Brooke Shields on the Transactional Nature of Beauty

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Next, to a conversation about beauty, objectification, and finding agency despite it all. Brooke Shields is one of the most recognizable faces of our time. As a child star, she was highly sexualized in movies and commercials. And now, she’s decided to open up about her life in a new documentary, “Pretty Baby.” Here’s a clip from the trailer.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was catapulted into the world of adult sexuality. I just always remember thinking like, I hope she’s OK. She was a young girl in an all-adult world.

BROOKE SHIELDS, ACTRESS: I’m amazed that I survived any of it.

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AMANPOUR: Brooke Shields spoke to me recently from Los Angeles. And I started by asking why she wanted to explore this issue now.

SHIELDS: I think that it’s a very sort of fraught topic because it is that, oh, you must have it so tough because you’re pretty, you know. It is about so much more than that. It’s about self-worth, being objectified, what that means, how, as a young woman, trying to grow into my own self-confidence and healthy body image, how it’s picked apart all the time, and there’s so much about how transactional beauty is that was fascinating to me to sort of delve into. And I have two daughters. And their physical attributes are a huge part of how the world reacts to them, whether they — you know, people think they should look more like me or they don’t look like me. You know, it’s all very kind of detailed in it’s — I mean, it’s delicate. And so, the idea of being beautiful was something that was thrust on me, it felt arbitrary, and I spent decades trying to nurture all the other areas of my life that did not, could not be reduced to just beauty.

AMANPOUR: And do you feel now at the age of — I’m not sure, maybe 57, and you look absolutely phenomenal.

SHIELDS: Fifty-eight.

AMANPOUR: Fifty-eight. Well, even better.

SHIELDS: It’s just —

AMANPOUR: Do you feel that you did accomplish that, that you were able to live a life, for most of your life, that relied — or at least gave you a feeling of self-worth beyond the exterior shell that we all saw?

SHIELDS: I worked very hard and I stayed away from Hollywood. I stayed on the East Coast. I always went to normal or regular conventional children’s schools and high schools, and then onto college, and that, I fought for friends that I could trust, friends that were going to be with me for the long haul. It was a very important way to live for me, because I knew that I wouldn’t survive this industry because I am a sensitive person and I am an empath and I’m also an actress, you know?

So, I have all of that sort of churning inside me all the time. And if you’re not strong and you don’t have a place to go home to, emotionally, mentally, physically, I think this industry can devour you.

AMANPOUR: I mean, almost — if it hadn’t been for you and your strength of determination, I think, you might have been gobbled up. You know, you’ve said that you were barely even a year old before you did your first public modeling job. I mean, tell us about that. It was for what?

SHIELDS: Well, I said to my mother, it is time for me to earn a living. I have only known that, but it also was a form of that’s how we lived, that’s how we paid the rent, that’s how we got to go on a vacation, that’s how my mom and I got a car, you know. We — it was a business, and that’s how it just happened to be what I did.

So, I — from that time I was quite young, but I think what it did was I never knew relative anonymity in so far as I had one life, and then all of a sudden, it was you served by fame. This was a gradual, continual, process. And work ethic was what I relied on the most. And so, I think I dove into the logistics of working, being on time, being a good worker, you know. And I think that that helped me have a certain perspective. And again, you know, I never missed school. So, everybody was always saying, oh, you lost your childhood. And I was a cheerleader, I was — you know, and in both high school and college, it was an adjustment for other kids, you know. I came in and I came in as a famous person, but you know what, it didn’t last long. Within a semester, I have friends that I am still best friends with.

AMANPOUR: I was absolutely fascinated to hear that you did your college thesis on “Pretty Baby,” the film, interviewing Louis Malle, the director. “Pretty Baby” is the name of this documentary. At the time, you said, you knew that this film was going to be in good taste. I want to watch a clip of it, because it was so controversial and it’s followed you basically your whole life. Here’s a clip.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They say that on the set you felt very uncomfortable during all of this. Is not true?

SHIELDS: Well, I mean, I knew it was going to be done in good taste. So, I mean, you know, if you like think about the whole thing, it might be a little uncomfortable, but I knew that it was going to be a good taste and it wasn’t any porno movie. And so, I didn’t feel so bad about it.

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AMANPOUR: Honestly, it’s amazing. Of course, it’s not a clip from the film, which I will play, but it’s you in such a grown-up way, at the age of, I guess, 11 or something, talking to these interviewers. And I think — talk to me about what you were trying to discover years later, once you did your thesis and what did you want to get from Louis Malle, the director?

