Gen X icon Ione Skye on why she’s more Liz Taylor than Jennifer Aniston

Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week he talks to Ione Skye. The British-born American actor, director, painter, writer and podcaster, 54, is a Gen X film icon best known for her role in Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything. Her memoir is Say Everything.

Ione Skye: “My father [Scottish musician Donovan] paid child support, but my mum didn’t make a lot of money. So it gave me a lot of confidence and pride when I started making my own.”Credit: Louie Douvis

BODIES

You started acting at a young age. How much of the attention on your looks was flattering and how much was annoying? I was very photogenic, which was helpful, but there was so much worry about weight. One time, I did a job in Rome and in Tunisia and was told, “Lose 10 pounds in Italy.” Are you kidding me? But I did, then gained it back in two days. I didn’t get to eat any amazing Italian food the whole time.

None of this sounds healthy or joyous. I was never – for better or worse – strict enough. I did a movie with Jennifer Aniston before she did Friends. She’d eat a bagel and cut out the inside. That’s someone who’s very ordered. I’m more Elizabeth Taylor-messy, I think, which is kind of fun.

Do you have tattoos? [Counts] I have one … two … how many tattoos? … Three? Technically, four.

What are they and where are they? My first one was done by hand by the same guy who did my mum’s tattoo: your classic moon and star that a young person gets. Then I did a swan on my hip with my ex-sister-in-law. This other tattoo is meant to say “NOW” but it just looks like a blob. Then I had the name “Adam” for my ex-husband [Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys], but I changed that to “Madam”.

Skye with co-star John Cusack in the 1989 hit film Say Anything.Credit: Alamy Stock Photo

MONEY

Your father is the Scottish musician Donovan, your mother is model Enid Karl. As a result, you’ve been described as “the OG nepo baby”. Is that fair? When I say I didn’t get one cent from my parents, it’s kind of true. I mean, my father paid child support, but my mum didn’t make a lot of money. So it gave me a lot of confidence and pride when I started making my own. My father didn’t really open any doors, but there were creative people around me, via my mother. So I saw examples of people in the industry, which was helpful. And having my father’s name was intriguing to someone like [director] Cameron Crowe who was really into music; he cast me in Say Anything.

Acting – and the arts, in general – doesn’t offer any monetary guarantees or safety nets. How did you make it financially work for you? I bought a house with my ex-husband at a time when, historically, it was a good time to do that. You could still get a place in a neighbourhood, fix it up over the years, and now it’s worth much more. And I took a leaf out of my mum’s book, which was to keep marrying people who had enough money to take care of you [laughs]. Also, the older I get, the more I understand this business. And I recently did this movie on the Gold Coast, Anaconda, with Jack Black and Paul Rudd …

Oh, that sounds fun. It comes out at Christmas!

You’ve known rich and famous people all your life. What’s the most extravagant use of money you’ve witnessed? Robert Downey Jr used to love to take you to lunch, then he’d duck outside briefly and return with all these expensive hand creams for himself – so extravagant! Also, the Zappas: I just remember them renting videos … and not returning them.

DEATH

In your memoir, you write about friends and lovers who’ve died, including Matthew Perry. Tell us something about him we mightn’t know. I mean, it’s no surprise, but he was truly funny. He just had a naturally funny cadence and timing. For a straight guy, he was very vulnerable. I didn’t know him when he was doing drugs; I didn’t see anything disturbing.

So what was it like learning that he had died? That was really weird. We didn’t keep in touch, but he texted a few days before he died. So I was in shock and felt like, “Oh, my god, should I have said something?” Once in a blue moon, he’d text and it felt like a booty call. I was married, so I was trying not to lead him on. I’d be like, “Oh, hey, that’s so sweet.” But I also feel like, “What could I have done?” Of course, I wish I’d written more [sighs].

Another friend also died recently – a musician, in a house fire … Oh no, you mean Jill Sobule [the American singer/songwriter who died in a Minneapolis house fire last month]? Yeah. The nice thing is that Ben [Skye’s husband, the musician Ben Lee] made her last album with her [in 2018, called Nostalgia Kills], so I got to spend so much time with her. She was over at the house all the time. It’s weird: there were fires in Los Angeles, of course, and she had health issues, so you’d think her death would be related to one of those events, but no.

Instead, this was something so random. Yeah, it was just like, “What the f---?”

If – god forbid – you were to die today, what would you be most proud of? I’d be proud of my parenting [laughs]. I mean, my kids would push me on that, but I feel as if I gave them more of myself than I’ve given any person.

Is there any unfinished business? I guess I’d like to see my father more. And there are the obvious ones: travelling more, painting more. A lot of people have writing a book on their bucket list. It wasn’t on my list necessarily, but I feel pretty good about having done it.

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