6, 1984, on my last day of filming My Lucky Stars at the soundstage. I was about to back Barbara Woo's back, which is played by Rebecca Hudson. She is slightly taller than me. Anyways, I was about to back Barbara Woo's back but the director and actor Robert Cunningham said "Hailey, You're not allowed to do that anymore." I said, "Why not?", He said to me, "Because, the test audience hated to show breaking back on the screen including my parents. So I crossed that part out and replaced it with ripped the outfit." That decision later turn out to be a big mistake for both him and me. It took one and a half hours to prepare to rip it because that outfit looked beautiful and even puffed sleeves. Is puffed sleeves still a thing?
 * INTERVIEWER: I think so.
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: I still love puffed sleeves. Anyways, a few months prior to that, I was watching the Anne of the Green Gables episode about Puffed Sleeves on TV.
 * INTERVIEWER: Cartoon or 1985 version?
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: Cartoon. Anyway, and then one and half hours later, I said to myself "Screw it, I'm gonna rip it", and said to everyone, "Everyone, I'm gonna rip it!". So they got 4 cameras rolling, one was a close-up shot, one was a medium shot, one was a medium to close-up shot, and one was a floor shot. and I was not a fan of this at first.
 * INTERVIEWER: You're not a fan of that scene?
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: I was not a fan of that scene.
 * INTERVIEWER: That scene right here led to taking a break from acting for 5 years correct?
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: Right. Surprisingly, I fixed that same outfit from the movie with the help of my neighbor and best friend, Kathy Packerson, 3 months later before this movie was released in theaters. I delivered it to Rebecca Hudson the same actress who played Barbara Woo, and she was so happy that her outfit was fixed. Rebecca Hudson, if you watching this interview, I'm really sorry about the puffed sleeves, I still like those. Anyways, then Robert Cunningham apologized to me for what happened on November 6, 1984, and I accepted the apology. And he promised that he will make a TV edit version of My Lucky Stars that will not feature ripping outfit scenes and instead he had to film scenes where instead of ripping outfits, the Female Gang Fighter spun around like a top, and threw her to the ground and her outfit remains undamaged. He used a lot of footage of final scenes with the undamaged outfit, filmed with Patricia Gonzalez months earlier. So that is why I prefer the TV edit version over the theatrical version.
 * INTERVIEWER: Well, that's nice.
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: I know.
 * INTERVIEWER: And now you came back to acting after 5-year hiatus?
 * HAILEY MATTHEWS: Yes, that's because acting is more than fashion, and I miss my acting career, so I decided to return to acting.