Andie MacDowell on Dropping Her Southern Accent and the Movie that Changed Her Life

Andie MacDowell, 65, is an actress best known for her film roles in “Sex, Lies and Videotape” and “Footloose” and the TV miniseries “Maid.” She currently stars in season 2 of Hallmark’s “The Way Home” and in the action-crime film “Red Right Hand.” She spoke with Marc Myers.

I was supposed to be a boy. By the time my parents had me, they had three daughters, so they cut my hair in a pixie and my father took me hunting. My childhood was a struggle for attention.

My mother, Pauline, was an alcoholic and frequently incapacitated. My father, Marion, was often away on business. I loved entertaining my parents and sisters and making them laugh. I wanted to be seen.

As a child, I was conscious of everything around me and was constantly trying to figure out how to survive. My teachers labeled me a daydreamer, but my distractions were motivated by worry, not fantasy. There was enormous uncertainty at home.

We lived in a three-bedroom redbrick ranch in Gaffney, S.C. My oldest sisters, Babs and Julia, were in one bedroom, and Beverly and I were in the other. Gaffney was a rural town of about 8,000 people two hours from Columbia.

My father had gotten his degree in forestry at the University of the South, but instead of working in the woods he loved, he became a lumber broker. He was often at the mill stacking and grading lumber that he then sold on the road.

I was proud of my three older sisters. One was a beauty queen and another was a cheerleader. I was in a parade as a baton twirler, and my parents put me in dance classes. I also performed shows in our garage and danced while watching TV.

When I was 6, my parents told us they were divorcing. They had fought a lot, with screaming and profanity. Back then, people thought alcoholism was a choice rather than an illness. I was desperate for family.

I lived with my father until he remarried two years later. He encouraged me to move back with my mom. To smooth things over, he bought me a horse. I kept Big John at the nearby dairy farm.

I loved my mother, and there were moments between binges where she would see me, but I wasn’t seen much. After she’d had me, she had a nervous breakdown. They said she was schizophrenic, but it was more likely postpartum depression. Doctors had her undergo shock treatment—can you imagine?

Back home, she became an alcoholic. I’d get up every night to put out her cigarettes and make sure the couch wasn’t on fire. When she was sober, my mother was a bright woman who was well-spoken and a big reader. When I was 11, she took me to see a play at nearby Limestone College. That’s when I realized adults played make believe, too.

I started working in the 11th grade at a local McDonald’s. I closed at night, arrived home at midnight and then got up the next day and went to school. I was an OK student.

At Winthrop University, I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and my ADD slowed me down. I wasn’t focused and took time off. I stayed with my sister, Beverly, in Columbia, and worked at a clothing store and as a cocktail waitress.

I also did a little modeling when store owners asked me to. There was a modeling school in the city, so in 1979, I paid them to let me accompany their graduating class to New York.

There, I signed with Elite Models. Having one short name as a model was “in,” so I began calling myself Andie—an abbreviated form of Anderson, my middle name. Then Elite sent me to Paris. When I returned to New York after a year and a half, my agent, Davien Littlefield, encouraged me to take acting classes with Warren Robertson. I appeared in many TV ads.

I landed my first film role in 1983, in “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.” But my strong Southern accent was holding me back, so I studied method acting and worked with dialect coach Sam Chwat.

In 1988, I auditioned for “Sex, Lies and Videotape.” The casting director left the room, so it was just director Steven Soderbergh and me. My heart sank. I thought she was passing, but it turned out Steven liked to audition actors he wanted.

The movie changed my life, and “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” in 1994, was the glue that solidified my career.

Today, I live in a Charleston-style house on the coast of South Carolina. I’ve always dreamed of living among the marshes, live oaks and Spanish moss. The house has big windows and is dressy but casual.

My mom died in 1981, when I was 23. Looking back, I feel sorry for her. She had a sad life and didn’t get the support that’s available now.

At one point, when I was in high school, we worked together at McDonald’s. I had to drive because they took away her license. It was heartbreaking to watch her get fired for drinking. She was so helpless.

Andie’s Dream

“The Way Home” and “Red Right Hand”? The former is a time-travel TV series in which I play the mellow widowed mother. In the latter, a film, I’m Big Cat, a crime boss.

Name? My parents called me Rose, and people still call me Rose. I prefer it to Andie.

Accent? I live down South now, so I’m surrounded by a lot of long O’s. My O’s are going to get longer and longer.

Favorite house spot? A room I’m renovating. It will have windows all the way around.

Dream? I want a horse so I can start riding again. I like riding bareback.