“In a corner of a Perthshire bookstore – closed for the day for movie-making purposes – former supermodel Caprice Bourret briefly lets her mind unspool. It’s been a morning.”, — write: www.dailymail.co.uk
‘I had no idea what the hell I was getting myself into,’ says the 53-year-old Californian who appears in almost every scene of the film being shot over 14 days in numerous Highland locations.
‘Not only do I have to do this, but I have to produce the whole thing, I have to make sure all my actors are here, I’ve got to book all the trains, the planes, I’ve got to make sure the location the next day is all set up, got to make sure that we have all the props.’
And the reason why all this responsibility now falls on her elegant shoulders? Well, high on the list of them is the fact she turned down the lead role in Baywatch almost three decades ago.
‘How stupid is that?’ exclaims one of the most photographed women on the planet as she vents in the travel section of the Aberfeldy Watermill bookshop.
Outside, life goes on as normal in the sleepy town. Few suspect that their local store has been taken over by a celebrity of global renown who is ruing the day she passed up the ‘easy’ route to acting stardom.
‘I think it’s because I believed my own hype and I thought I was bigger than that,’ she says of Baywatch. ‘I look back at some of my decisions and think, “Cap, what is wrong with you?”’
Well, I offer, surely no one could have guessed how huge the American series would become.
‘No, it was already that big,’ she corrects. It turns out she was offered the lead role after its star Pamela Anderson left.
‘I just thought I don’t want to be typecast but, in retrospect, what a silly, silly, silly decision. That would have been a great in into the United States.’
Who knows where Caprice would have been today had she not railed against the film and TV producers who wanted her to play ‘the babe’ in every script they sent her?
Almost certainly not in Aberfeldy on a tight-budget Christmas movie, being shot over a fortnight, with its lead actress doing all the costings, hiring the crew – even arranging the catering – while treating every penny as a prisoner.
And not getting hopelessly lost in the snow near Aviemore as she looked for a Costa Coffee to await a lift back to her hotel after nipping out for a facial.
And yet, she insists, as she reins her thoughts back in, the path she is on is the right one. She is finally in the movie business – making them herself, on her own terms.
For the business-minded model who graced hundreds of magazine covers in the 1990s and was once named the world’s sexiest woman, these terms are key to the person behind the glamour goddess.
Aware of her modelling shelf-life even as she was drooled over by readers of ‘lads’ mags’ in her twenties, she spent much of her thirties in entrepreneur mode, building up her own lingerie brand.
Finding someone to pose in the lacy smalls was, of course, not a problem. Twenty years on, she still models new Loved By Caprice lines.
London-based since the 1990s, she built up a property portfolio, diversified into homeware and nurtured her celebrity profile in a string of reality TV shows for both British and American channels.
But, finding their modus operandi increasingly ‘toxic’, she moved away from them.
That just left the unfulfilled acting ambitions, the disillusionment over constant stereotyping and frequent failure even to make it to the casting stage.
Fine then, she decided: ‘If no one is willing to give me a shot, I’ll do it myself. I’ll bet on myself.’
Cut to the bookstore in Aberfeldy where, on her third movie in as many years, the actress and producer is telling me why she is making a wholesome Christmas film whose ending audiences will guess from a mile away.
‘There’s so much crap out there and I’m so tired of it,’ she says. ‘Watching the news makes you feel bad, it’s depressing and all this reality, I just find it to be toxic. That’s why I wanted to do Christmas movies.
‘Everyone knows how these movies end, but they make you feel good. They don’t make you feel like you have to scrub and take a shower.’
No bad vibes, then, in the current production with the working title A Scottish Christmas Secret – and no sex scenes either.
‘That’s another thing,’ says the former cover star who owes much of her fame to wearing very little back in the day. ‘These Christmas movies are very wholesome. I even have to be careful with my dresses. There’s no cleavage, there’s no alcohol, there’s definitely no cussing and there’s no naughty, saucy scenes. It’s very family friendly.’
How, then, did Scotland arise as the unlikely backdrop for this clean-living festive romcom? It’s all to do with snow, she says. Who ever heard of a feel-good Christmas movie without snow?
‘My whole thing is I need snow, and I don’t want to make it, I want it to be there.’
She researched the snowiest place in the UK and alighted on the Cairngorms and the village of Aviemore. Knowing there would be a bookstore scene, she Googled ‘fabulous-looking bookshops in Scotland’ and found ‘TV gold’ in Aberfeldy.
John Argo, co-owner of the Watermill bookshop and cafe, admits he thought his friends were pranking him when he took a call from someone claiming to be Caprice asking if she could turn the place into a movie set for the day.
But here she was, weeks later, briskly filming a series of scenes with American co-star Alex Trumble as lunchtime customers of the store’s café wondered why their regular haunt was closed for the day.
As for the Aviemore locals, they were so accommodating to a ‘city girl’ like Caprice that she had to wonder if she was the one being pranked. ‘I mean, it’s not even normal,’ she says. ‘It’s almost fake. People here are so kind it’s almost like you’re going back to a time 50 years ago.’
