Alicia Silverstone struggled to cope with Clueless fame

Alicia Silverstone struggled to cope with her ‘Clueless’ fame.

The 46-year-old actress – who is best known for her leading role in 1995 movie- admitted she didn’t know what to do with all of attention the role brought and she soon decided to step back from Hollywood.

She told The Hollywood Reporter: “Things started to happen right away. At the MTV Movie Awards, I won best newcomer and best villain. Then came the Aerosmith videos [‘Cryin, Amazing, Crazy’] and I was working a ton, I was working in France with Alain Corneau, I did films with James Gandolfini, with Jeff Goldblum and Christine Lahti, all these different movies. I was very young but I took my acting very seriously.”

“When ‘Clueless’ came out, it really shifted. I had been the girl from ‘Crush’, then I was the Aerosmith chick, and then, after that, I was Cher. It was very complicated and I don’t think I knew how to manage it: I didn’t have the foundation, the good tools to deal with it, I wasn’t prepared for it in any way, shape, or form. I really had no idea what was happening, and it didn’t feel comfortable.

“I wasn’t happy and what I did was really extract myself a bit from my acting career and went more into my activism. I went to Africa. to help the elephants, I went to Peru to try to help the rainforest. I found my passion for writing books on healing and health. The Kind Diet books came a bit later but that was the start of the journey there.”

However, Alicia is now enjoying a career resurgence with roles in Jennifer Reeder’s horror movie ‘Perpetrator’, Imran J. Khan’s family dramedy ‘Mustache’ and Grant Singer’s crime thriller ‘Reptile’ and is loving every minute of it.

She said: “In terms of my work, I’m having nothing but fun now. I had a ball in Amsterdam, making a film with these amazing interesting filmmakers. I’m really happy with my life. Just seeing Benicio Del Toro again on the set of ‘Reptiles’. We haven’t worked together for 27 years [since ‘Excess Baggage’ in 1997]. I thought: ‘it’s been an incredible journey’.”