Jennifer Connelly
Encyclopedia
Jennifer Lynn Connelly is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America
. Connelly continued modeling and acting, starring in films such as the 1986 Labyrinth
and the 1991 Career Opportunities
. She gained critical acclaim for her work in the 1998 science fiction film Dark City and for her portrayal of Marion Silver in the 2000 drama Requiem for a Dream.
In 2002, Connelly won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award
and a BAFTA Award for her supporting role as Alicia Nash in Ron Howard
's 2001 biopic A Beautiful Mind
. Her later credits include the 2003 Marvel
superhero
film Hulk
, the 2005 thriller Dark Water
, the 2006 drama Blood Diamond
, the 2008 science fiction remake The Day the Earth Stood Still
and the 2009 romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You
.
Connelly was named Amnesty International Ambassador for Human Rights Education in 2005. She has been the face of Balenciaga
fashion advertisements, as well as for Revlon cosmetics
. Magazines including Time, Vanity Fair
and Esquire
, as well as the Los Angeles Times
newspaper have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.
, in the Catskill Mountains
. She is the daughter of Ilene, an antiques dealer, and Gerard Connelly, a clothing manufacturer. Her father was a Roman Catholic with Irish
and Norwegian
ancestors, while her mother was a yeshiva
-educated Jew of Polish and Russian descent. She was raised in Brooklyn Heights
, near the Brooklyn Bridge
, where she attended Saint Ann's, a private school focused on the arts. Her father suffered from asthma, so the family moved to Woodstock, New York in 1976 to escape the city smog. Four years later, the family returned to Brooklyn Heights, and Connelly resumed her education at the same school.
, which shortly after added her to its roster. Connelly began modeling for print advertisements, before moving on to television commercials. In an interview with The Guardian, she revealed that, after having done a bit of modeling, she had no aspirations to become an actor. She appeared on the cover of several issues of Seventeen
in 1986 and 1988. In December 1986, she recorded two pop songs for the Japanese market: "Monologue of Love" and "Message of Love". Connelly sang in phonetic Japanese as she did not speak the language.
Her mother started taking her to acting auditions; at one of these, she was selected for a supporting role as the young aspiring dancer and actress Deborah Gelly in Sergio Leone
's 1984 gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America
. The role required the performance of a ballet routine. During the audition, Connelly, who had no ballet training, attempted to imitate a ballerina. Her performance, and the similarity of her nose with Elizabeth McGovern
's, who played the character as an adult, convinced the director to cast her. Connelly described the movie as "an incredibly idyllic introduction to movie-making". While Once Upon a Time in America was being filmed, Connelly made her first television appearance, in the episode "Stranger in Town" of the British series Tales of the Unexpected
.
Her first leading role was in Italian giallo
-director Dario Argento
's 1985 film Phenomena
as a young girl who uses her psychic powers to communicate with insects to pursue a serial killer who is butchering students of the Swiss school where she has just enrolled, followed by the lead in the coming-of-age movie Seven Minutes in Heaven
, released the same year.
Of her early career, she said, "Before I knew it, (acting) became what I did. It was a very peculiar way to grow up, combined with my personality". She described herself as feeling like "a kind of walking puppet" through her adolescence, without having time alone to deal with the attention her career was generating.
's 1986 fantasy film Labyrinth
, in which she played Sarah, a teenager on a quest to rescue her brother Toby from the world of goblins. Although a disappointment at the box office, the film later became a cult classic. The New York Times
, while noting the importance of her part, panned her portrayal: "Jennifer Connelly as Sarah is unfortunately disappointing. Perhaps Mr. Henson gave too much attention to his puppets and not enough to developing a compelling performance in his lead actress. She looks right, but she lacks conviction and seems to be reading rehearsed lines that are recited without belief in her goal or real need to accomplish it. Since the film has only five human characters – Sarah, her parents, who appear briefly at the beginning, baby Toby and Jareth, the goblin king – Sarah's role is very important". Two years later, she starred as a ballet student in the Italian film Étoile
, and portrayed college student Gabby in Michael Hoffman's Some Girls
.
Balancing work and school, she studied English for two years at Yale University
in 1988 and 1989, before transferring to Stanford University
in 1990 to study drama. There, she trained with Roy London
, Howard Fine
and Harold Guskin. Encouraged by her parents to continue with her film career, Connelly left college and returned to the movie making industry the same year.
In 1990, Dennis Hopper
directed The Hot Spot
, in which Connelly was cast as Gloria Harper, a woman being blackmailed. The movie was a box office failure. Stephen Schaefer wrote for USA Today
, "Anyone looking for proof that little girls do grow up fast in the movies should take a gander at curvaceous Jennifer Connelly [...] in The Hot Spot. Not yet 20, Connelly has neatly managed the transition from child actress to ingenue". During an interview with Shaeffer, Connelly commented on her first nude scene: "The nudity was hard for me and something I thought about...but it's not in a sleazy context". The same year, director Garry Marshall
considered her for the role of Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman
, but ultimately felt that she was too young for the part.
