Amy Irving Answers Every Question We Have About Crossing Delancey

One year after Dirty Dancing and a decade before Sex and the City, there was another chic, self-sabotaging, corkscrew-haired Jewess looking for love in all the wrong places in New York: Crossing Delancey’s Isabelle Grossman. Played with chutzpah and cynicism by Amy Irving — then known for Carrie and an Academy Award–nominated turn in Yentl and, at the time of the movie’s 1988 release, being married to Steven Spielberg — Izzy is a true ’80s Manhattan girl, as outlined in the trailer, which describes her thusly: “She has a wonderful, wonderful job” (she hobnobs with writers as the manager of an uptown bookstore), “sometimes she steams” (in a sauna), “sometimes she jogs, but mostly, she’s single.”

Despite that honorific, Izzy is, quite refreshingly for the time period, not on the prowl for a husband; she occasionally sleeps with a married friend and is attempting to seduce a douchey novelist at work (Jeroen Krabbé) but is otherwise occupied with her friends and career and unreal fits. But then her beloved bubby (Reizl Bozyk) suddenly disrupts Izzy’s blissful life of steaming and jogging and casual sex, setting her up with a marriage broker (Sylvia Miles) who insists she’s the perfect match for Sam (Peter Riegert), a pickle merchant on the Lower East Side whom Izzy can’t imagine dating (the pickle smell!) but also can’t get out of her head.

Crossing Delancey wears itself lightly, but it tends to run heavy, asking questions about Jewish culture and tradition versus modernity and love and attraction and how to get the smell of pickles off of one’s hands at the end of the day (vanilla and milk). Much of that can be attributed to its script, adapted by playwright Susan Sandler from her play of the same name, and its assured direction by the late Joan Micklin Silver, the mind behind Hester Street and Chilly Scenes of Winter. Despite her previous successes, Silver had trouble getting the film off the ground at first, due in part to its explicit Judaism and the fact of its star, director, and writer all being women. Made on a $4 million budget, it eventually grossed $16 million, and though it didn’t quite hit with male critics (the Washington Post’s Hal Hinson wrote that “the filmmaker’s heart is in the right place”), it was better understood by the few female critics writing at the time, like the L.A. Times’ Sheila Benson, who compared it to the previous year’s hit Moonstruck, calling it “a love poem to all New York.” It’s since been embraced as something of a New York rom-com classic, a status that will be cemented by its addition to the Criterion Collection on February 18.

Ahead of that, as well as of the upcoming release of her album of Willie Nelson covers called Always Will Be, I spoke to Amy Irving about her memories of filming Crossing Delancey — the Lower East Side of it all, the costumes, bonding with her onscreen bubby, whether or not it was true that Spielberg stepped in to help finance the film, and why she left Los Angeles for New York after their divorce. Irving, 71 and self-possessed, called me from her Westchester home, where she spends half of her time (the other half in New York City, of course) with her husband, director Ken Bowser, and their two gigantic elderly dogs Jules and Charlie.

Tell me a little bit about what you remember, about where you were in your life and in your career, when this movie came your way.
I was in Jerez, Spain. I was being a location wife to Steven Spielberg on Empire of the Sun. Our son Max Spielberg was about a year and a half then. It was just not my favorite job in the world to be a location wife, I have to say. I was having a career myself at that moment, and being together as a family was really, really important to us. But at the same time, we were so isolated that … Steven was very uncomfortable about the violence that happens in Jerez, Spain. So he didn’t like me and Max to leave the property when he was shooting. And I couldn’t bring Max to the set because he was a year and a half and he doesn’t understand “quiet on the set.” We could go visit at lunch hour or whatever. Anyway, I’m sitting there thinking, twiddling my thumbs. I think we hired a tennis pro, so I learned how to play tennis really well, but it was a difficult time.

Then all of a sudden, I get this message from Joan Micklin Silver that she’s traveling around Europe with her husband Ray, and she’d like to stop off in Jerez because she wants to talk to me about a project. It was just kind of pennies from heaven. It was just what I needed at that moment. And she showed up, and my mother and my stepfather were visiting at the time, and we all sat around with Joan and she handed me this amazing script.

