Whatever Happened To Jennifer Connelly?
- Photo: Titanus
One Of Her Earliest Roles Was In Dario Argento's 'Phenomena'
Connelly began modeling at age 10 but discovered she didn't like it and wanted to become an actress instead. After signing with an agency and appearing in commercials and magazine ads, a casting director brought Connelly to the attention of Sergio Leone who cast her in Once Upon a Time in America. "I remember my family driving me into the city where I was supposed to meet Sergio and Robert De Niro," she recalled. "I was this tiny, nervous, mousy little thing. My grandmother told me to just picture De Niro on the toilet bowl, but I was too frightened to take her advice."
Dario Argento gave Connelly her next feature film role in Phenomena. "It was a gory movie in which my character fell into a grave full of corpses, but I had a great time," Connelly said.
- Photo: TriStar Pictures
Her Breakout Role Was Sarah In 'Labyrinth,' Starring Alongside David Bowie
In 1986, Connelly got a break that would start her on the path to stardom: starring in the cult classic Labyrinth. "There I was at 15, starring in a movie and having David Bowie singing and dancing and joking with me," she recalled. Not only did Connelly get to work with Bowie but also Jim Henson, whom she described as "just an incredibly wonderful man."
Although Labyrinth has since become a cult classic, critics originally disliked the film, and the box office proved audiences weren't completely on board either. The studio pulled the movie from theaters only a month after opening, but despite its failure, the film gave Connelly recognition to find other acting roles, as well as fame years later. "I still get recognized for Labyrinth by little girls in the weirdest places," she remembered. "It's on TV all the time and I guess I pretty much look the same. It's always very sweet, because it's usually a pack of 15-year-old girls who recognize me."
- Photo: TriStar Pictures
Connelly Remembers Her Time On Set For 'Labyrinth' Fondly
Connelly emerged from Labyrinth with a budding acting career as well as great memories. She enjoyed working with and learning about filmmaking from Henson and his team of puppeteers. While acting opposite nonhuman actors posed a challenge, Connelly claims Henson gave her great advice and told her to "just believe in them, which, after a while is not hard to do." It's obvious from Connelly's casting tape, and her performance meeting Hoggle for the first time, it would take work to feel comfortable with that type of acting, but it eventually got easier. "You get to know them and you become so familiar with them that they don't seem unnatural anymore," Connelly said.
She also spoke fondly about working with a music icon. "David Bowie was adorable and generous," she recalled. "He had a great sense of humor and made everyone feel at ease in his presence, and I admired him for that."
- Photo: Buena Vista Pictures
'The Rocketeer' Was Supposed To Make Her A Star
After Labyrinth, Connelly starred in mostly lighthearted films like Some Girls and Seven Minutes in Heaven. Even Dennis Hopper took notice and cast her in The Hot Spot. Being offered serious roles, however, seemed just out of reach. Noticing Connelly's potential, Walt Disney attempted to fix this by casting her in The Rocketeer and set her up to become Hollywood's next big thing.
"I'm just excited to be in a movie that will be around theaters long enough that when I tell my friends to see my movie, they actually have the option of waiting till the end of the weekend it opens," Connelly said. "Some of my movies, you blinked and you missed them."
Although the studio expected the film to be a hit and spawn a franchise, it failed to make waves among other summer blockbusters like Terminator 2 and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, becoming a box office dud. Connelly's career stalled until she began appearing in grittier films like Requiem for a Dream.
- Photo: A Beautiful Mind / Universal Pictures
Connelly Felt 'Shallow' During Her Oscar Acceptance Speech
In 2002, Connelly won the best supporting actress Oscar for A Beautiful Mind. Despite her win, she believes winning an Academy Award isn't a golden key that will unlock the door to an amazing career. "Lots of other people have won Oscars, too, and there are a lot of talented women my age working who could play the roles I go after just as well," she said. However, the award did inspire her to become more serious about the kinds of roles she accepted, leading her to claim to be "more interested in working now."
Connelly admitted she never considered she'd ever win an Oscar and the feelings she had while standing on stage to accept her award surprised her. "I remember looking up and seeing the sign that said you only had 45 seconds to speak and just feeling shocked by the exposure," Connelly remembered. "It made me feel quite shallow. You just don't know what to expect up there..."
- Photo: Universal Pictures
Her Career Slowed Down After The Box Office Failure Of 'Hulk'
Connelly signed on for Hulk before being given a finished script, simply because she wanted to work with director Ang Lee. She had already started shooting the film by the time she won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, and the timing meant Hulk would be the first movie she appeared in as an Oscar winner. Unfortunately, the film failed to connect with audiences, and the studio considered it so great a failure that a remake was created five years later.
While the failure of Hulk stung, Connelly defended her work. "I can't say that I feel entirely neutral about it," she said. "Who wouldn't want people to respond favorably to something that they make?"
Not only did the movie tarnish the reputation of the Hulk character, but also Connelly's. Despite her recent Oscar win, Hulk helped her career rapidly deflate.