Connelly's next movie was the 1991 romantic comedy Career Opportunities
, starring alongside Frank Whaley
. The director, John Hughes, was criticized for exploiting Connelly's image. People
deplored an advertisement that showed Whaley watching Connelly ride a mechanical horse; the caption read "He's about to have the ride of his life". In an interview with Rolling Stone
Connelly stated, "I don't know about anyone else, but that wasn't something I felt all that comfortable about. That sure as hell wasn't a subject that I was trying to learn about from my professor".
The big-budget Disney
film The Rocketeer
followed later that year, but failed to ignite her career. She played Jenny Blake, the aspiring actress girlfriend of stunt pilot
Cliff, "the Rocketeer". New York
characterized the movie as "pallid". The review said of her performance, "Connelly is properly cast; she has the moist, full-to-the-cheek bones sensuality of the Hollywood starlets of that period, but she's a little straight".
She appeared alongside Jason Priestley
in the Roy Orbison
music video for "I Drove All Night
" the following year. In 1995, director John Singleton cast Connelly as a lesbian college student in Higher Learning
. She next appeared in the 1996 independent film Far Harbor as Elie, a prominent person in a Hollywood studio who writes a screenplay based on her own traumas.
The neo-noir crime thriller Mulholland Falls
centered on the murder of Allison Pond (Connelly), mistress of General Timms (John Malkovich
), and the investigation by a group of detectives led by Maxwell Hoover (Nick Nolte
), followed the same year. New York wrote about a clip that reveals to the investigators the link between Timms and Pond: "This footage is actually dirty. That is, it makes us feel like voyeurs when looking at it, but it's so juicily erotic that we can hardly look away". About nudity in the movie, Connelly said: "It kind of shocked everyone who knows me that I wound up doing this movie, because I had always been so careful about nudity, it was very much a part of this character and I couldn't be coy or guarded or self-conscious--otherwise it wouldn't work. It was sort of a challenge I wanted to take on, I guess".
She subsequently began to appear in small budget films which did well with critics, such as 1997's drama Inventing the Abbotts
, set in the late 1950s, in which she played the part of Eleanor, one of three daughters of the town millionaire, Lloyd Abbott. About her performance, director Ron Howard
said, "She not only was beautiful and seductive but gave some difficult psychological moments in the film a lot of depth and complexity. She had an extraordinary combination of talent and beauty, and I guess I stored that information in the back of my brain".
Her next appearance was in the critically acclaimed 1998 science fiction film Dark City, where she played alongside Rufus Sewell
, William Hurt
, Ian Richardson
and Kiefer Sutherland
. Connelly portrayed femme fatale
Emma, a torch singer
whose husband, John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), suffers from amnesia. As Murdoch is regaining his memories, Emma is kidnapped by Mr. Hand (Richard O'Brien) and The Strangers, who alter her memories and assign her a new identity. Author Sean McMullen
wrote, "Jennifer Connelly is visually splendid as the 1940s femme fatale. (Emma)"
directed Connelly in the biopic Pollock
in which she played Ruth Kligman
, Jackson Pollock
's mistress. The same year she appeared in what critics considered her breakthrough film, Requiem for a Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky
and based on the novel of the same name
. Connelly played Marion Silver, Harry's (Jared Leto
) girlfriend in a movie that also starred Marlon Wayans
and Ellen Burstyn
. Her character is a middle-class girl from Manhattan Beach
who pursues the dream of establishing a dress shop, but whose addiction ultimately leads to a degrading life of prostitution. Connelly prepared for the role by renting a separate apartment in the building where she lived. During her time in the apartment, Connelly isolated herself, painted, listened to music that she considered that her character would, designed clothes, and used the time to reflect about addictions and their origin. Connelly also talked to addicts and attended Narcotics Anonymous
meetings with one of her friends, who was being treated. Critics acclaimed the individual performances due to the courage needed to demonstrate their characters' constant physical and mental degradation. Connelly stated that she was interested in the script for its depiction of the addictions and their impact on the lives and affections of the characters' relatives. Critic Elvis Mitchell
wrote in The New York Times, "Ms. Connelly, too, whittled herself down to a new weight class, and it's her performance that gives the movie weight, since her fall is the most precipitous. By the end, when she curls into a happy fetal ball with a furtive smile on her face, she has come to love her debasement.... Her dank realization is more disturbing than anything in the novel, and Ms. Connelly has never before done anything to prepare us for how good she is here."
During 2000, she appeared as Catherine Miller in the FOX
drama series The $treet
, about a brokerage house
in New York City.
Also in 2000, she appeared in Waking the Dead
, a film based on the 1986 novel of the same name, playing Sarah Williams, an activist killed by a car bomb in Minneapolis while driving Chilean refugees. Initially, director Keith Gordon was reluctant to cast Connelly. Gordon, who did not consider Connelly a serious actress, was convinced to cast her after her agent, Risa Shapiro, persuaded him to watch Far Harbor. Gordon later stated: "There was a subtlety and depth even to her gaze that captured more of the relationship than I ever could have hoped for." About her role, Connelly said, "Waking the Dead was the first film I worked on where whatever I did felt like my own thing. I was really trying to make something of the part and threw myself into it, so that meant a lot to me". The New York Times described her performance, "As Sarah, Ms. Connelly captures a burning ethereality and willfulness that are very much of the period. And she and Mr. Crudup connect powerfully in love scenes that convey the fierce tenderness of a relationship whose passion carries a tinge of religious fervor."
