Beauty and a beastly role 

WE SPEND TIME WITH MICHELLE PFEIFFER TO TALK ABOUT HER LATEST ROLE IN BRIT FLICK STARDUST, AS SHE CHATS ABOUT PLAYING A WITCH, WORKING WITH SIENNA MILLER AND HER OWN LOVE OF FAIRYTALES.

With her flawless complexion, sparkling blue eyes and lithe figure it's difficult to believe that actress Michelle Pfeiffer turns 50 next year.

Somewhere along the way she seems to have discovered the secret of eternal youth. But far from being smug about her radiant looks, the down-to-earth actress says she's "horrified" at the current obsession with anti-ageing.

"It never fails to amaze me the lengths some women will go in order to retain their youth," she says. "And yet, there is a great myth that beautiful people lead beautiful lives. We all get hurt and damaged."

Fed up with Hollywood's preoccupation with image, the talented actress took a five-year break from making movies and concentrated instead on her favourite role - being mum to daughter Claudia Rose, 14, and son John Henry, 12, by her producer-writer husband David E Kelley.

"I didn't want to go back to work unless it was something really interesting," she says of her extended hiatus from the big screen. "I was enjoying being involved with the kids. There was a time I was just so busy with work.”

The popular actress seems to have found that very challenge with her newest movie, Stardust, playing a deliciously wicked witch.

"I thought if I don't do this I'm  going to regret it and I certainly didn't want anybody else doing  this part," she says gleefully.

Directed by Layer Cake's Matthew Vaughan and with a screenplay co-written by Jonathan Ross's wife Jane Goldman, the film boasts a stellar cast including Robert de Niro, Clare Danes, Ricky Gervais and Peter O'Toole.

It tells the enchanting tale of a beautiful fallen star (Danes) who

crashes into the mythical kingdom of Stormhold where she finds love with

young Tristan (Charlie Cox) and danger in the form of wicked witch

Lamia, (Pfeiffer) hell-bent on stealing her youth and beauty.

Regularly voted one of the world's most beautiful women Michelle had to age 5,000 years in the film with the help of heavy prosthetics. The petite actress admits she was so alarmed by the final look she burst into tears.

"I went into the bathroom and cried," she explains. "It had taken six hours to apply the make up and it never occurred to me what that would feel like and the claustrophobia that would set in. My entire face and head and neck were encased in rubber and the only things left of me was the tip of my nose and my eyelashes. I panicked and thought 'how do I get out of this?'

Despite her hair-raising ordeals the actress says she's loving every minute of her return to the big screen.

"I did one movie before this so it was getting my feet wet again and finding my way," she explains. "And I really did feel that, as hard as Stardust was and how challenging, by the end of it I felt like all systems were firing and I remembered just what I loved about the work and how much it gives me pleasure."

Michelle, who also recently starred in the summer hit Hairspray, says she relishes the chance of finally showing her kids exactly what she does for a living.

"Up until now they haven't really seen anything I've done," she laughs. "They have been separated from the work, so I loved the fact I have two films that I could share with them and they could be a part of it."

It looks as if the three times Oscar-nominated actress is back for good now. She's been inundated with new movie offers and her reputation as one of the industry's finest leading ladies has been set in stone - literally - as she's just been awarded her very own Hollywood Star on LA's prestigious Walk of Fame.

"I was completely taken aback by the enormity of the event," she says, self-deprecatingly. "I never thought when I first arrived in Hollywood that I'd be there. I hoped, but I didn't think it would happen so it was a very big honour to be included in such an old Hollywood tradition."