Ever since Ashley Judd first came to the public’s attention as the fiercely independent Ruby Lee Gissing in Ruby in Paradise and as Val Kilmer’s loyal gun moll in Heat, her star has only risen. The nonsinging member of the family that includes country chanteuses Naomi and Wynonna, Judd has become one of the go-to actresses for action roles, displaying a tough vulnerability in films like Kiss the Girls and this year’s Twisted, while demonstrating a lighter touch in more romantic fare, such as Someone Like You and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Two years ago, she set the screen ablaze when she danced a sinuous tango with Salma Hayek in Frida.

But for the past year, it has been a particular type of part that has occupied Judd’s time: that of the straight woman married to a gay man. She recently concluded a lengthy run on Broadway as the frustrated Maggie the Cat in a revival of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Now, in Irwin Winkler’s De-Lovely, she plays Linda Lee Porter, songwriter Cole Porter’s wife of 35 years. This musical biopic, which co-stars Kevin Kline as Porter, portrays a stormy marriage roiled by Cole’s many infidelities; but it also pictures a devoted couple, with Linda acting as her husband’s best friend and muse.

It was De-Lovely that recently brought Judd to San Francisco’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel. With her legs tucked beneath her, her cocker spaniels Shug and Buttermilk on her lap, and a pot of gunpowder green tea beside her, her poise mirrored that of her character as she sat down to talk to "On Q" about the Porters and her new role in adding to their legend.

Q: How did you put yourself in the shoes of this woman who desperately loves a man she can never have completely because of his sexual orientation?

Ashley Judd: Well, I think understanding that is contingent upon knowing that Linda was seriously abused during her first marriage and was actually basically tortured. My understanding is that it just became a relief to have a sustaining and nurturing, really important intimate relationship with someone who didn’t love her for sex.

Q: What about Linda’s own sexuality?

AJ: In some of the biographies are allusions to rumors that Linda herself was gay—on occasion. But, interestingly enough, all of those comments were by people who didn’t like her.

Q: There is one line in the movie that seems to imply that she might be gay.

AJ: I think it’s an excellent double entendre, because the fact of the matter is that we’re talking about people who are deceased. Even if they were living, they would never tell, because that wasn’t their style. So the line, "Let’s just say you like [men] more than I do," covers all the bases. Personally, my take is that sex [for her] was just a bad place with a lot of bad memories, but if we all get to Cole Porter heaven someday and find out that Linda was gay, we were accurate there, too.

Q: Do you think she would be happy with this film, given how much she tried to cover up Cole’s homosexuality?

AJ: Linda was ahead of her time and I think she would be happy with the film, because it is a terrific celebration of Cole Porter’s genius. In terms of the personal side of their story, I think it’s abundantly clear how much they loved each other. You know, he never finished a song without her approval. It didn’t matter whom he was collaborating with or who was singing it; until he ran it by Linda and she said it was up to snuff, it wasn’t finished. And as she predicted, after they amputated his leg, he never wrote again—this from a man who wrote 800 songs, one in the time it took to ride from the ground floor to his apartment in the elevator. They had a really special relationship.

Q: How familiar were you with the Cole Porter story before you started this?

AJ: Not at all. I think I had an image of him in a top hat and tails.

Q: Have you watched the highly bowdlerized Cary Grant version of their story, Night and Day?

AJ: No, just like I don’t read the tabloid bullshit about my own family. That’s propaganda. That movie was propaganda, just like so much of the stuff about us is mythology.

Q: Speaking of tabloids, what did you learn about celebrity, even before you were a celebrity, just from your mother and sister?

AJ: That it has absolutely no value whatsoever. I think that the one thing that was valuable that I learned was money doesn’t buy you happiness. I don’t consider myself a celebrity. I’m an actor, period. All that other stuff is for the birds, and I think our country is absolutely sick with this putrid fascination and invasion of privacy. It’s so vile. And I don’t look at it and I never will—except to sue [laughs], when I can.

Q: Your mother and sister are famous for their singing, and now you’ve taken a role in which you are required to sing. Did you have any trepidation about that aspect of the role, because of your family?

AJ: Well, if I worried about being judged, I wouldn’t be an actor. I didn’t consider it a singing role; I thought it was a role that had a very modest piece of singing that was not a performance type thing. It was very simple and domestic. I have a healthy enough ego to think I have a very good voice, but on the day, I was very apprehensive and fairly miserable, actually. I didn’t really enjoy it and was not as prepared as I should have been.

Q: Why were you miserable?

AJ: I just don’t have any confidence. Ego does not equal confidence—I discovered that! [laughs]

Q: Did you get any advice from your sister or your mother?

AJ: I did not, and I should have. [laughs] I thought I would have time in London with the music supervisor, but I didn’t. He had his hands more than full. He was scoring and arranging the songs. He was conducting and dealing with all the performers who came in and out throughout the entire shooting schedule. Kevin, on a daily basis, was, you know, killing him with his neurosis about something or another.

Q: Are you happy with that part of your performance?

AJ: Well, [arranger] Stephen [Endelman] thinks it’s great. He thinks it’s so wonderful. I know...I could’ve done better, but it is what it is.

Q: All the double meanings in the music are used to such great effect in the storytelling. That unconventional structure, as Cole watches his life unfold like one of his own musicals, complete with Cole Porter score—was that written into the original script?

AJ: Cole gave us that, that was inherent in the wit and the intelligence and the naughtiness of his lyrics. He was always trying to put one over on people.

Q: Has this movie put you on a Cole Porter kick?

AJ: I love Cole Porter. I love that music so much. I would love to get Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook, because I have her doing Johnny Mercer and the Gershwins. I’m crazy about him.