The script of Ron Howard's 2001 film A Beautiful Mind
, which was loosely based on the 1998 biography of John Nash by the journalist Sylvia Nasar, sparked her interest in the project. Connelly was invited to an audition after her agent, Risa Shapiro, sent the producers a tape with a clip of the then-unreleased Requiem for a Dream. She was cast by the film's producer, Brian Gazer, as Alicia Nash, the long-suffering wife of the brilliant, schizophrenic mathematician played by Russell Crowe
. Howard and the producers eventually chose them after being particularly impressed by their screen chemistry. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing more than US$313 million worldwide. Unlike her co-star, she had the opportunity to meet the real Alicia Nash before starting shooting in order to learn more about her life. For her portrayal, Connelly earned a Golden Globe
, an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and a BAFTA for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Time magazine critic Richard Schickel called her performance "luminous" and the actress intelligent and passionate. Roger Ebert wrote, "...Jennifer Connelly is luminous as Alicia. Although the showier performance belongs to Crowe, it is Connelly's complex work, depicting a woman torn by love for and fear of the same man, that elevates the film to a higher level". Connelly stated afterwards, "[A Beautiful Mind] is the film I'm really proud of and really love." A.O. Scott of The New York Times said, "There is, for one thing, Ms. Connelly, keen and spirited in the underwritten role of a woman who starts out as a math groupie and soon finds herself the helpmeet of a disturbed, difficult man." In relation to previous roles, she expressed: "There was a period where I felt like I wasn't quite being considered for the projects that I wanted to work on because maybe people were thinking. 'I'm not going to cast the girl who was in that movie for this adult project.' I've felt for a long time that this is what I want to do so I'm happy at this point to just take my time and work on projects that I feel really strongly about and the rest of the time just live my life."
According to Connelly, she was interested in Ang Lee
's Hulk
(2003) because of his philosophical perspective on the Marvel Comics superhero. She described it as "a family psycho-drama with hints of Greek tragedy". She played Betty Ross, a scientist and the former girlfriend of the main character, Bruce Banner. The film was a moderate success.
It was followed the same year by The House of Sand and Fog, a drama based on the novel by Andre Dubus III
. She portrayed Kathy Nicolo, an abandoned wife whose inherited house is sold at auction to the Iranian emigre and former colonel Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley
). The film received worldwide critical acclaim, with a BBC
reporter commenting, "[Connelly] convinces totally as a selfish, desperate and lonely woman who confesses to her brother, 'I just feel lost.
, which was based on a 2002 Japanese film of the same name
. She played Dahlia, a frightened young woman traumatized by her past, who moves with her daughter to an apartment in New York City where paranormal happenings take place. In his review, critic Roger Ebert wrote, "I cared about the Jennifer Connelly character; she is not a horror heroine but an actress playing a mother faced with horror. There is a difference, and because of that difference, Dark Water works".
Both films that she appeared in the following year were nominated for multiple Academy Awards. She played Kathy Adamson in an adaptation
of the novel Little Children
alongside Kate Winslet
, a movie which focuses on the relationship between Sarah Pierce (played by Winslet) and Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson
).
Connelly co-starred in Blood Diamond
opposite Leonardo DiCaprio
where she portrayed journalist Maddy Bowen, who is working on exposing the real story behind blood diamonds. New York
praised her performance: "Connelly is such a smart, sane, unhistrionic actress that she almost disguises the fact that her character is a wheeze."
Her next appearance was as Grace in the drama Reservation Road
with Joaquin Phoenix
and Mark Ruffalo
, a film released in 2007. After her son dies in a hit-and-run, Grace gradually tries to overcome her grief, while her husband Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix) becomes obsessed with discovering who killed him. By her own account, the character she played in the movie proved tougher than any of her previous roles. USA Today
's Susan Wloszczyna commented, "The strong performances of Jennifer Connelly and Mark Ruffalo ... raise the film above overheated melodrama".
and Revlon
cosmetics signed Connelly as the face of their 2008 campaigns.
Connelly portrayed astrobiologist Helen Benson alongside Keanu Reeves
in the 2008 remake
of the 1951 science fiction film The Day The Earth Stood Still. Unlike the original movie, in which Benson was a secretary and her relationship with Klaatu was the focus, the remake featured Benson in a troubled relationship with her stepson, portrayed by Jaden Smith
.
This was followed by a role in the 2009 romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You
, which also featured Jennifer Aniston
and Ginnifer Goodwin. The film was based on the self-help book of the same name. Variety
praised her portrayal: "Despite its layer of darkness Connelly gives a really rich performance as a woman whose principles back her into a corner".
In 2009, she appeared in the costume drama biopic Creation
, in which she played Emma Darwin
, wife of Charles Darwin
, opposite her real-life husband Paul Bettany
.
Set during the writing of On the Origin of Species, the movie depicts Darwin's struggle with the subject of the book as well as with his wife, who opposed his theories, and their mourning for their daughter Annie
. The San Francisco Chronicle
wrote, "Darwin's wife, a religious woman who disapproved of her husband's theories, is played by Jennifer Connelly, Bettany's real-life wife, in the kind of casting that doesn't always work, but it does here. We believe in the Darwins' history together, their familiarity and affection. Connelly's English accent is also as good as Renée Zellweger's and Gwyneth Paltrow's. She doesn't get just the sounds right, but also the music and the attitude".
