Andie MacDowell: 'Critic saved my career after Greystoke'

Actress Andie MacDowell has a kind critic to thank for saving her acting career after her voice was replaced by Glenn Close's for Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan.

The Four Weddings and a Funeral star was left devastated after learning producers didn't like her Southern accent in the first cut of the 1984 film, in which she played Jane opposite Christopher Lambert's Tarzan.

The former model considered quitting movies altogether but one review made the young star realise she had just been badly cast.

"It's astounding that I overcame it," the actress tells Deadline. "It's not that unusual that it happened. I don’t think that’s so remarkable, but I think what's truly remarkable is that I overcame it. That is the big surprise."

Admitting she wasn't prepared for the film, MacDowell adds, "I should not have done it, but I didn’t know, and I don’t think that I really did a bad job. I am sure I just sounded too southern. Had Jane been from the south it probably would have been fine.

"(Beloved The New Yorker critic) Pauline Kael gave me a great review and that saved me. It really did. She gave me the confidence that I had something, that there was something there when most people were cruel and horrible to me.

"I regret not being able to tell her truly what she did for me. It was very powerful and you know, I kept working. I kept getting better, and then I got a good role, a role that suited me."

Andie is currently promoting new indie drama Love After Love, in which she bares all on film for the first time - at 59.

"Everyone’s made a big deal out of it," she smiles. "I guess it is a catchy title: 'Andie MacDowell does first nude scene'. I think maybe it makes people read the article, but for me, it means more as a kind of revealing of the soul. It’s not gratuitous by any means."