Anne Archer: Mrs. Everybody

Anne Archer made a killing in Hollywood playing the wife of Michael Douglas' character in Fatal Attraction, for which she received a 1987 Oscar nomination. She's also worked opposite Harrison Ford in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger.

In Rules of Engagement, reports The Early Show's Mark McEwen, Archer plays the wife of the American ambassador to Yemen, played by Ben Kingsley. The couple and their son are heroically rescued after the American embassy falls under attack. But when it comes time for her to help the man who saved her family, Archer does the unexpected. includes scenes with Tommy Lee Jones.

Archer herself says she is never sure if a movie is going to be successful.

"I remember when we were shooting Fatal Attraction. I thought we were making an awfully good movie, and then it was great to see that I was right," she recalls. "I remember another movie I did early on with Sylvester Stallone called Paradise Alley that I thought was going to be really big, and it went right down into the toilets!"

But, she adds, Fatal Attraction was a career-changing project for her.

"You know, you can do a lot of great work in small movies or movies that no one sees, and it doesn't do anything for your career," explains the 52-year-old actress. "You can do a small part in a huge movie, and it can launch your career. Once in a while, it all comes together, and you get to do a great role in a great film that ends up being a mainstream film, and that's a homerun. If you get one in your life, you're lucky."

Archer's own taste in movies is as diverse as Out of Africa ("I'm a Meryl Streep junkie") and Muriel's Wedding ("The story was not anything we've ever seen before").

As for Rules of Engagement, Archer basked in the opportunity to play opposite such actors as Kingsley, Samuel L. Jackson, Tommy Lee Jones, Blair Underwood, and Guy Pearce.

"I mean, it was just an incredible array of actors, and you just want to be part of that," she explains.

Rules of Engagement, she says, "wasn't the good guys and the bad guys. It's the kind of movie you walk out of, and you argue about the rules of engagement, who was right, who was wrong. I think that's stimulating."