She then voiced the character named "7", an adventurous warrior in the animated film 9.
Dustin Lance Black
's What's Wrong With Virginia
premiered on September 15, 2010, at the Toronto International Film Festival
. Connelly portrayed the title role of Virginia, a mentally unstable woman who has a 20-year affair with the local sheriff, whose daughter then starts a relationship with Virginia's son. According to Cinema Blend
, "Virginia is propped up by a strong central performance, with Connelly doing some of her best work in years".
In 2011, Connelly starred in Ron Howard's comedy The Dilemma, opposite Vince Vaughn
. Although the Austin Chronicle
s review noted, "Vaughn nails it, and his nicely nuanced everyguy performance is aided by the always-excellent Connelly," the movie opened to generally negative reviews. Variety remarked, "Connelly, though a shade looser and more spontaneous than usual, seems stuck at an emotional remove from the action".
Her next project, George Ratliff's Salvation Boulevard
, premiered during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival
. In the film Connelly played Gwen, the wife of Carl Vanderveer (Greg Kinnear
); the couple are members of the Church of the Third Millennium, led by pastor Dan (Pierce Brosnan
).
On January 1, 2003, she married actor Paul Bettany
, whom she had met while working on A Beautiful Mind
, in a private family ceremony in Scotland. The couple's first child, Stellan, named after their friend, actor Stellan Skarsgård
, was born the same year. She gave birth to her third child, Agnes Lark, on May 31, 2011, in New York City.
On November 14, 2005, Connelly was named Amnesty International
Ambassador for Human Rights Education. She appeared in an advertisement highlighting the global need for clean water, and sought donations for African, Indian, and Central American drilling projects. On May 2, 2009, she participated in Revlon's annual 5k Run/Walk for Women.
Publications such as Vanity Fair
, Esquire
, and the Los Angeles Times
have ranked her among the most beautiful women in the world.
Once Upon a Time in America
Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 Italian epic crime film co-written and directed by Sergio Leone and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. The story chronicles the lives of Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence in New York City's world of organized crime...
. Connelly continued modeling and acting, starring in films such as the 1986 Labyrinth
Labyrinth (film)
Labyrinth is a 1986 British/American fantasy film directed by Jim Henson, produced by George Lucas, and designed by Brian Froud. Henson collaborated on the screenwriting with children's author Dennis Lee, Terry Jones from Monty Python, and Elaine May .The film stars David Bowie as Jareth the Goblin...
and the 1991 Career Opportunities
Career Opportunities (film)
Career Opportunities is a 1991 American romantic comedy film starring Frank Whaley in his first lead role and co-starred Jennifer Connelly in one of her first. It was written and produced by John Hughes and directed by Bryan Gordon.-Plot:...
. She gained critical acclaim for her work in the 1998 science fiction film Dark City and for her portrayal of Marion Silver in the 2000 drama Requiem for a Dream.
In 2002, Connelly won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
and a BAFTA Award for her supporting role as Alicia Nash in Ron Howard
Ron Howard
Ronald William "Ron" Howard is an American actor, director, and producer. He came to prominence as a child actor, playing Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later the teenaged Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days for six years...
's 2001 biopic A Beautiful Mind
A Beautiful Mind (film)
A Beautiful Mind is a 2001 American drama film based on the life of John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics. The film was directed by Ron Howard and written by Akiva Goldsman. It was inspired by a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-nominated 1998 book of the same name by Sylvia Nasar...
. Her later credits include the 2003 Marvel
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
film Hulk
Hulk (film)
Hulk is a 2003 American superhero film based on the fictional Marvel Comics character of the same name. Ang Lee directed the film, which stars Eric Bana as Dr. Bruce Banner, as well as Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott, Josh Lucas, and Nick Nolte...
, the 2005 thriller Dark Water
Dark Water (2005 film)
Dark Water is a 2005 American horror-thriller film directed by Walter Salles, starring Jennifer Connelly and Tim Roth. The film is a remake of the 2002 Japanese film of the same name, and also stars John C. Reilly, Pete Postlethwaite, Perla Haney-Jardine and Ariel Gade...
, the 2006 drama Blood Diamond
Blood Diamond (film)
Blood Diamond is a 2006 political thriller film co-produced and directed by Edward Zwick and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou...
, the 2008 science fiction remake The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 2008 science fiction film, a remake of the 1951 film of the same name. The screenplay is based on the 1940 classic science fiction short story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates, and the 1951 screenplay adaptation by Edmund H...
and the 2009 romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You
He's Just Not That into You (film)
He's Just Not That Into You is a 2009 American romantic comedy film directed by Ken Kwapis, based on the self-help book of the same name by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, which in turn was inspired by a line of dialogue in Sex and the City...
.
Connelly was named Amnesty International Ambassador for Human Rights Education in 2005. She has been the face of Balenciaga
Balenciaga
Balenciaga is a fashion house founded by Cristóbal Balenciaga, a Basque designer, born in the Basque Country, Spain. He had a reputation as a couturier of uncompromising standards and was referred to as "the master of us all" by Christian Dior. His bubble skirts and odd, feminine, yet ultra-modern...
fashion advertisements, as well as for Revlon cosmetics
Revlon
Revlon is an American cosmetics, skin care, fragrance, and personal care company founded in 1932.-History:Revlon was founded in the midst of the Great Depression, 1932, by Charles Revson and his brother Joseph, along with a chemist, Charles Lachman, who contributed the "L" in the Revlon name...
