Melanie Griffith: Kris Jenner Is ‘Extraordinary’
Kris Jenner and Melanie Griffith bond at the Yeezy show. (Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)
Oscar-nominated actress Melanie Griffith and reality star Kris Jenner are everywhere these days, whether on vacation or dining at swanky restaurants. They might seem an unlikely pair, but their adventures are not just for show.
“I adore Kris,” Griffith tells Yahoo Celebrity. “We became friends because I work out with the same trainer — Gunnar Peterson — that the girls and Kris [do]. I kept seeing Khloé. She would be there and I would have the appointment right after her every morning. We started talking and became friendly and then she was like, ‘You have to meet my mom. You guys are so similar.’ And so finally, I said let’s do it, and we had dinner and we just hit it off immediately.
"She is an extraordinary woman and not anything like I thought she would be. So smart and so loving. She’s really quite a woman.”
Griffith watched from a choice seat as Jenner’s son-in-law Kanye West presented his latest collection and new album at the big Yeezy Season 3 event on Feb. 11 during New York Fashion Week.
“I thought it was interesting,” she says of the show, which took place at Madison Square Garden. “I thought it was amazing that that many people showed up to see it. I really liked the music. I loved the fur coats. I know I shouldn’t like fur, but oh my God.”
Griffith’s new movie is “Day Out of Days.” (Photo: MarVista Digital Entertainment)
When she’s not palling around with Jenner, Griffith is busy continuing her 40-year career in front of the camera. Her latest project is the movie Day Out of Days, a dramedy written and directed by actress Gena Rowland’s daughter Zoe Cassavetes, about a star just 10 years out from being an up-and-comer who finds herself being cast as a mom. It’s a situation that Griffith understands well.
“I remember when I was 34, I got a Revlon contract,” recalls Griffith, now 58. “I then did Revlon for 10 years, but when I was 34 — which to me is just a baby now — they told me that the product I was gonna represent was age-defying makeup and I just thought, 'Oh, my God! I’m already older now, at 34? I’m on the downslide?’”
Griffith, who happens to be the daughter of actress Tippi Hedren and the mother of actress Dakota Johnson, was immediately interested in the familiar story and the way it incorporated humor.
Related: Melanie Griffith and Goldie Hawn Swap Famous Daughters in Adorable Holiday Pic
“It’s a tough, tough-a** business to work in,” Griffith says. “There’s a lot of rejection and I think if you stay in it and keep working and you have the courage and the stamina, it can be really rewarding, or it can make you just run away from it.”
The Working Girl star says she and her Fifty Shades of Grey daughter speak openly about the issue. [Griffith also has an adult son with ex-husband Steven Bauer and 19-year-old daughter Stella Banderas with former husband Antonio Banderas.]
“We talk about everything. Our family is all very close,” Griffith shares. “[Dakota’s father] Don [Johnson] and I have had the great fortune of being able to blend the families, like his new wife — his new wife, he’s been married for like 18 years [laughs], Kelley [Phleger] — she’s one of my best friends now. And so we all kept it very close.
“Dakota grew up on the set and she’s seen everything. We have a very open relationship, where we all are there for her and we all tell her that she’s full of s*** and that she has to do the dishes. On the other hand, we give her the best advice that we can from some of the experience that we’ve had.“
Divorced stars Griffith and Johnson keep it friendly. (Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
Earlier this month, both Griffith and Johnson were on the red carpet to support Dakota at the premiere of her movie How to Be Single. The former couple famously met when Johnson co-starred in a film with Griffith’s mother in the '70s and were living together by the time Griffith was 15. Their first marriage, in 1976, lasted just six months, but they married again in 1989 and divorced seven years later.
"It’s taken a lot of effort on everybody’s part,” Griffith explains of how she and Johnson have managed to stay on good terms. “But I think that when you really do have a relationship where you truly love each other, like I will always love Don all of my life. I’ve known him since I was 14, and we made a pact that we would keep it good for the kids. And it took a while, it wasn’t like it happened right away.”
Yes, some good things do come with age.
Day Out of Days is available On Demand beginning Feb. 23.
