A Miscellany of Michelle Pfeiffer Quiz

Answer: Grease 2

Although the original "Grease" was a smash-hit, the sequel bombed. Pfeiffer received positive reviews for her role as leader of the Pink Ladies, Stephanie Zinone, with "The New York Times" stating that her performance was the "one improvement" on the original film.

Despite this, her association with the film made it difficult for her to get work. For example, director Brian De Palma initially refused to let her audition for "Scarface", only backing down after the film's producer insisted. She would later garner acclaim for her role as Elvira in that film. Regarding her feelings on "Grease 2", Pfeiffer has stated that she, "hated that film with a vengeance and could not believe how bad it was."

Answer: Breatharianism

Pfeiffer stated that she would spend a great deal of time with a couple who helped her give up smoking, drinking, and drugs, but who were also very controlling and demanded a great deal of money from her. They promoted vegetarianism but also taught that through training and meditation it was possible for a person to develop to the point where they could live on air and sunlight only, not requiring either food or water. (Needless to say, Breatharianism is about as ridiculous as it sounds.) She explains that eventually she was "saved" from this couple when she started dating actor Peter Horton, whom she later married. Horton was working on a film about the Unification Church founded by Sun Myung Moon, whose followers are popularly known as "Moonies".

She stated that through research "on this cult" she realized, "I was in one."

Answer: John Malkovich

In the 1988 film, "Dangerous Liaisons", Michelle Pfeiffer played a French aristocrat, Madame Marie de Tourvel, who is seduced by the cynical Vicomte Sébastien de Valmont, played by John Malkovich. In the film, Malkovich's character inadvertently falls in love with Pfeiffer's character, but the affair ends badly, with Tourvel sickening unto near death and Valmont being killed in a duel. Perhaps in a case of life imitating art, Malkovich actually fell in love with Pfeiffer, despite being married to actress Glenne Headly, while Pfeiffer was married to Peter Horton. Like their onscreen romance, their affair also ended badly (although not quite as badly as for the characters in the film) and Malkovich has stated that he "cried for a year". Unsurprisingly, both Malkovich and Pfeiffer soon divorced their respective spouses and moved on with their lives.

Keanu Reeves and Peter Capaldi also featured in "Dangerous Liaisons", while Sean Connery co-starred with Pfeiffer in "The Russia House". She is not believed to have had affairs with any of these.

Answer: What Lies Beneath

"What Lies Beneath" starred Harrison Ford as Dr. Norman Spencer and Michelle Pfeiffer as his wife Claire. The film is a supernatural murder mystery in which the spirit of Madison, a woman with whom Norman once had an affair, repeatedly attempts to communicate with Claire. The film received mixed reviews from critics, although Roger Ebert described Pfeiffer's performance as "convincing and sympathetic". Pfeiffer was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Actress and won the Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actress - Suspense.

Michelle Pfeiffer appeared in "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987) but did not appear in either "To Die For" or "The Dead Zone".

Answer: White Oleander

In "White Oleander", Alison Lohman stars as the teenage girl Astrid, while Michelle Pfeiffer plays her scheming mother, Ingrid. Upon discovering her lover is cheating on her, Ingrid murders him with a poison derived from the oleander plant and is subsequently sentenced to life in prison. Despite being behind bars, Ingrid still manages to keep manipulating Astrid, who has gone into foster care. Pfeiffer and Lohman both received critical acclaim for their performances. A review in "The New York Times" by Stephen Holden described Pfeiffer's role as the "most complex screen performance of her career... at once irresistible and diabolical". Although in real life the oleander plant is highly toxic, it is so bitter that fatalities are quite rare. I guess that Ingrid was smart enough to figure out a way to use it successfully though.

Michelle Pfeiffer has also appeared in "Murder on the Orient Express", "I Could Never Be Your Woman" and "New Year's Eve."