. Magazines including Time, Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
and Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
, as well as the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
newspaper have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.
Early life
Connelly was born in Round Top, New YorkCairo (town), New York
Cairo is a town in Greene County, New York, United States. The population was 6,610 at the 2010 census. The town is in the south part of the county, partly in the Catskill Park. Cairo is named after Cairo in Egypt, but is pronounced "Care-o" .- History :...
, in the Catskill Mountains
Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, an area in New York State northwest of New York City and southwest of Albany, are a mature dissected plateau, an uplifted region that was subsequently eroded into sharp relief. They are an eastward continuation, and the highest representation, of the Allegheny Plateau...
. She is the daughter of Ilene, an antiques dealer, and Gerard Connelly, a clothing manufacturer. Her father was a Roman Catholic with Irish
Irish American
Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...
and Norwegian
Norwegian American
Norwegian Americans are Americans of Norwegian descent. Norwegian immigrants went to the United States primarily in the later half of the 19th century and the first few decades of the 20th century. There are more than 4.5 million Norwegian Americans according to the most recent U.S. census, and...
ancestors, while her mother was a yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
-educated Jew of Polish and Russian descent. She was raised in Brooklyn Heights
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
Brooklyn Heights is a culturally diverse neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Originally referred to as 'Brooklyn Village', it has been a prominent area of Brooklyn since 1834. As of 2000, Brooklyn Heights sustained a population of 22,594 people. The neighborhood is part of...
, near the Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River...
, where she attended Saint Ann's, a private school focused on the arts. Her father suffered from asthma, so the family moved to Woodstock, New York in 1976 to escape the city smog. Four years later, the family returned to Brooklyn Heights, and Connelly resumed her education at the same school.
Child modeling and early movie appearances
When Connelly was ten years old, an advertising executive friend of her father suggested she audition as a model. Her parents sent a picture of her to the Ford Modeling AgencyFord Models
The Ford Modeling Agency, or as it is known today Ford Models, is a modeling agency in New York City. It was established in 1946 by Eileen and the late Gerard W. Ford.-Company:...
, which shortly after added her to its roster. Connelly began modeling for print advertisements, before moving on to television commercials. In an interview with The Guardian, she revealed that, after having done a bit of modeling, she had no aspirations to become an actor. She appeared on the cover of several issues of Seventeen
Seventeen (magazine)
Seventeen is an American magazine for teenagers. It was first published in September 1944 by Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications. News Corporation bought Triangle in 1988, and sold Seventeen to K-III Communications in 1991. Primedia sold the magazine to Hearst in 2003. It is still in the...
in 1986 and 1988. In December 1986, she recorded two pop songs for the Japanese market: "Monologue of Love" and "Message of Love". Connelly sang in phonetic Japanese as she did not speak the language.
Her mother started taking her to acting auditions; at one of these, she was selected for a supporting role as the young aspiring dancer and actress Deborah Gelly in Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter most associated with the "Spaghetti Western" genre.Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots...
's 1984 gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America
Once Upon a Time in America
Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 Italian epic crime film co-written and directed by Sergio Leone and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. The story chronicles the lives of Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence in New York City's world of organized crime...
. The role required the performance of a ballet routine. During the audition, Connelly, who had no ballet training, attempted to imitate a ballerina. Her performance, and the similarity of her nose with Elizabeth McGovern
Elizabeth McGovern
-Early life:McGovern was born in Evanston, Illinois, the daughter of Katharine Wolcott , a high school teacher, and William Montgomery McGovern, Jr., a university professor. Her paternal grandfather was adventurer William Montgomery McGovern and her maternal great-grandfather was U.S. diplomat...
's, who played the character as an adult, convinced the director to cast her. Connelly described the movie as "an incredibly idyllic introduction to movie-making". While Once Upon a Time in America was being filmed, Connelly made her first television appearance, in the episode "Stranger in Town" of the British series Tales of the Unexpected
Tales of the Unexpected (TV series)
Tales of the Unexpected is a British television series originally aired between 1979 and 1988, made by Anglia Television for ITV. Filming began in 1978.The series was an anthology of different tales...
.
Her first leading role was in Italian giallo
Giallo
Giallo is an Italian 20th century genre of literature and film, which in Italian indicates crime fiction and mystery. In the English language it refers to a genre similar to the French fantastique genre and includes elements of horror fiction and eroticism...
-director Dario Argento
Dario Argento
Dario Argento is an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work in the horror film genre, particularly in the subgenre known as giallo, and for his influence on modern horror and slasher movies....