What do you remember about the script that stood out?
We all fell in love with it. It’s a beautifully written play. I’m from the theater, my mother’s from the theater, my stepfather’s from the theater. We all really got that this had started as a play, so that piqued our interest even more, that Susan Sandler wrote it. It just had great characters. My character was going to be so much fun to dig my teeth into. It was going to be in New York City, which is just — to shoot on the streets of New York City, that’s something, I had never done it before, and that’s my town.

Did you know Joan’s work?
I loved Joan’s work before. Chilly Scenes of Winter, Hester Street. I really loved her sensibilities and her focus on character as opposed to events. And I loved how she cast, so I knew that there would be a really interesting group of people to work with. Peter Riegert was already cast at the time, and I thought he was perfect for the pickle man, of course. By that time, I had done Yentl, so I had had an Academy Award nomination, and during that year, I became pregnant with Max. So my career was kind of — I wasn’t pushing, I was just kind of being careful about leaving and focusing on my beautiful son. The timing was right. It was like, Okay, Steven had had his turn doing Empire of the Sun, now it’s my turn to go to work. 

Joan saw you at a movie screening scarfing down popcorn, and that’s when she decided that she wanted to cast you as Izzy. Do you have any memory of that? What do you think struck her about you?
I always loved that she said “scarfing,” as someone with deep food shame. Great. I love it. And she continued to say that all through our promotion. This image of me feeding my fat face. Anyway, yeah, she had been looking for a long time for her Izzy. She knew her pickle man, Sam, but she didn’t know who her Izzy was going to be. I was with girlfriends in the Upper West Side, where I lived. I didn’t have makeup on.  I was probably high. [Laughs.] So I was just very relaxed. And yes, I was scarfing down popcorn, and she got in touch. When she met me in Spain, she told me that that’s what clinched it for her. I think she previously thought that I was maybe precious or because I was, at the time, a little bit of a princess of Hollywood — being married to the prince — she just didn’t know that I was just a regular down-to-earth gal.

You think your image was such that you were kind of untouchable?
I think there was a good thing about being married to Steven and a bad thing about being married to Steven. The good thing about being married to Steven was that I was married to Steven. We had a family. We had love. The bad thing was people got very awkward with me, whether we were divorced or married. It’s like, “Do I want Steven Spielberg’s camp in my backyard when I’m shooting this movie?” I think it became harder for me to get work, both married to him and not married to him. I was just grateful when Joan just pushed through all the bullshit and just wanted who she wanted.

She saw you outside of that paradigm.
Yeah. I mean, I think Los Angeles, the movie industry, feeds on a lot of fear. I remember once I wanted a job, it was a little PBS movie. Noel Black, who did Pretty Poison, a really interesting director, was going to do this Sherwood Anderson short story, “I’m a Fool.” It was going to be me and Ron Howard acting in this very sweet period piece. We’re in a rowboat with parasols, all that. I went to meet Noel Black having just finished shooting the last scene of Carrie, in which I’m in my mother’s arms screaming my head off. My real mother, by the way. And so I’m screaming, take after take after take. When I arrived that evening for this meeting, I have no voice. I can’t speak anymore. But I was so confident. I didn’t feel like a fraud. I felt like I was the real thing. I went into this office and I had so much confidence, and I literally just talked Noel Black into giving me a part. In a whisper, rather than having to read for the role.

I think that was very indicative of the way hiring and all works in Hollywood. If you come in and you’re scared, they’re going to think, Oh, you don’t know what you’re doing. You need to exude confidence to get past other people’s fears. But I had a hard time later, and Joan was a real savior for me. She kind of gave me hope that I could still work in the business.

