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Daryl Hannah
By Heather MurphyPhoto By Jeremy & Claire Weiss
Makeup By Amy Strozzi
Every month or so, Daryl Hannah pulls off the pillows and waters her couch. Over a cocktail of detox droplets and ice tea, just outside of Whole Foods, she explains that her bed is made of “gorgeous” lichen (a mosslike substance), which she rescued from a rock under the foundation of her house.
Over the past few years, Hannah, who originally made a name for herself as a mermaid in Splash and a replicant in Blade Runner, has become an environmental ambassador, redirecting the fame she always claimed to despise into an organic tool for change.
“I’d say the best thing you can do is to live by your beliefs. If you have a light that is shining on you for some reason, if you can take that and shine it on something of more importance, I think that’s valuable,” she says. She looks drained today; she spent the previous week in Ecuador, where she met with the country’s president and indigenous groups to help stop Chevron from contaminating the Amazon. This is one of the many causes she’s juggling these days. She also maintains a video blog and is the producer of a documentary series on “extreme activists.”
Although her environmentalism is often depicted as a quirky side note to her acting career, it has recently become her main focus. In May of 2006, she launched dhlovelife.com with a video of her drinking oil from her biodiesel car. It continued a few weeks later, when she climbed into a walnut tree in the name of protecting South Central Farm in Los Angeles, the nation’s largest urban farm. “It was one of the most beautiful things you have ever seen. Over 500 mature fruit trees—it was the Garden of Eden,” she recalls. For three weeks, she camped out with dozens of other protestors, even spending some nights tied to a platform in the tree’s branches. When the eviction team came, she wouldn’t leave.
By the time she arrived in jail, she was a hero. Organizations bombarded her with requests to join their causes and frequently she agreed. “Last year I really ran myself ragged trying to help as many people as I could support. My natural instinct is to want to help everybody, but you can’t. I learned that from Julia Butterfly Hill,” she says, referring to another environmental activist famous for her beauty— and for living in a Redwood tree for over two years to prevent loggers from cutting it down.
Ironically, as Hannah is telling me this, a skinny woman in a crop-top hovers by and shouts “Daryl!” The woman sidles over and talks about raw foods. Hannah smiles, but there is something in the stiffness of her nod that whispers, “Enough.”
Being an environmental spokesperson means giving up privacy. This is exhausting for Hannah, who is ill at ease in the public eye. “I never did press for the most part because I was incredibly shy, really terrified about having to go in front of anyone and talk about anything. I wanted to be an actor because I wanted to disappear into the role, not because I wanted to be famous or a ce-leb-rit-y,” she says, drawing out the syllables. “I hate that word, it’s a horrible word.”
As much as she may hate it, she knows better than any of us, that without her tabloidpadded Hollywood fairy tale, she would have no environmental fable. Sure, we care that Daryl Hannah became a vegetarian at age 11 and attended “character-building” wilderness camp where she developed a “love and respect for nature.” But that’s only because she spent the next three decades of her life playing sexy otherworldly creatures.
Daryl’s first act followed the typical movie star trajectory: All-American beauty leaves Midwest (Chicago) for Hollywood. She makes her debut in a small role (in 1978’s The Fury), then shines in some bigger ones (a spikyhaired replicant in 1982’s Blade Runner, a loveable mermaid in 1984’s Splash). She dates one of America’s most desirable men (John F. Kennedy Jr.) and becomes a tabloid obsession. She gets uglied up for a role (as a hairdresser in 1989’s Steel Magnolias) and momentarily becomes the critics’ darling. She continues to be cast as freaky semi-humans (Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, 1993 and Northfork, 2003), but the roles she is offered throughout her 30s aren’t what they used to be. It takes a daring director (Quentin Tarantino) to break the mold (casting her as a one-eyed samurai assassin in Kill Bill.) Everyone calls it a “comeback.” She does a few bad TV movies that bring in the bucks, but never bothers to learn their names.
ACT II: Daryl Hannah says, “It’s weird to talk about movies. I can talk forever and ever about the different subjects I cover in my video blog, and all the ones I want to cover and I find all these things fascinating. But movies, they are what they are. I think that is why I am drawn to my second act in life… by next year I pretty much want to transition full time into focusing on that kind of work,” she explains, referring, of course, to activism. She has chosen a new realm to conquer. “I want to reach soccer moms, people watching the Super Bowl, guys who haven’t heard of any of this stuff before.”
Our interview falls on June 14, the one-year anniversary of the farmers’ eviction from South Central Farm. A vigil is being held. We arrive in front of the jarringly vacant lot and join a group of around 100 people, who are dancing and reminiscing. They spot Hannah and she spends a half hour making the rounds, saying “hello” and giving hugs.
A man standing nearby is whispering into his cell phone. “It’ll be okay, she’s right next to me.” In his excitement over Hannah’s presence, he does not notice that she’s deep in conversation. He bursts in, swinging his phone wildly, “Will you talk to my friend?” Without hesitation, a smile forms on her movie star-turned-activist lips. “Sure,” she says and takes the phone.