LOOKING FOR J. LOVE

by Brantley Bardin

Photos by Ivan Prochkd

Styling by Illya Knight for Photogenics

It's not as if she vanished completely after logging time as a TV teen idol ("Party Of Five") and a screen queen ("I Know What You Did Last Summer"). Jennifer Love Hewitt is still the subject of an impressive number of heavy breathing fan websites, and even put out a trio of R & B albums. But compare to the other hot young things trolling for today's limelight, the 26 year-old Texan, who still lives with her mom in the Los Angeles area, likes to keep things low-pro. "I don't know how to go to parties and stay out until all hours. When I say I am an old woman, I mean it. It goes beyond old soul. It's an old person. I drink club soda and lay in bed and watch "The Golden Girls."" Over the hill? Hardly. As the heroine of the new CBS drama, "Ghost Whisperer", the veteran scene steamer is poised to send scores of teenage boys into the next dimension.

Brantley: You know it's weird: you've been a child commercial model, a television teen idol, a movie star, a singer, and now with "Ghost Whisperer," a TV star again. All of which makes you, at a mere 26 years-old, a full-on Hollywood survivor.

Love: Yeah, it's really weird---the Temecula Film Festival called the other day and they're giving me like a life-achievement award for my body of work. I'm very honored, but I was like, "Really, how old am I?" I really shouldn't have a body of anything because I'm 26.

But not only do you have one, you also got quite a, well, body. One you even declared, "My Breasts have their own career."

They do! I mean, I have a dream of having this boy butt and no breasts, but I couldn't be further from that. So I won't be shocked if my breasts are more remembered than I am at some point (Laughs). But to me, they're no big thing: They're eye candy and candy has always been, and will always be one of the biggest parts of Hollywood. I'm very comfortable with it. I mean you have to know that half the viewers of "Ghost Whisperer" will be watching for the story line and the other half are gonna be 14 year-old boys who want to dream about you being their girlfriend.

Yep, and after all, you're perennially photographed as a sex bomb for the lad magazines.

If other people think I'm sexy, that's great. But I just have no idea where it comes from inside myself, because I don't feel that way at all. But I love to play it up. And you know what? When I'm the garbage pail version of myselfI'm gonna want to look at those magazines' photos 24 hours a day. I'll be, like, "See! At one point, I did look like this!"

Which is ironic because not only you are such a "good girl" that you still live in the Valley with your mother but you're also a self-described "homebody" and "old soul."

Yeah, I always look around at my peers and go, "Wow, they're so cool---how do you get like that?" And, God, the other night was ridiculous. These young people---celebrity people---were having a birthday party and it was 10:30 at night and the music was still going and I was, like, "I'm going to call the police! I'm trying to get some sleep!" I didn't, because I then thought, "I'm like an old biddy."

But a hot one. So, listen, as TV's new "Ghost Whisperer", where do you personally stand on the "Boo!" issue?

Fascinated. Like, the other day, the woman who my character is based on, MARY ANN WINKOWSKI, came to my house and ghostbusted it. She explained it like this: You have a window of 48 to 72 hours after you're dead to choose whether you're gonna go into the light, but a lot of people don't choose to and that's when Mary Ann comes in because she can help them finish their business and cross them over. So I live in this, like, 1927 house that was Lon Chaney's (From Jim Mix: "I'm assuming "Lon Chaney Sr.") and I absolutely had a feeling there were people in there---I'd hear feet in the hallway and the lights would turn off and I could actually see the light switch going up and down. At first, I thought, "I'm not hearing anything---I'm just working on a show that's about this and I'm crazy and making it all up."But I turned out to have two ghosts and Mary Ann talked them and got rid of them. Were they cool with that? My ghosts were fine (laughs). Mary Ann said that one was a guy who just wanted to be there---he thought I was nice and followed me from somewhere.

My God, you had a ghost stalker! All kidding aside, it is nice to be in a show where you finally get to play a gown-up?

I love that I get to play an adult, married woman. And the clothes are great---they're trying to make my character the Sarah Jessica Parker of the show and maybe set some trends with antique clothing. Having said that, though, I apparently still look 15---I mean, the other day, somebody actually wanted to call my mom in order for me to use my credit card. Man, sometimes I wished I looked old enough to, like, hang out with my friends.

Or that string of guys you've been linked with through the years.....

But, you know, half the people they've said I dated, I haven't, and that becomes a disservices to me when some guy reads that stuff and goes, "She's a serial dater and I don't want to be the next one in her ugly chain of love'em and leave'em!" I mean, it all just sounds like a bad romance novel (laughs). It's so not who I am.

No, you're a love. But, tell us: Is it ever a burden being named Love?

No, it's great---it has this positive feeling around it that automatically makes people happy. And it's better than being named something like "Mildred" where you'd feel like you should've been sad all of the time (big grin). No offense to the Mildreds of the world.....