All Grown Up

It’s hard to imagine that someone as beautiful and sweet and famous as Mariel Hemingway could have an image problem. But then most mothers, successful restaurateurs and Academy Award-nominated actresses don’t have to lug an enduring aura of perpetual puberty into their late 20s.

“I’ve been trying to break away from that little-girl image,” says Hemingway, in Los Angeles recently promoting her Home Box Office movie “Steal the Sky” that premieres Aug. 28. “And I’ve been unsuccessful only because people insist on relating me to the girl I played in ‘Manhattan’ or ‘Personal Best.’ It’s a compliment that they remember my work, but it’s frustrating because I can never get past that.”

Hemingway, 26, hopes that her performance as a mature Israeli spy who seduces an Iraqi pilot into stealing a Soviet-built MIG fighter jet will open doors to the more mature “women’s roles” that were somehow closed by her acclaimed and sometimes controversial performances in such high-profile films as Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” Robert Towne’s “Personal Best” and Bob Fosse’s “Star 80.”

“My early success and the award nomination (best supporting actress in ‘Manhattan’) was in some ways a kiss of death,” Hemingway says. “I became so tied in people’s mind to that part that anything else I did afterwards was a big disappointment to everyone who suddenly expected so much.”

Hemingway now lives with her 8-month-old daughter, her entrepreneurial husband and 10 horses in the mountains of Idaho. She also owns two restaurants in New York, one in Dallas and is scouting locations for a fourth here.

As for the future of her acting career, which has also included roles in “Creator,” “Superman IV” and “Sunset,” Hemingway has created her own production company and hopes to make a film version of her grandfather’s novel “Across the River and Into the Trees.”

“It takes place in Venice, and it’s about an old dying army guy who falls in love with a young Italian nurse,” says the fresh-faced actress. “I want to play the Italian nurse, but if I don’t hurry up and do it, I’ll be too old.”