's 1985 film Phenomena
Phenomena (film)
Phenomena is a 1985 Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento. An edited version of the film was released in the United States under the title Creepers , the game called Clock_Tower_ that was released in 1995 for snes , was loosely based on Phenomena.Jennifer Connelly stars as a young girl who...
as a young girl who uses her psychic powers to communicate with insects to pursue a serial killer who is butchering students of the Swiss school where she has just enrolled, followed by the lead in the coming-of-age movie Seven Minutes in Heaven
Seven Minutes in Heaven (film)
Seven Minutes in Heaven is a 1985 teen film directed by Linda Feferman, starring Jennifer Connelly in one of her first roles.-Plot:Natalie allows her classmate Jeff , who ran away from home after a fight with his stepfather , to stay at her place while her father is away on a business trip...
, released the same year.
Of her early career, she said, "Before I knew it, (acting) became what I did. It was a very peculiar way to grow up, combined with my personality". She described herself as feeling like "a kind of walking puppet" through her adolescence, without having time alone to deal with the attention her career was generating.
1980s–1990s
Connelly gained public recognition with Jim HensonJim Henson
James Maury "Jim" Henson was an American puppeteer best known as the creator of The Muppets. As a puppeteer, Henson performed in various television programs, such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, films such as The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, and created advanced puppets for...
's 1986 fantasy film Labyrinth
Labyrinth (film)
Labyrinth is a 1986 British/American fantasy film directed by Jim Henson, produced by George Lucas, and designed by Brian Froud. Henson collaborated on the screenwriting with children's author Dennis Lee, Terry Jones from Monty Python, and Elaine May .The film stars David Bowie as Jareth the Goblin...
, in which she played Sarah, a teenager on a quest to rescue her brother Toby from the world of goblins. Although a disappointment at the box office, the film later became a cult classic. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, while noting the importance of her part, panned her portrayal: "Jennifer Connelly as Sarah is unfortunately disappointing. Perhaps Mr. Henson gave too much attention to his puppets and not enough to developing a compelling performance in his lead actress. She looks right, but she lacks conviction and seems to be reading rehearsed lines that are recited without belief in her goal or real need to accomplish it. Since the film has only five human characters – Sarah, her parents, who appear briefly at the beginning, baby Toby and Jareth, the goblin king – Sarah's role is very important". Two years later, she starred as a ballet student in the Italian film Étoile
Étoile (film)
Étoile, also known as Ballet or Star, is a 1989 film starring Jennifer Connelly and Gary McCleery.-Plot:The American ballerina Claire Hamilton travels to Hungary to join a prestigious ballet school...
, and portrayed college student Gabby in Michael Hoffman's Some Girls
Some Girls (film)
-Synopsis:The story revolves around a college student Michael who goes to Quebec City, Canada for Christmas at the request of his college girlfriend Gabriella , after months of her stonewalling him after she left college in mid-semester....
.
Balancing work and school, she studied English for two years at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1988 and 1989, before transferring to Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
in 1990 to study drama. There, she trained with Roy London
Roy London
Roy London was an American actor and acting coach and teacher.-Early life:London was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City. A math prodigy at age five, London was on the radio show, Quiz Kids, and educated at the experimental elementary school at Hunter College, NYC...
, Howard Fine
Howard Fine
Howard Fine is an American acting teacher, the founder of the Howard Fine Acting Studio in Hollywood, CA, and a theatre director.-Early life:...
and Harold Guskin. Encouraged by her parents to continue with her film career, Connelly left college and returned to the movie making industry the same year.
In 1990, Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
directed The Hot Spot
The Hot Spot
The Hot Spot is a 1990 American drama film directed by Dennis Hopper and based on the 1952 book Hell Hath No Fury by Charles Williams. It stars Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, and Jennifer Connelly, and features a score by Jack Nitzsche played by John Lee Hooker, Miles Davis, Taj Mahal and Roy...
, in which Connelly was cast as Gloria Harper, a woman being blackmailed. The movie was a box office failure. Stephen Schaefer wrote for USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, "Anyone looking for proof that little girls do grow up fast in the movies should take a gander at curvaceous Jennifer Connelly [...] in The Hot Spot. Not yet 20, Connelly has neatly managed the transition from child actress to ingenue". During an interview with Shaeffer, Connelly commented on her first nude scene: "The nudity was hard for me and something I thought about...but it's not in a sleazy context". The same year, director Garry Marshall
Garry Marshall
Garry Kent Marshall is an American actor, director, writer and producer. His notable credits include creating Happy Days and The Odd Couple and directing Nothing In Common, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, Valentine's Day, and The Princess Diaries.-Early life:Marshall was born in the New York City...
considered her for the role of Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman
Pretty Woman
Pretty Woman is a 1990 romantic comedy film set in Los Angeles, California. Written by J.F. Lawton and directed by Garry Marshall, this motion picture features Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, and also Hector Elizondo, Ralph Bellamy, and Jason Alexander in supporting roles. Roberts played the only...
, but ultimately felt that she was too young for the part.
Connelly's next movie was the 1991 romantic comedy Career Opportunities
Career Opportunities (film)
Career Opportunities is a 1991 American romantic comedy film starring Frank Whaley in his first lead role and co-starred Jennifer Connelly in one of her first. It was written and produced by John Hughes and directed by Bryan Gordon.-Plot:...
, starring alongside Frank Whaley
Frank Whaley
Frank Joseph Whaley is an American film and television actor known for his roles in independent films.-Personal life:Whaley was born in Syracuse, New York, the son of Josephine and Robert W. Whaley, Sr. He is half-Irish and half-Sicilian and grew up in Syracuse. He has two sisters and an older...