SHIELDS: Well, I got exactly what I had hoped for. First of all, the interesting thing was the controversy surrounding that film, it was always focused on the film. Never focused on how these journalists could get away with the line of questioning or the sort of the approach to dealing with a child. And it always sort of struck me as very just interesting and slightly ironic. But what I needed to do from myself was reclaim the film because the film, to this day, is the best film I have been in, in my opinion. It’s the most artistic and creative and beautiful and quality. And the subject matter was a true story. So, I didn’t grapple with that at the time, but I knew that it deserved more of an artistic eye, not just the controversy. And I have been so plagued by it. And so, nobody wanted to hear the narrative that I felt in my heart. And so, I was a French literature major, and I decided to intellectualize it from that perspective from a literary perspective, from a language perspective and from working with an unbelievable (INAUDIBLE), you know I mean? Like this — it was such an honor, but it was all reduced in America. You know, it was very loved and applauded, it won the Palme d’Or and Cannes and it — you know, Europe loved it. And then, America just desecrated it. And I — and then, talking to him was I had to really nail him down. I kind of had to lie. I had to tell him I was going to call one day and I called the day earlier because he was slippery like that. He didn’t really want to be in an interview, you know, especially with me, you know, so many years later. And he really affirmed so much of what I believed the movie was showing, you know, withing, you know, textualist, you know?

And so, it just was — when so much has been said about something you’ve done or you, you have to find ways to reclaim it so that you can go to sleep at night feeling really good about the choices you’ve made.

AMANPOUR: OK. So, that —

SHIELDS: So, that’s all you’ve got.

AMANPOUR: Yes. That makes me have to ask you the question then, at the time, did you feel like it wasn’t the right choice? If you’re saying you had to be able to sleep at night being comfortable. I want to play something which is — I find really, really, really interesting aim. It’s the kiss in the film with Keith Carradine. And, you know, he said something to you about it. Let’s just play this clip.

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DREW BARRYMORE, ACTRESS: It’s pretend. This is all make believe. I’ve been on those sets. People are having fun. You’re filming it. It’s art. You don’t really think about it until later. There is an aftermath that then cycles in your head of like, was that OK?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would argue she wasn’t conscious of what was wrong, but had a feeling that something was not good, was off.

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AMANPOUR: So, that’s the clip. Plus, obviously, Drew Barrymore and another author talking about it, and about you. Do they get it right? Is that how you felt, that something might have been off?

SHIELDS: I think that’s what to Drew’s experience was. And I — what I was worried about was that I had never kissed a boy before. And I didn’t want it to be taken away. I didn’t want my first to be taken away. And I was afraid that I didn’t know how to do it, to be honest. I’ve done it. You know, I — maybe I practiced on like a teddy bear or something like that, but it was — you know, there was this sort of, oh, no, what if I don’t do this right? And he was so, so sweet about it. You know, I wasn’t conflicted with, oh, I’m an 11-year-old and he’s an adult, and this is creepy. The set didn’t feel creepy. He’s not creepy, Louis Malle was not creepy to me. I didn’t have that feeling in the pit of my stomach. But I was afraid of not doing it right.

And when he told me that it wouldn’t count as my first kiss, it was probably one of the most generous things an actor, who knows what he was going through, you know?

AMANPOUR: Yes.

SHIELDS: So, I think it was kind of him. But going back to something you said with regards to going to sleep at night feeling good about it, I’m not talking about the actual doing of the film. I stand by that film, and I stand by the choice to make it. I’m proud of it. And I — it didn’t scar me. People don’t want to know — hear that, they want to hear that I’ve — I’m dredging up all this, you know, starring and — but what it — what did

— I did have to reclaim and find and go to sleep at night being proud of is the vitriol that was thrown at me. The negativity, the banning of the movie, the pitchforks and the — you know, and pointing of it, how horrible my mother is and pornography, and it was just — it was so — I was born and raised in Manhattan. I was more uncomfortable in those interviews being attacked. There’s one that’s not in the film where I finally say to a woman, I’m so sorry, but I keep answering the same question, and I don’t think you want my answer. I’ve have lost much respect for all those people in those positions because they wanted my answer to be different.

AMANPOUR: Exactly. And you talk about in an interview with “The New Yorker” just a few months ago. Because we do see a lot of interviews. And actually, as a pressperson myself, all these years later, I cannot believe the way — and mostly men, but also some very prominent women, I mean, they were not the kind of questions that I hope I would’ve ever asked about your sexuality, your virginity, your mother’s alcoholism, while she just sat beside you. Here’s what you said to “The New Yorker.” It just never ended. It made me lose so much respect for — excuse me — the press. There was no one place that had even a modicum of integrity. To have Barbara Walters talk about my measurements? There was nothing intellectual about it. You saw these adults, who are supposed to be the smart people in the world, be so lowest common denominator. I just became shut down to all of it. There’s that one interview, where they’re reading their view of my mother’s face. And I saw that in the — you know, that interview and you’re desperately trying to protect your mother.