- Photo: Creation / Icon Film Distribution
She Married Paul Bettany In 2003, And Began To Focus More On Her Family
Connelly met Paul Bettany on the set of A Beautiful Mind, and they became friends. "We were both in other relationships at the time," she recalled. "Clearly we noticed each other and clearly we liked each other." Six months later, they ran into each other and, since both were single at the time, they began a romantic relationship. They married in 2003 and have since had two children together - Stellan and Agnes. Connelly also has an older son from a previous relationship.
Bettany and Connelly have worked together twice: as co-stars in the 2009 film Creation, and Connelly as actress and Bettany writer-director for Shelter. Connelly has shifted her primary focus to spending time with her three children since she's been married and won an Academy Award, and both she and Bettany often take a year off between projects. "I got to spend the whole year with my kids and my husband," Connelly said. "And that's wonderful."
- Photo: MTV International / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0
She Took Fewer Roles After The Passing Of Her Parents
In addition to wanting to spend time with her family, Connelly also purposely slowed down her career due to the passing of her parents. Her father passed in 2008 and her mother in 2013, leading Connelly to examine her priorities. She called her father's passing "the first real heartbreak I've experienced" and made sure to spend time with her mother before her passing.
"That feeling you have when they're both gone surprised me," she remembered, "how you feel tethered even when you don't see them physically. It's very strange." The impact of her parents' departure was so immense that Connolly skipped an appearance at the Toronto Film Festival screening of Creation. "I had to leave early because yesterday was the first anniversary of my father's death and I'm very sorry," she told reporters.
- Photo: Karon Liu / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0
She Prefers To Choose Passion Project Films
Not only does Connelly like to take time off between projects, but she's picky about the work she accepts. She often chooses directors she'd like to work with, such as Ang Lee on Hulk and Walter Salles on Dark Water. Connelly chose not to stick to making certain types of movies, but rather anything that excites her. "I've worked within very different genres, but I'm usually attracted to provocative movies," she said. "I like having to spend time with a character who may have a radically different point of view from my own, who will capture my imagination and make me think."
She credits this decision for giving her more control over her career. "For better or worse, I make my own choices now," Connelly said. "I feel like I've claimed my own career and I take responsibility for it..."
- Photo: Paul Sherwood / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0
She Thinks She Doesn't Get Much Comedy Work Because She Looks 'Stern'
While Connelly laughs at the idea of performing stand-up, she's expressed interest in starring in more comedy movies at some point during her career. "At this point I might have a bit of trouble trying to get myself cast in a comedy, but I'd love to do one," she said. "I haven't really done one as a grown-up person."
Although Connelly's recent body of work includes dramas, horror, and science fiction, she did star in several light comedies early in her career, particularly in 1980s films like Seven Minutes in Heaven and Some Girls. She may not lack comedic talent, but Connelly believes one thing keeping her from appearing in more lighthearted films may be her appearance. "I think it's my eyebrows," she said. "I look stern even when I'm not stern... It's just my face."
- Photo: Jorge Figueroa / Flickr / CC BY 2.0
Connelly Provided The Voice Of 'Karen' In 'Spider-Man: Homecoming'
Although she's famous for her looks, Connelly also works in roles where the audience can't see her face. She provided the voice of 7 in the movie 9, as well as the artificial intelligence known as Karen in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Connelly claims her children inspired her to take the leap into animated fare. "I have been offered other things before, but there was never anything that came up that I felt was interesting," Connelly said about 9. "A lot of my interest was because of the children."
The fact she'd be making films her children could watch also excited her. "The children have seen hardly anything that I have been in until now," Connelly recalled. "Paul [Bettany] tried to show Stellan Labyrinth, but he was scared by the characters."
- Photo: Alita: Battle Angel / 20th Century Fox
She Appeared As The Villain In 'Alita: Battle Angel'
In 2019, Connelly jumped into villain territory, playing the evil Chiren in Alita: Battle Angel. Based on the eponymous manga series from the 1990s, the movie boasted a $200 million budget and the filmmaking expertise of James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez. The film shows Connelly's balancing act between independent films and the occasional big-budget Hollywood movie with massive amounts of special effects.
She claimed Chiren's complexity drew her to the part. "She's kind of a delicious villain at the beginning or behaves like one, and then we get to understand where it's coming from and who she really is," Connelly said. She enjoys characters with depth, no matter the budget or genre of the film. "It's probably that I'm really insecure... and as a result I want to play smart people," she recalled.
- Photo: Snowpiercer / TNT
She's Slated To Appear In The 'Top Gun' Sequel And The 'Snowpiercer' TV Series
Connelly has two major 2020 productions in the works. She's signed on to the TNT television series Snowpiercer, which is a reboot of the Korean film that tells the story of a group of people who survive an ice age and travel around the world on a train. Connelly plays a first-class passenger who informs passengers about important notices. "It was very interesting," she said. "I developed a strong relationship with my character, a complex woman charged with ensuring good relations between the passengers on the train."
She's also set to star in the sequel to Top Gun, Top Gun: Maverick, opposite returning stars Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer. "I can't give you any details about the story, except that I play the role of a character already mentioned in the first part," Connelly said. "I've only seen five clips so far, but it promises to be extraordinary."
