Anne Heche on ups and downs of career before receiving Sarasota Film Festival award

April 11-- Apr. 11--Anne Heche's career has included late '90s stardom with blockbusters like "Volcano" and "Six Days Seven Nights," a post-Hollywood period where she scored Emmy and Tony nominations and a recent return to multiplexes and television screens.

The Sarasota Film Festival will honor that filmography Saturday when it gives Heche a Career Tribute Award. She'll also participate in the festival's In Conversation With series on Sunday.

Heche told the Herald-Tribune in a phone interview that the award means a great deal to her, particularly from a festival centered on independent film.

"I don't know what my life would've been without independent film," Heche said. "I think that's where some of the most special stories that I've been able to tell are."

Coincidentally, Heche has her first major role in a wide-release film in more than a decade out in theaters when she visits the festival. She co-stars in "The Best of Enemies," based on the true story of civil rights activist Ann Atwater (Oscar nominee Taraji P. Henson) and Ku Klux Klan leader C.P. Ellis (Oscar winner Sam Rockwell) befriending each other during a school desegregation community summit.

Heche plays Ellis' wife Mary. She's longtime friends with the film's director Robin Bissell, making his directorial debut, and wanted to support him however she could.

"I didn't know that I was going to be able to get the honor of acting with two of my favorite actors and I think two of the most gifted actors today," Heche said. "Sam is one of those where if there was a bucket list of people I'd like to work with, he's certainly it."

Heche's own acting career started on the long-running soap opera "Another World." One of her first major film roles was in recent Oscar nominee Nicole Holofcener's 1996 indie "Walking and Talking," with the Austin Chronicle noting Heche was "destined for larger film roles."

Indeed, the next year she co-starred with Tommy Lee Jones in the disaster blockbuster "Volcano" and Johnny Depp and Al Pacino in the crime drama "Donnie Brasco." She had third billing after Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman on the political satire "Wag the Dog," playing a role written for a man before director Barry Levinson decided to cast her.

After meeting and starting to date Ellen DeGeneres, Heche was warned she wouldn't get the part as Harrison Ford's love interest in "Six Days Seven Nights" if they went public. They nonetheless attended the "Volcano" premiere together, immediately causing a great deal of public scrutiny over their same-sex relationship.

That same night, Heche got a phone call from Ford, who said he didn't care about her personal life and that she was still his choice for the role.

"If it were not for that stand, I wouldn't be able to have had the career that I've had even outside of the studios," Heche said. "It was something that without him, I never would've been able to do. I owe him my life for that."

Though the film was a box-office success when it came out in 1998, it was one of the last studio films she appeared in, due to her relationship with DeGeneres, Heche said. The couple broke up in 2000 and Heche had a breakdown, as documented in her 2001 memoir "Call Me Crazy."

Yet Heche continued to act, including in the Golden Globe-nominated indie drama "Birth." She also co-starred with Kristen Bell in the 2004 television movie "Gracie's Choice," playing a drug-addicted mother struggling to care for her children, a role that earned her an Emmy nomination.

That same year, she starred alongside Alec Baldwin in a Broadway revival of the '30s screwball comedy "Twentieth Century," about a struggling theater producer who pursues his former protege and now-successful actress for a role. Heche was nominated for a Tony for Best Actress.

She'll reunite with Baldwin and other actors including Henry Winkler this month for a one-night reading of the play, benefiting Roundabout Theatre Company. Heche said she's excited about the event because the initial show was such a pivotal role for her.

"There were certain angels that came into my life and Alec was one of them," Heche said. "He said that he wouldn't do it without me. He really stood up for me and thought that the focus was being put on the wrong thing in my life."

Heche continued to find acclaim with independent films, including her roles as a seductive insurance agent in the 2011 comedy "Cedar Rapids" and an ex-wife in that same year's cop drama "Rampart." She also started acting more on television, including a main role on the HBO series "Hung."

Recently, Heche has appeared on "Chicago P.D." as a superintendent, and on the NBC drama "The Brave" as the deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Heche said she got the latter role after show creator Dean Georgaris sent her a letter saying he always admired her after seeing her in "Donnie Brasco."

"That was a real honor to me, and I feel like that's part of what has kind of been able to bubble over into 'Chicago P.D.,' a woman who is extraordinarily powerful and believes in the goodness and the fight to make things right," Heche said.

She's still working in indie film, as well, including on the upcoming "Hour of Lead" with Thomas Jane. Heche said she remains grateful for all the indie films she's worked on and collaborators she's worked with over the years.

"If it weren't for people like Alec Baldwin, who said come and be with me on Broadway, or these independent films, these beautiful artists reached out to me and gave me a career that defined some of the most incredible things I've been able to do," Heche said.

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