It’s really interesting, though, because some of the sort of lore of the movie is Joan talking about how she was having trouble getting financing, and Steven was able to get financing from Warner Bros., right?
Joan remembers it a little differently. What happened was, obviously Steven read the script with me. And Steve Ross, who was the head of Warner Bros., was like Steven’s surrogate father — his other father. We vacationed with Steve. So, I mean, it was a no-brainer to give him the script because we knew he’d love it. And he loved it, so that’s how the financing came out.

But it was funny, because Warner Bros. had never made a low-budget film like this. This movie cost $5 million to make, and the press alone cost more than that to promote it. They were kind of awkward with it at first. I don’t know if they really gave it the full push they could have. They were all very nervous about putting a Jewish movie out there. Joan did feel very confident after Moonstruck came out. It was a very Italian movie.

I read somewhere that the studio was initially like, “Well, why don’t we make them Italian?” That they were very uncomfortable with the Jewishness of it. There were obviously rom-coms about Jewish people — Nora Ephron movies, movies infused with a Jewish sensibility — but this is one of the only super, super Jewish romantic comedies where it’s two people and it’s specifically about being Jewish.
And there’s a bris.

Yeah, exactly. What do you remember about the pushback on that — on the Jewishness?
That was not while I was involved. I think once I became involved, everyone kind of shut up a little bit. I think I had enough cachet at that moment to help get it going. Or I guess knowing Steve Ross helped a lot. But because I wasn’t brought up in the Jewish faith, it wasn’t something that meant so much to me one way or another.

Your father was Jewish, right? But you were brought up —
Christian Science. I went to Christian Science Sunday school. I learned all about Mary Baker Eddy and Science and Health. And because of the power of positive thinking, I’m like the opposite of a hypochondriac. That’s what I got from it.

So when you were put into this Jewish Lower East Side film, did it feel foreign to you?
It was a world I learned a lot about while doing that movie — the whole world in the Lower East Side. Well, the Lower East Side was a hangout of mine for a while, but it was more about the Fillmore East. I don’t think I got on the other side of Delancey Street. It’s interesting — Izzy was not religious, and she was trying to get out of that culture, but she was also drawn to the culture because she had her great love for her bubby. Susan Sandler talks about how the love of her bubby was her main love.  I think about going down there and meeting Reizl Bozyk, who kind of became my bubby too. The most delicious, delicious grandma you could have.

The whole matchmaker thing — I didn’t really know that that existed. It was kind of bizarre, but it was bizarre to Izzy, too. So it was like, I could use all that. And her resistance to Sam was not just being a pickle man, and it wasn’t about being Jewish. It was more that she felt herself in this literary world, because she ran this bookstore, and she was involved in bringing artists in and exposing people. I think she just felt like that’s where she belonged. When she became attracted to the asshole writer Anton, it was more like she thought that was her lane. So she resists the whole matchmaking and the pickle man and everything. But then she gets off her high horse and feels something in her heart and learns a different value — being able to actually look at the person and say, “Oh, this is a good person and this is someone I could lose my heart to.”

Can you tell me a little bit more about Reizl becoming your bubby in real life?
Joan asked me to help audition Reizl, because Reizl was so nervous, and she’d never been in front of a camera before. She’d never acted in English before. She had escaped Poland during the war and ended up in Argentina. And she and her husband had been the Burns and Allen of Poland and ended up in New York City doing a lot of theater with the Yiddish Theatre Company. So here she was doing her first movie. Because I am a caretaker, when someone is that frightened — and she was shaking so badly — it’s my instinct to just kind of envelop the person and take care of them. I ended up falling in love with her in that situation. We had intimate moments. Plucking her chin hairs. It’s funny, my mother’s a hundred years old now, and I’m her primary person in her life. It’s my job — I do the chin. Makes me think of Bubby all the time.

