Amistad Hollywood daughter takes her own road *Brown junior Jessica Capshaw is studying in Italy while mom and dad, actress Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg, film in Rhode Island.

Providence Journal - Bulletin - Providence, R.I.

Author: G. WAYNE MILLER Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer

Date: Mar 22, 1997

It's just Jessica Capshaw's luck that on the one occasion most of her family is in Rhode Island for an extended stay, she's in another world. A Brown University junior, Jessica is spending her spring semester in Italy.

Meanwhile, her father, mother and several of her six siblings are in Newport. That's where dad - otherwise known as Steven Spielberg - has been filming Amistad for more than two weeks. Mom, the actress Kate Capshaw, has joined him, together with a number of their children, the youngest of whom is a daughter born in December.

Although Jessica gets regular reports by phone, progress on Amistad is not at the top of her mind. Studying history, literature and art in one of the world's great cultural centers is. So is learning a new language. "Italian is so beautiful," she says, speaking by telephone from Florence.

A periodic visitor to Europe since she was a girl - including while Spielberg was shooting Schindler's List, and several months in London during production of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, where her parents met - Jessica fell for Italy when she was 9 and her mother was filming in Rome.

"I remembered it being wonderful," she says.

Which explains Jessica's choice of locale, but another motivation, which is a timeless one. Twenty years old - "an aspiring adult!" she jokes - Jessica forsook the security of life on College Hill for the kind of independence and adventure she could only find alone, and an ocean away.

"It's the classic story: When you go on vacation with your parents, they order for you, even if you're 16 years old," she says.

Not that independence is a new motif for this engaging young woman, who comes across as funny and smart in an interview.

Take her passion for acting.

She was 15 and in high school in North Hollywood when the bug first bit. "It was something I'd always wanted to do since I was a little girl," she says. But Jessica was clear that her interest lay in the theater, not the silverscreen, where her parents have made their mark.

"I kind of took refuge in the theater. At the time, I took the attitude that theater is real acting!"

Although Kate and Steve did not push her toward performing, they did strongly encourage her toattend college. Encouraged by a guidance counselor who was especially keen on Brown, Jessica and her parents flew to New England, where they also visited Harvard and Tufts.

"We came to Brown on a really rainy, horrible Providence day," she says. But weather could not take the shine off Brown's appeal: the strength of its academic program, the beauty of its campus, the diversity of its students. Jessica sought early admission and was accepted.

When it came time to declare a major, Jessica chose English, partly because of her conviction that a liberal arts background would "help you on your way to becoming a learned individual," and partly because it would give her broad exposure to writing, literature, history and art. "It kind of encompassed everything I was interested in," she notes.

First child of Kate Capshaw, Jessica was a toddler when her mother moved from her native Texas to New York to pursue a modeling career. Within a year, Kate had divorced her husband - Jessica'sbiological father - and had gravitated toward acting. Kate's big break came in 1983, when Spielberg cast her opposite Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones, a box-office smash.

Spielberg began living with Kate after separating from actress Amy Irving, andthey married in 1991, after the divorce. Through adoption, previous marriages, and children they've borne together, Spielberg and Capshaw's family now numbers nine. They divide their time between homes in Pacific Palisades and East Hampton,N.Y.

Perhaps it was inevitable that Jessica would try her hand in movies. "I knew what it was to be a set brat, to hang out in the makeup trailer when mom gets made up." She wanted to experience the other side of the camera.

And so, Jessica lastsummer shot her first feature film: director J.P. Kelly's The Locusts, due for release in September. "It's kind of a grim, macabre tale of this family living in a farm in Kansas in the 1960s. My mother's in it, too," says Jessica, who plays the part of a small-town girl with no ambition to leave home.

Of course, that's not Jessica.

Having appeared in plays at Brown, she may seek work this summer in the prestigious Williamstown (Mass.) Theater Festival. Looking beyond graduation, both stage and screen interest her. "Conceivably, I would love to do both," she says. "I don't think one excludes the other."

Jessica is proud of her parents' achievements. And she is aware, but unperturbed, that two famous names will accompany her to auditions."They will help get your foot in the door, but it's absolutely up to you to stay in the door and prove what you can do."

As for Amistad, Jessica has not read the script, but she knows the story. It's a tale of triumph over oppression that she ispleased her father is bringing to the screen, even if it came as something of a surprise when Spielberg last year told her he was directing it.

Jessica knew he was shooting the sequel to Jurassic Park, due for release this summer, and thought hisnext project was Saving Private Ryan, starring Tom Hanks.

"Amistad came across the table and it was something that grabbed him," she says. "The cast came together really well and everything was green-lighting. I called home (from Brown) one week and he wasn't sure, and the next week he was sure. For me, it was kind of like a whirlwind." * * *