I'd Never Speak Again

OVER THE PAST TWO 'TERRIFYING' YEARS THE ACTRESS COULD BARELY TALK ABOVE A WHISPER. NOW THAT DOCTORS FOUND A CURE AND HER VOICE IS BACK, 'I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE THINGS UNSAID'

- EILEEN FINAN

Speaking Up "I learned to appreciate my voice no matter what form it takes," says WilliamsPaisley (at home outside Nashville in November). "And I learned the value of being quiet and appreciating what other people are saying."

Kimberly Williams-Paisley drives up to greet a People photo crew outside her home near Nashville and rolls down the window with a smile. Seated next to the actress is a curious passenger: a near-life-size white plastic swan, hollowed out with a hole in its back. Noting the quizzical looks, Williams-Paisley pats the swan. “She’s my support animal,” she says simply, deepening the mystery.

Later the actress demonstrates the purpose of the peculiar bird: Tipping the swan to its side, she holds the neck like a handle and sets the opening next to her ear as if she’s listening to a giant seashell. Then she speaks into the hollow, her voice amplified as it resonates. “It helps me hear my voice,” explains Williams-Paisley, 53, who uses the swan before speaking in public to build confidence. “I can relax, because I know it’s there.”

For a painfully long time, it wasn’t. Two years ago her voice disappeared, and until surgery this summer (see box) she wasn’t able to speak louder than a whisper. “I felt trapped in my own body,” says the Father of the Bride star, who was forced to turn down acting jobs as she searched for answers. She even found herself withdrawing from friends and family, despite the support of her husband, singer Brad Paisley, and sons Huck, 17, and Jasper, 15. “There was so much shame involved,” she says. “I felt invisible.”