Huston's daddy, who died 17 years ago, got to see his daughter win an Oscar for Prizzi's Honor, which he directed, but no doubt he would be even prouder of the way she's maintained her career and asserted herself since then, not just as an actress, but also as a director.

"Directing gives me something new to think about," Huston says. "I enjoy it a lot. I like working with actors. I like to have command of the way a movie's going to look."

So far, she has headed three projects, each unabashedly about strong women and the problems they face. "They're kind of about me," she says.

Her first, Bastard Out of Carolina, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1996, but afterward Ted Turner, who funded the project, found the subject matter about molestation too brutal and wouldn't air the film. Huston then put her own star power on the line as the title character of Agnes Browne three years later. This sweet film about a poor Irish woman got decent reviews, but did much better in the United Kingdom than it did in America.