SHIELDS: And it’s — I mean, that makes me cry, that clip. Because at the end I just say, she’s my momma. You know, and I’m — I’ve got girls, I’ve got daughters that would — you know, that they would protect me and you just look at the love. And it was heartbreaking, you know, but it really did, it set me on this course of, OK, I am not going to be undone by these people.

AMANPOUR: Did it ever occur to you that you — you know, you’re in America, which has a very prurient, you know, quality to a lot of the — a lot of it. You know, people bound to, you know, react to what they thought was a child being exploited at an overly young age, in a highly sexualized and adultified way. They talked about your mother is the typical stage mother. Did you ever — was there ever a period where you kind of got it, why people were talking like that? Not that you agreed with it or you felt it.

SHIELDS: You know, not until much, much later and not until having children of my own. Again, I was very good at compartmentalizing. In order to stay alive, I needed that and so far as I needed to keep my mother alive. And it was the two of us against the world. She was an alcoholic. And when you are a child of an alcoholic, your vigilant. And I hardly had any time to think about anything else. We made movies. I went to school. We made movies. I went to school. We afforded our life. And I didn’t — it wasn’t until much, much later. And in the atmosphere around it all has changed.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

SHIELDS: You know, young modes are much more protected now than when they were when I was coming up. You know, the rules are very different now. I think they have gotten better in some ways. There wasn’t social media when I was younger, so I don’t know how I — I don’t think I probably would have survived social media as a young person, because I was also shielded from a lot of the negativity at the time by my mother. But it wasn’t until later that I realized, oh, I could see — most of my movies, you couldn’t make today.

AMANPOUR: Yes. Do you think that — you know, now, we have intimacy coaches and all of these kinds of things designed to protect, you know, children and others on set in what might be uncomfortable or compromising or intimate. And I know you went through a horrendous rape. You talked about it in the — you know, in the documentary. You talk about disassociating and separating, you know, your body from your mind and getting through a lot of this by doing that. I guess, do you feel like you might not have had to go through so much of this external pain had there been an intimacy coach on any of your sets?

SHIELDS: No, because nothing ever happened on a set. I mean, I — and “Pretty Baby” was — I mean, after “Pretty Baby” I had only — I always had body doubles. So, I was even more dissociative from the nudity and all the blue lagoon swimming and all of that is a body double. She was 30 too which — 30 as well.

And so, I didn’t have that kind of discomfort on the set. Where I was too naive was, I was so protected. I was the mascot. I was the kid. And so, when I found myself in such a shocking compromising position I just — I practically blacked out. And it — you know, it’s — there’s still guilt surrounding all of that. So, I don’t think it had anything to do with the way the operations were on set. This was much more a personal life.

AMANPOUR: And actually, you did say in the film that the being on set was your safe space, for many, many reasons. So, let’s fast forward, because we started by talking about, you know, why you want to do this documentary and tell you story for, you know, the future generation and other girls, including your own two girls. And there’s quite a lovely scene at the end where you’re around the dinner table with your husband, Chris, and you are talking to them about, essentially, agency. If they want to post about themselves, no matter how and they feel comfortable, that’s fine. That was  somewhat different to kind of what happened to you, I guess, you’re saying. Here’s the clip, and then we can talk about it.

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SHIELDS: OK. Then, let me ask you about TikTok and let me ask you about Instagram. When I see — OK, by the way —

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How is that different from —

SHIELDS: You’re like 16.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. All right.

SHIELDS: That’s my answer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can’t post myself in a bikini and —

SHIELDS: And she’s posting herself.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I’m posting it myself.

SHIELDS: OK. So, there’s ownership of —

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

SHIELDS: Do you look gorgeous?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

SHIELDS: And you do too. Like — and you should feel that. Is that empowering?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

SHIELDS: OK. You’re creating your own self-confidence.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

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AMANPOUR: So, their own self-confidence. And as you know, you know, there are all these stats today, because the expectations, the beauty standards still are so — you know so heavily burdensome for so many women. The CDC found that teenage girls experienced record levels of violence, sadness and suicide risks right now. Such an expectation for fillers and injections and, you know, operations to make yourself look a certain way.

SHIELDS: I was very interested by that conversation with them because they brought up euphoria and they brought up actresses who are in their late 20s play 19-year-olds. And that was an interesting conversation too. I just don’t — I’m not so sure that they really do realize the risks of having to want to live up to these filters and these faces and wanting to plumper lips at, you know, 17, 16, 15. It’s very dangerous territory in my opinion. And all I can do is keep conversing with them about it.

AMANPOUR: Yes. And through this documentary, conversing with a wider group, I expect. Brooke Shields, thank you so much. An amazing life.

SHIELDS: Thank you. It’s an honor.

AMANPOUR: And as voting for Emmy nominations opens today, that documentary, “Pretty Baby,” is in the running.