People: So, which Susan is it this time?
The new movie “Enchanted” boasts TV’s most recognizable hunk in Patrick Dempsey of “Grey’s Anatomy” and is aimed at the young.
So whose menacing face dominates the promotional posters and backs of buses?
“I just lucked out with the best graphic,” says Susan Sarandon, the Oscar winner who plays the archetypal Disney evil queen in the modern fable which opened Wednesday.
Sarandon, 61, also recently completed a turn as a dastardly mother in “Middle of Nowhere,” a movie with her daughter, Eva Amurri.
She is portraying her first grandmother in “The Lovely Bones,” and she wrapped “Speed Racer” (as Mom Racer) over the summer. She already had two other movies open this fall, “In the Valley of Elah” and “Mr. Woodcock.”
“I think I’ve survived because I’ve gone through a number of incarnations,” Sarandon says. “Sometimes they need somebody sexy. Sometimes they needed somebody smart.
“I’ve managed to be able to morph myself into parts. I think I’m turning a little into Gene Hackman, though.”
Her “Enchanted” despot, Queen Narissa, banishes the princess Giselle (Amy Adams) from their animated musical land to live-action Manhattan, where a lawyer (Dempsey) might be her true prince. Narissa follows her to snuff out any happily ever after.
If some tykes are too scared, Sarandon says, it’s up to Mom and Dad to decide if this witch is too much of a, well, witch.
“I remember being terrified by the dancing broom in `Fantasia’ for some reason and having nightmares about that,” she says.
“The whole point of this character is that she just loves being evil.”
Sarandon says she’s doing more movies because her sons with partner Tim Robbins are now teenagers. Her daughter, Eva, from her relationship with actor Franco Amurri after her divorce from actor Chris Sarandon, is 22.
Asked if her show business success has permitted her to treat herself on occasion, she answers: “I bought myself, for a birthday, a ring that I consider pretty expensive.
“I’m also fixing up my house that I had bought for my dad in Maine, and he passed away. I’m making a nice place up there and expanding it. That’s kind of an indulgence. I’m not a big spender.”
As for politics, she has donated money to both Barack Obama and John Edwards, but has not made up her mind.
“Right now, the whole campaign to me sounds like somebody running for president of the third grade,” she says.
After admitting frustration that her and Robbins’ political activism remains an issue, Sarandon reminds that democracy does not exclude actors.
“When you’re a celebrity, and you give up so much of your personal side, if you can use your celebrity to shine a light on information that people aren’t getting, it’s a way of fighting back and making sure that your celebrity doesn’t use you,” she says. “You use it.”
The birthday bunch
Actor Robert Vaughn (“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”) is 75. Comedian-director Terry Gilliam (Monty Python) is 67. Actor Tom Conti is 66. Singer Jesse Colin Young (The Youngbloods) is 66. Actor Richard Kind (“Spin City,” “Mad About You”) is 51. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis is 49. Actress Mariel Hemingway is 46. Actress Scarlett Johannsson is 23.