That’s very sweet. I have to back up to Yentl for a moment, one of my favorite movies. Before that, you were in Carrie, which is this very, for better or worse, Christian film. And then there’s Yentl, maybe the most Jewish film of all time. What was that like for you? Are there any Barbra Streisand stories that pop to the top of your head?
Oh, I got a few. Let’s see. I remember she had such an amazing clarity about what she wanted to do with this film. I’ve never worked on a set with anyone as involved with every single aspect. At one point, I walked into the room and there was a bowl of peaches. She put me next to the peaches and she went to the makeup artist, “I want her lips to match that peach.” I mean, literally down to that. It was every little aspect. I kind of felt like I was her little doll and she could dress me and take care of me. It was fun. When we had the bed scene — the marriage-night scene when we had to kiss — she was so silly, girly about having to kiss me. She just couldn’t do it in rehearsals. She just would get the giggles. Then finally when we shot the scene, I kissed her. She pulled back after they said, “Cut.” Then she goes, “It’s not so bad. It’s like kissing an arm.” I’ve never been so insulted about my kissing in my life!

That was a pretty good Barbra you just did.
We spent a lot of time together.

Do you stay in touch at all?
I’ve gone to see some of her shows and gone backstage, but we don’t stay in touch. No.

Then you worked with Joan. When you got the script, did you find it unusual that it was not only written and intended to be directed by a woman, but that it was about a woman whose central concern was not love?
I had worked with a woman director before. I’ve actually worked with a lot of women directors now. But at that time, the sensibility on the set — the writer, the star, the director, a lot of the advisers around. There were a lot of women. There’s a comfort zone — like, you have to take your clothes off in something and there’s somebody to say, “What angle would be better?” “Can you see my nipple in this shot?” There’s a way you can communicate, whereas if it’s all men around you, you don’t have anyone to talk to.

What was Joan like as a director? What was her energy, and how was she different from, say, Barbra?
Joan has a kind of professorial attitude. She’s an intellectual, and she’s not necessarily a passionate person. She cares and she’s smart, but she talks very sedately. She had a serious clarity about the story she was telling. She liked to let actors find their way, and then she would find little tricks to get them to go her way.

The performance of Peter Riegert is kind of brilliant. When I was actually on the set with him, he was playing Sam as not trying hard. It was kind of more like, “Come to me.” And for me personally, I was used to a little bit more energy coming from a man attracted to me. And when it wasn’t there, part of me felt there was something wrong. At one point, Joan and I discussed it and I said, “Sometimes I just feel like it’s too subtle.” There was a scene where Joan wanted a little bit of a reaction, and there was not a lot coming. She asked me to take my top off behind the camera, and he raised his eyebrow a little bit. So I always took credit for that eyebrow lift.

But when I saw the movie, I wanted them together so badly because of what he did. Because he didn’t try hard. Because there’s this guy who you think is not her equal, but is definitely her equal. He makes her come to him, just as Peter made me come to him. It worked.

There is a central question in the film about chemistry. Izzy has this sort of immediate sexual spark with Anton, but it’s a slower burn with Sam. Izzy at one point says, “Two people need heat.” Do you think that’s true?
There’s that old thing, when best friends fall in love. It’s getting to know someone first, not in a romantic situation. You almost get to know them better. Because if you immediately are in a romance, then you have certain glasses that you look through as opposed to when you’re not in a romance. I think there’s probably validity in not jumping into things like that. Slow burn … it’s a good way to approach it.

What do you think happens at the end, after the freeze-frame? What do they go on to do?
I’ve changed my mind about this. I have to say I never thought they’d make it. I never thought they’d make it because of what I was saying — of not feeling that heat on the set. But then when I saw the film, I can see the chemistry and I can see that they have something. So I imagine they had a shot. It’s funny, Peter and I have thought of sequels where we break up, where we marry other people and we have children. I have a boy, he has a girl, whatever. And later on we come back together because our children fall in love.

I think you should do it. There’s an appetite for it. What do you remember at the time about the critical reception and the box office? What was your feeling about how it was received then?
I never read a review, so I don’t know. I don’t ever pay attention to how much box office it makes. So I just know that I get a lot of attention for it now. When a fan comes up, it’s usually about Crossing Delancey. It was about Carrie for a while, and then with Crossing Delancey, every woman wants to tell me about finding her pickle man. And every pickle man wants to talk about how in love with me was. [Laughs.] I mean, I can tell that it hit home with a lot of people, and I’m pleased about that.