Answer: Janet van Dyne (the Wasp)

"Ant-Man and the Wasp" is the sequel to "Ant-Man" (2015). The story concerns original Ant-man, Hank Pym's attempt to rescue his wife Janet van Dyne, the original Wasp, from the quantum realm, in which she had become lost 30 years earlier. The mantle of Ant-man has since been assumed by Scott Lang, and that of the Wasp by Janet's daughter, Hope. For flashback sequences in which Janet is shown as a young woman, Pfeiffer was digitally de-aged, as were some of the other characters including Hank Pym, played by Michael Douglas. Janet van Dyne was played by Hayley Lovitt in the first film, who was used as a body double for Pfeiffer in the sequel.

The director, Peyton Reed, stated that Lovitt had been cast in the first film because of her "saucer-like, Michelle Pfeiffer eyes".

He approached Pfeiffer personally to convince her to appear in the sequel. She warned him that she has tried to back out at the last minute of every single movie she has ever done, but fortunately, he succeeded in getting her to play the part. Pfeiffer reprised the role in a cameo in "Avengers: Endgame" in 2019.

Answer: Bernie Madoff

The film focuses on the downfall of Bernie Madoff, who perpetrated what is believed to be the largest financial fraud in US history, and the destructive impact of his crimes on his family. Pfeiffer played Ruth Madoff, wife of Bernie, who was played by Robert de Niro. Pfeiffer actually met with Ruth Madoff, who agreed to help prepare for the role. Pfeiffer was nominated for, but did not win, several awards, including "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie" in the Primetime Emmy Awards. Previously, Pfeiffer famously co-starred with Robert de Niro in "Scarface", which helped launch her to stardom.

Answer: Mother!

Written and directed by Darren Aronofsky, "Mother!" is a bizarre psychological horror film about a young woman known as Mother (Jennifer Lawrence) and her husband Him (Javier Bardem), whose lives are disrupted by a visit by a couple known as Man (Ed Harris) and Woman (Michelle Pfeiffer).

These four characters represent mother nature, God, and Adam and Eve from the Bible, respectively. Although the film received mostly positive reviews from critics (with some notable exceptions: Rex Reed of "The New York Observer" described it as "Worst movie of the century"), it had the dubious distinction of receiving an extremely rare CinemaScore rating of "F" from audiences, with many viewers giving it half-star ratings on the review website "Rotten Tomatoes". Michelle Pfeiffer's performance received praise from critics, with Angelica Jade Bastién, in an otherwise mixed review for "Vulture" stating, "Whenever Michelle Pfeiffer is onscreen, the film becomes electric."

Answer: "Big, Blonde and Beautiful" by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman

"Big, Blonde and Beautiful" by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman is from the 2002 musical film "Hairspray", in which Michelle Pfeiffer appeared as the antagonist Velma Von Tussle. She and John Travolta reprise the song.

"Riptide" by Vance Joy was released as a single in 2013 and contains the lines, "I swear she's destined for the screen / Closest thing to Michelle Pfeiffer that you've ever seen." It charted in many different countries. "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars was released as a single in 2014, and contains the line, "This hit, that ice cold/Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold." It was a major hit and topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 14 weeks. "Lightwork" by Tinie Tempah appears on his 2017 album "Youth," and contains the lines, "I just do it for the kids, tell Michelle Pfeiffer / I'm gettin' paid, me and Mitch left Mekhi Pfeiffer."

In an interview on the "Graham Norton Show," Pfeiffer stated that she found being mentioned in pop songs both flattering and embarrassing, as an example of the latter, mentioning that she might be in an exercise class when "Uptown Funk" starts playing. She also said the loved the song.

Answer: Henry Rose

Her children's names are Claudia Rose, who she adopted with her husband, David E. Kelley, and John Henry Kelley II, who she gave birth to and who is named after his paternal grandfather. She explains on the Henry Rose website that she wanted to create a range of fragrances that were safe and environmentally friendly, as many existing perfumes do not list all the ingredients used, so their safety is unclear.

In conjunction with the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy group whose board of directors she is a member of, she developed a list of ingredients that were confirmed to be safe that were used to develop a range of products that she describes as hypoallergenic, cruelty free, and containing no known carcinogens.

The bottles are made with 90% recycled glass and the packaging is made with recycled cardboard.