Hurley's 'Mickey Blue Eyes'

Actress Elizabeth Hurley brought a lot to the screen in the original Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery movie. Now she uses her talent behind the camera, as the producer of Mickey Blue Eyes.

CBS News' Thalia Assuras interviewed the British star about her new venture on CBS News This Morning.

"This film actually shows Hugh more like he is in real life than even Notting Hill or Four Weddings because he had a big hand in writing a lot of this," says Hurley about her real-life beau. "All his lines are Hughish. He kind of rewrote them himself. And I think it really shows."

The idea of producing it came to her in a moment of madness, she says. Hurley is not a novice in this field; Extreme Measures, also starring Hugh Grant, was her first.

"Without any doubt, there is a hideous amount of stress. It's really hard work. It takes a very long time. I have much less money doing this than anything else," she points out.

And yet she adds, "There is something about it. I think it's a combination of the challenge and the difficulty of it and the enormous relief when people actually like your product."

And for Hurley that in itself is an enormous achievement because in comedy it is easy to mess things up, she says.

"As we were recutting the film...and testing it on people, sometimes you'd know you had a funny joke, and you play it, and it didn't make people laugh," she says. "You go back and cut it again and play it again. When you get the laugh, it's fabulous," she explains.

Even though Hurley could have cast herself in this movie, she says she really wanted to give that job to her friend Tripplehorn also initially cast for Four Weddings and a Funeral but needing to pull out for family reasons.

"They're fab together. It would have been awful with me. The whole point is an Englishman as a fish out of water. If there is another English girl ruining it, it wouldn't have been too good," she explains.

Commenting on the kissing segments, Hurley says she had no problem with that. "I was saying, 'kiss more.'...I was, you know, pumping up the sheets," she says. "I'm all in for that. The sexier, the better."

Hurley and Grant have been together about 12 years and are still going strong.

"We get along reasonably well. We go through times where we drive each other demented." But, she adds, "We really like each other at bottom."

Perhaps she likes him enough to cast him in another movie.

"It would nearly kill me to have to produce him again, but I may well," she says.

[For an interview with Hugh Grant, click here.]

[Fr a story about how the cast researched their roles, click here.]

For more information visit the official Web site of Mickey Blue Eyes.

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