Jennifer Love Hewitt

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Liz (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Garfield. (Photo: © Twentieth Century Fox)

Jennifer Love Hewitt stars as Dr. Liz Wilson in Garfield: The Movie. One of Hewitt's biggest roles was as Sarah Reeves in the TV series Party of Five. After that, she went on to star in the teen flick Can't Hardly Wait and in the I Know What You Did Last Summer horror movies. The actress is also a singer and songwriter, and has released several albums. Scholastic News recently interviewed Hewitt. Read what she had to say about the new movie, Garfield.

Also, check out interviews with Breckin Meyer (Jon Arbuckle) and Jim Davis (Garfield's creator).

SN: How was it working with animals?
Hewitt: It was good. These dogs are amazing. I mean, Garfield wasn't there so I can't say that much. He looks amazing in the movie, and the animators did such a good, job with him I can't even believe it. But, the dog-show sequence with all the dogs? Unbelievable. It's very hard to be outshone by a Shar-Pei, let me just tell you. I'm like, OK, the Dobermans have like a brilliant close-up. The Shar-Pei is hilarious!

SN: Are you a fan of the Garfield comic strip?
Hewitt: Yeah, but I was a fan of the cartoon, in school, on Saturday mornings with my friends and stuff.

SN: What's your next film?
Hewitt: I just wrapped a movie outside of London called The Truth About Love, which is a romantic comedy, kind of like Four Weddings and a Funeral meets Bridget Jones's Diary. I play an English girl. Then I'm going to Budapest to do the NBC miniseries Musical Christmas Carol, with Kelsey Grammer and Jason Alexander and Jane Krakowski. I'm playing Emily, Ebenezer's first love.

SN: Will you sing in A Christmas Carol?
Hewitt: Oh, yeah, which I'll be excited about.

SN: Do you have any dogs or cats?
Hewitt: I used to have an orange cat. His name was Chester. I don't have him anymore and it's sad. But I have a dog now named Mia, and she's a Chihuahua. She's regular sized, though, but she's 13 pounds. She's from the Garfield school of needing to eat a lot and loving food. And she can do the little dance that Odie does when he needs food. That's right, trained by moi. So, Odie is kind of special, but not that special.

SN: Did you know about your character before?
Hewitt: I'm going to be honest, I didn't know, because I watched the cartoon and she isn't in the cartoon. So I didn't know that there was Liz the vet. I found out there's this whole group of Australian people who love Liz the vet.

SN: Who would you love to sing a duet with?
Hewitt: Gosh. Wow. Probably, I would love to do something with Usher I think that would be really, really cool.

SN: I'm sure he'd love it, too.
Hewitt: We're not talking about it. Justin Timberlake would be really cool, that would be so fun. I mean, I would love, love to get to sing a song with Bonnie Raitt. I think that would be really interesting.

SN: What do you watch on TV?
Hewitt: I'm so sad that Friends is over.

SN: American Idol?
Hewitt: Yes. Fantasia? So excited about that. I like to watch the VH1 music shows like Behind the Music and those kinds of things.

SN: Are you into politics?
Hewitt: You know what? I am so not political it's scary. No, politics is something that I am fascinated with. Some point in the next year or so, I would love to sit down and just [have someone] explain to me and really get it. I'm just not very educated on it, and so I don't even begin to talk about it with people because I just look stupid. So I don't even go into it. I would like to get more into it, and feel like I could, you know, because people sit down and they have all these great political conversations. And I have no idea what people are talking about and why. I'm like, can we talk about American Idol now?

SN: What are you really good at, and what are you hopeless at?
Hewitt: I'm really trying to get good at cooking. Right now I'm pretty hopeless, but I 'm really trying. I am hopeless at anything electronic, and I am really, really good at running errands. I'm very good at going to the cleaners. I love going to the cleaners more than anything in the world. I love it. I'm a great house cleaner. Seriously. I am so good at cleaning. It's unbelievable. I'm a neat freak and I just love it.

SN: What stresses you out?
Hewitt: Carrots. Carrots and bugs. I just cannot do it. They just make me ill. I always hated them. Any kind of carrot.

SN: What's your favorite cartoon character show?
Hewitt: Sponge Bob Square Pants. I'm obsessed. I just got the Sponge Bob Square Pants director's chair. I'm so excited, and I sit in it all the time and I sing the song and I just love it.

SN: What's the most significant life choice you've ever made?
Hewitt: I don't know, probably saying to my mom, let's go to California for a month when I was 10. And it was the start, hopefully, of a career, but it was before any career was possible. That decision process was probably the beginning, obviously the biggest thing.

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