. The director, John Hughes, was criticized for exploiting Connelly's image. People
People (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
deplored an advertisement that showed Whaley watching Connelly ride a mechanical horse; the caption read "He's about to have the ride of his life". In an interview with Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
Connelly stated, "I don't know about anyone else, but that wasn't something I felt all that comfortable about. That sure as hell wasn't a subject that I was trying to learn about from my professor".
The big-budget Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
film The Rocketeer
The Rocketeer (film)
The Rocketeer is a 1991 period superhero adventure film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and based on the character of the same name created by comic book writer/artist Dave Stevens. Directed by Joe Johnston, the film stars Billy Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Alan Arkin, Timothy Dalton, Paul Sorvino...
followed later that year, but failed to ignite her career. She played Jenny Blake, the aspiring actress girlfriend of stunt pilot
Aerobatics
Aerobatics is the practice of flying maneuvers involving aircraft attitudes that are not used in normal flight. Aerobatics are performed in airplanes and gliders for training, recreation, entertainment and sport...
Cliff, "the Rocketeer". New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
characterized the movie as "pallid". The review said of her performance, "Connelly is properly cast; she has the moist, full-to-the-cheek bones sensuality of the Hollywood starlets of that period, but she's a little straight".
She appeared alongside Jason Priestley
Jason Priestley
Jason Bradford Priestley is a Canadian-American actor and director. He is best known as the virtuous Brandon Walsh on the television series Beverly Hills, 90210, a role which catapulted him to recognition in the early 1990s....
in the Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...
music video for "I Drove All Night
I Drove All Night
"I Drove All Night" is a song written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly and made famous by Cyndi Lauper. The song was originally written for Roy Orbison, who recorded it in 1987, but his rendition was not released until 1992, after the song had become a top 10 hit on both sides of the Atlantic for...
" the following year. In 1995, director John Singleton cast Connelly as a lesbian college student in Higher Learning
Higher Learning
Higher Learning is a 1995 American drama film, starring an ensemble cast. It also featured Tyra Banks' first performance in a theatrical film...
. She next appeared in the 1996 independent film Far Harbor as Elie, a prominent person in a Hollywood studio who writes a screenplay based on her own traumas.
The neo-noir crime thriller Mulholland Falls
Mulholland Falls
Mulholland Falls is a 1996 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Lee Tamahori and written by Pete Dexter. The drama features Andrew McCarthy, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Connelly, Chazz Palminteri, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Melanie Griffith, Treat Williams, and John Malkovich.Nolte plays the...
centered on the murder of Allison Pond (Connelly), mistress of General Timms (John Malkovich
John Malkovich
John Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...
), and the investigation by a group of detectives led by Maxwell Hoover (Nick Nolte
Nick Nolte
Nicholas King "Nick" Nolte is an American actor whose career has spanned over five decades, peaking in the 1990s when his commercial success made him one of the most popular celebrities of that decade.-Early life:...
), followed the same year. New York wrote about a clip that reveals to the investigators the link between Timms and Pond: "This footage is actually dirty. That is, it makes us feel like voyeurs when looking at it, but it's so juicily erotic that we can hardly look away". About nudity in the movie, Connelly said: "It kind of shocked everyone who knows me that I wound up doing this movie, because I had always been so careful about nudity, it was very much a part of this character and I couldn't be coy or guarded or self-conscious--otherwise it wouldn't work. It was sort of a challenge I wanted to take on, I guess".
She subsequently began to appear in small budget films which did well with critics, such as 1997's drama Inventing the Abbotts
Inventing the Abbotts
Inventing the Abbotts is a 1997 romance film directed by Pat O'Connor, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Crudup, Liv Tyler, Jennifer Connelly, and Michael Keaton. The screenplay by Ken Hixon is based on a short story by Sue Miller. The original music score is composed by Michael Kamen...
, set in the late 1950s, in which she played the part of Eleanor, one of three daughters of the town millionaire, Lloyd Abbott. About her performance, director Ron Howard
Ron Howard
Ronald William "Ron" Howard is an American actor, director, and producer. He came to prominence as a child actor, playing Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later the teenaged Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days for six years...
said, "She not only was beautiful and seductive but gave some difficult psychological moments in the film a lot of depth and complexity. She had an extraordinary combination of talent and beauty, and I guess I stored that information in the back of my brain".
Her next appearance was in the critically acclaimed 1998 science fiction film Dark City, where she played alongside Rufus Sewell
Rufus Sewell
Rufus Frederik Sewell is an English actor. In film, he has appeared in The Woodlanders, Dangerous Beauty, Dark City, A Knight's Tale, The Illusionist, Tristan and Isolde, and Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence. On television, he starred in the 2010 mini-series The Pillars of the Earth...
, William Hurt
William Hurt
William McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...
, Ian Richardson
Ian Richardson
Ian William Richardson CBE was a Scottish actor best known for his portrayal of the Machiavellian Tory politician Francis Urquhart in the BBC's House of Cards trilogy. He was also a leading Shakespearean stage actor....
and Kiefer Sutherland
Kiefer Sutherland
Kiefer Sutherland is an English-born Canadian actor, producer and director, best known for his portrayal of Jack Bauer on the Fox thriller drama series 24 for which he has won an Emmy Award , a Golden Globe award , two Screen Actors Guild Awards and two Satellite...
