When Andie MacDowell was a curious and wide-eyed 8-year-old, a trip to the university theater with her mother planted a seed. The adults on stage were playing make believe, her most favorite game in the world, and she was mesmerized. Add a penchant for prank calls and some improv with unsuspecting barkeeps, and the seed that was planted would later grow into her passion for acting. And Andie is nothing if not passionate.

Over 30 years in the industry and she’s still chomping at the bit to stretch and grow despite how challenging it can be for women to find roles of substance.  As a model, Andie was often held to an impossible standard of perfection, but she knows her success transcends what people see on the surface: “I’ve always known the real reason people would connect with me would not be for the way I looked, but for how I made them feel.”

That is exactly why she feels so rewarded by her most psychologically complex character to date in the film Love After Love. In the role of Suzanne, a codependent matriarch who loses her husband, Andie straddles the line between strength and despair beautifully. “I was starving for this role,” Andie declares. When I asked her why, the conversation got interesting really fast.

Andie joins Off Camera to discuss why her role in Love After Love is her most interesting since Sex, Lies, and Videotape, how to move past gender inequality in Hollywood, why her childhood struggles have made her a better mom, and how to properly cook a steak (in butter, of course!).