She relates her misadventure from a few days ago when outdoor scenes filmed in temperatures of -12C left her face ‘cracking’. She arranged a facial in Aviemore and afterwards set off for a café she was told was five minutes away to await a lift from one of the crew.
‘Cut to me still walking, freezing my little tooshie off. I figured, “Oh my God, I’m going to get hypothermia”. I was literally in the middle of nowhere.
‘And then this couple appeared with their dog and said, “Oh, you look very familiar, does your name start with C?” I said, “Yeah, Caprice”, and they said, “What are you doing out here?” I said I was very lost. “Oh,’’ they said, ‘‘come over to the house and have a cup of coffee”, so I said, “OK, why not?”
‘They probably saved my life,’ she laughs.
‘You wouldn’t do that in London. This does not happen elsewhere, but they were so sweet.’
In her current role, she is Tiffany Bennett, who, along with her sister Sophie – played by Patsy Kensit – owns a publishing company.
One of their top authors, Nathan McAllister, a Scot living in Los Angeles, has gone AWOL after failing to deliver the highly anticipated third in a lucrative trilogy of works.
It turns out he has returned to his native Highlands, lost his writing mojo and all but given up on his career – and Tiffany is dispatched to urge him to write the third book. Surprise, surprise, they fall in love.
‘So yeah, it’s a Christmas movie, it’s a romance and then there’s little twists and turns but I’m not going to tell you everything. You’re going to have to watch it.’
There is, it turns out, a sentimental, almost puritanical side to the woman who journeyed to fame all those years ago largely on the wings of male fantasy.
She may have dated her share of celebrities – Rod Stewart is an ex – and made headlines through breathless magazine descriptors such as ‘hottest blonde on the planet’ but, these days, there’s a certain revulsion with the cynicism of showbiz.
She is scathing about reality TV despite appearing on a slew of such shows, including Celebrity Big Brother in 2005.
‘I did this show on Broadway TV in America called Ladies of London. It was so toxic and made up. They manipulate you, tell you things to create drama. I’m all about supporting women, not breaking them down and ratting on them and shaming them. It’s just kind of gross.’
Now a mother of 11-year-old boys, Jax and Jett, with her film producer husband Ty Comfort, she says she won’t let them watch shows such as I’m A Celebrity. ‘It’s, like, making them look stupid and eat horrible things. It’s not nice. I don’t watch any of it and I don’t let my kids watch any of it. I don’t like people trying to make other people look stupid or feel stupid.
‘I’ve done so much myself. It didn’t make me feel good. I take full responsibility, it was my fault I put myself in that position to begin with and I fell for it.’
Christmas, on the other hand, makes her glow with pleasure. ‘Oh my God, we had, like, eight Christmas trees at my house. I’m totally obsessed. I start listening to Christmas music like November 1. I decorate November 1. My kids think I’m crazy but they secretly love it.
‘I want to have Christmas for two months a year. Actually, no, it’s three months because now I do Christmas movies.’
More like six months a year, then, because the post-production work on this film will take her up to the summer. Does she worry that she is a bit of a workaholic?
‘A bit? Are you taking the p***? Is this a trick question?’
She is a multi-millionaire with numerous homes, including one in London’s Notting Hill and another in Ibiza. Doesn’t she fancy taking a few months off?
‘I don’t know how. One of my kids was saying, like, “Mummy, after this production, can you just be Mummy full time and learn how to cook?” I’m terrible at cooking. My kids eat disgusting slop all the time. I try. A-plus for effort. And I said “OK, honey” and I felt so horrible, so maybe I will take a month off and learn how to cook.’
Is it, then, snowy Christmas flicks to warm the soul from here on in? She considers this for a moment.
‘I have always wanted to do horror,’ she says. ‘Like, a slasher. Like, blood and guts. So I will go from Christmas to blood and guts,’ she concludes, laughing.
‘That is my dream too, I love that and obviously it’s very commercial. They sell.’
While her former homeland may be integral to future movie-making ambitions, she insists she will never return there to live. ‘I’m not blowing smoke up your tooshie, I just love Europe and I love the UK.’
Talk of the States leads, almost inevitably, to the matter of the incoming president. Is she a fan? ‘I’m absolutely obsessed!’ she says, leaving the answer still in doubt. ‘In fact, I’m going to go to Mar-a-Lago, yeah, I’m going to go and meet Trump this year.’
So she’s a supporter then? ‘A thousand per cent. Do you think the world prospered and the world was going in the right direction under Biden/Harris? No.’
Did she even have a vote? ‘I’m still an American citizen, so I did vote, yeah, and obviously you know what side I voted. I’m very candid about it.
‘I don’t care what people think. I care about America and care about the world, and I think we were going in the wrong direction. Very scary, so we’ve got to change it up.’
Lunchbreak on the set of A Scottish Christmas Secret is almost over and Caprice has scenes to shoot. There is just time for a quick snap of the two of us. She leans in, puts one arm around my shoulders, another around my chest and directs that million-dollar smile at the lens.
‘Thank-you,’ I say warmly.
‘Thank-YOU for thanking me.’
It’s been a lunchtime.