MCT Lea Thompson stars as an FAA agent whose husband is captive on a hijacked airplane in Hallmark Channel's thriller "Final Approach."

STUDIO CITY — Thanks to the three "Back to the Future" films, actress Lea Thompson was already a movie star in her 20s. That's enough to rattle some performers for the rest of their life, but not Thompson.

"I think it's always difficult just dealing with how you age gracefully, how you redo your time when you're not chasing little kids around, and how you deal with the transition of becoming a mature woman — how you deal with that gracefully in a society that's telling you you're over," she said. "You don't feel over. You feel like, I'm just starting.' "

Thompson has worked most of her life and, at 46, that's not changing. She presided over three TV series, including her sitcom, "Caroline in the City," and has co-starred in scores of films like "Article 99," "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Some Kind of Wonderful."

"I have a sunny disposition about it," said Thompson. "I'm not one to sit and whine about parts and everything.

"But it's the truth. It's a 20- and 30-year-old's world. On the other hand, it's nice to not have the pressure. When I think of my 20s and I was a movie star doing movie after movie, and movies coming out and doing publicity. And in my 30s when I was doing Caroline in the City' and the pressure of all the awards shows and the dresses and the publicity and how mean everybody is. I was just always nervous, and it's not always as pleasant as people think it is."

Thompson, who started in ballet, learned in her 20s that fame is fickle.

Keeping it real, inside

"It's a short ride," she said. "I had the wisdom even at that point to know it wasn't real, that it wasn't because I was so fabulously special that I was doing all this stuff. It was because I was young and pretty and talented, but I knew it was not necessarily me. I was a piece snapped into a business machine. I knew that."

Having said that, Thompson — who has been headlining in the long-running mystery series, "Jane Doe," on the Hallmark Channel — is starring in the channel's latest film, "Final Approach." This thriller features Thompson as an FAA agent whose husband (Dean Cain) is trapped on a hijacked airplane. The film premieres Saturday.

Thompson is so grounded now it's hard to believe as a kid she had a rough start. Her parents divorced when she was 6 and her mother tried to rear her five children on her own. "My mom lived through a lot of stuff and a lot of stuff I'm going through in terms of being vivacious and talented and wanting to express yourself — like wanting to get your talent out," she said.

"You know, talent is like a little bomb ticking inside of people. You can't sit there, it's no good. And she did the best she could do in the time. We were poor, and my parents got divorced, but a lot of it was really good. I had to take care of myself. I had to motivate myself.

Using adversity for gain

"I had to work through pain and come out the other way. Some people go through bad stuff and become resentful and angry and bitter, and some people go through bad times and they turn it into something good — compassion, when you have to love someone who's really creepy to you is a great lesson. You really have to try to feel why they're bad or mean or cruel instead of being, Ehhhh, they're horrible.' It's a chance to be a better person."

The cruel source in her life was her ballet teacher.

"She controlled my life from the time I was little ... She was really, really talented, but she was insane and really mean to me. I'd work and work and work and never got the part. She would say horrible things: You're nothing. You're not even good enough to be a Las Vegas dancer. You ruined my ballet.'

"My whole childhood was like that. I had to keep working and working. And those kinds of teachers are invaluable because you have to figure out how to overcome resentment and injustice. So I learned a lot," Thompson said.

"You see your life in hindsight and end up thanking the people who taught you the most, who are sometimes not the best people."