It’s been sort of a slow burn itself, the way it’s been canonized, and for example, just now getting a Criterion release. Have you felt a shift over time?
I feel like Peter and I are invited to more places together. We present the film. We get flown out; TCM had a big event. It’s really fun to watch with an audience, because I’d never seen it with an audience. I saw it by myself. People laugh like crazy. They’re moved. It’s very satisfying. It is almost like it’s having another life. Because it still works. Some films, they’re dated, and this one is not.

Speaking of not being dated, the outfits are incredible. The styling, the hat, the hair — all of it is so specific but is still so chic. How involved were you in that?
I find that as soon as I know I’m doing a role, when I go shopping, I start to dress like the role. I really want to feel at home in the clothing. So pretty much all the clothes are out of my closet.

Really? I’m so impressed.
Thank you. Yes. I pretty much dressed myself. I mean, I had guidance, of course.

What was your guiding principle with those outfits?
I’m not a fashionista in any way, shape, or form. I don’t care about fashion. So I think I just kind of instinctively, as Izzy, put clothes on my body. If my house hadn’t burned down in 2009, I’d have them all. One jacket — a blue and white jacket that I still wear — it survived. But everything else went in the fire. I wish I could give you some.

Oh, no. I’m so sorry.
This house actually I’m in now, it burned to the ground. I had costumes from every show I’d ever done. But yes, we lost them all. My two sons, Max and Gabe, were pretty upset for me. But I said, “I don’t have to do spring cleaning.” Nobody got hurt. That’s important.

How did playing this role or making this film change you at all? Did it change the way you related to men, to relationships, to Judaism, to New York?
Making movies is a lot of sitting around and waiting and working yourself up to do this one scene again. That kind of screeching up from zero is sometimes very hard. So I loved working in a lower-budget film like this, where you had to keep moving. I loved being the lead because I was in every scene, just about, so I didn’t have to sit around. I’m a theater actor, so I’m used to getting on the stage and doing the whole thing to the end of the thing. It’s a way I feel comfortable working. And that was the closest to that feeling that I’d ever had. I was not offered a lot of big pictures, but still, it was the independent, smaller-budgeted films I felt more comfortable in.

How did you feel like it changed your life or changed the trajectory of your career?
Well, you’d think it would’ve changed it in a pretty nice way. It was a really awkward time for people dealing with me. Because right after the film came out, Steven and I were divorced. And if you think they were awkward with me when we were married, they would literally walk across the street to avoid talking to me.

Why?
“What if Steven thinks I’m in Amy’s camp?” They didn’t realize Steven and I had parted as friends. But they just assume or whatever. I actually had to leave Los Angeles. That’s when I moved to New York.

You left because it was so awkward in L.A.?
I left because it was awkward and I thought, Well, if I can’t work in film, I’ll get back to my true love, which is theater. Which is what I did. I went back to New York to do theater. I assumed that film wasn’t going to be my medium.

Do you feel like that was the right choice, leaving L.A.?
Well, I really was never in love with living in Los Angeles. It’s a one-note town, and I was a San Francisco girl first. I moved to New York when I was 11, and then New York was home. I did my time in L.A. That’s how I feel about it. But I love living in New York. I just think it’s real life. I don’t have plastic surgery all over; when you’re out there in L.A., they all do that. They all just suddenly get worried about wrinkles, and I’m kind of embracing mine. I’m old enough to be able to not have to look young anymore, which is freeing. They’re not going to start a film on my ass in a bikini. Like in The Fury, when Brian De Palma told me that was our first shot. I was like, Oh, my God. That’s horrifying. I went on one of those fad diets. I think in those days it was — they used to shoot pregnant women’s urine into your thigh to break down the fat.

What?!
Swear to God, there were so many ridiculous fad diets.

They would shoot pregnant women’s urine into your thigh? What is the science there?
I think it broke down the fat, and then they put you on this specific diet that would rinse the fat through.

Did it work?
Well, did you see my ass in The Fury?