. Connelly portrayed femme fatale
Femme fatale
A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
Emma, a torch singer
Torch song
A torch song is a sentimental love song, typically one in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, either where one party is oblivious to the existence of the other, where one party has moved on, or where a romantic affair has affected the relationship...
whose husband, John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), suffers from amnesia. As Murdoch is regaining his memories, Emma is kidnapped by Mr. Hand (Richard O'Brien) and The Strangers, who alter her memories and assign her a new identity. Author Sean McMullen
Sean McMullen
Sean Christopher McMullen is an Australian science fiction and fantasy author.-Biography:McMullen has a degree in physics and history from Melbourne University , a postgraduate degree in library and information science, and a PhD in Medieval Literature...
wrote, "Jennifer Connelly is visually splendid as the 1940s femme fatale. (Emma)"
Early 2000s
In 2000, Ed HarrisEd Harris
Edward Allen "Ed" Harris is an American actor, writer, and director, known for his performances in Appaloosa, Radio, The Rock, The Abyss, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, A History of Violence, and The Truman Show. Harris has also narrated commercials for The Home Depot and other companies...
directed Connelly in the biopic Pollock
Pollock (film)
Pollock is a 2000 biographical drama film which tells the life story of painter Jackson Pollock. It stars Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Robert Knott, Bud Cort, Molly Regan, Marcia Gay Harden and Sada Thompson.-Plot:...
in which she played Ruth Kligman
Ruth Kligman
Ruth Kligman was an American abstract artist and writer most commonly known as the muse of several other American artists of the mid-20th century including Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning....
, Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
's mistress. The same year she appeared in what critics considered her breakthrough film, Requiem for a Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky is an American film director, screenwriter and film producer. He attended Harvard University to study film theory and the American Film Institute to study both live-action and animation filmmaking...
and based on the novel of the same name
Requiem for a Dream (novel)
Requiem for a Dream is a 1978 novel by Hubert Selby, Jr., that concerns four New Yorkers whose lives spiral out of control as they succumb to their addictions....
. Connelly played Marion Silver, Harry's (Jared Leto
Jared Leto
Jared Joseph Leto is an American actor, director, producer, occasional model and musician. Leto has appeared in both big budget Hollywood films and smaller projects from independent producers and art houses. He rose to prominence for playing Jordan Catalano in the teenage drama My So-Called Life...
) girlfriend in a movie that also starred Marlon Wayans
Marlon Wayans
Marlon L. Wayans is an American actor, model producer, comedian, writer, and director of movies, beginning with his role as a pedestrian in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka in 1988...
and Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...
. Her character is a middle-class girl from Manhattan Beach
Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn
Manhattan Beach is a residential neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the south and east, by Sheepshead Bay on the north, and Brighton Beach to the west. Traditionally known as an Italian and Ashkenazi Jewish neighborhood, it is also home to...
who pursues the dream of establishing a dress shop, but whose addiction ultimately leads to a degrading life of prostitution. Connelly prepared for the role by renting a separate apartment in the building where she lived. During her time in the apartment, Connelly isolated herself, painted, listened to music that she considered that her character would, designed clothes, and used the time to reflect about addictions and their origin. Connelly also talked to addicts and attended Narcotics Anonymous
Narcotics Anonymous
Narcotics Anonymous is a twelve-step program modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous describing itself as a "fellowship or society of men and women for whom drugs had become a major problem," and it is the second-largest 12-step organization...
meetings with one of her friends, who was being treated. Critics acclaimed the individual performances due to the courage needed to demonstrate their characters' constant physical and mental degradation. Connelly stated that she was interested in the script for its depiction of the addictions and their impact on the lives and affections of the characters' relatives. Critic Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell is an American film critic, host of the public radio show The Treatment, and visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He has served as a film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the LA Weekly, The Detroit Free Press, and The New York Times...
wrote in The New York Times, "Ms. Connelly, too, whittled herself down to a new weight class, and it's her performance that gives the movie weight, since her fall is the most precipitous. By the end, when she curls into a happy fetal ball with a furtive smile on her face, she has come to love her debasement.... Her dank realization is more disturbing than anything in the novel, and Ms. Connelly has never before done anything to prepare us for how good she is here."
During 2000, she appeared as Catherine Miller in the FOX
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
drama series The $treet
The $treet
The $treet is an American television drama series that aired on Fox in 2000. 11 episodes were produced and 6 aired in the U.S.The series was about a small brokerage house called Belmont Stevens located in New York and the lives of its employees. Freddie Sacker was one of the most notable...
, about a brokerage house
Stock broker
A stock broker or stockbroker is a regulated professional broker who buys and sells shares and other securities through market makers or Agency Only Firms on behalf of investors...
in New York City.
Also in 2000, she appeared in Waking the Dead
Waking the Dead (film)
Waking the Dead is a 2000 American drama film directed by Keith Gordon. The screenplay by Robert Dillon is based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Scott Spencer.-Plot:...
, a film based on the 1986 novel of the same name, playing Sarah Williams, an activist killed by a car bomb in Minneapolis while driving Chilean refugees. Initially, director Keith Gordon was reluctant to cast Connelly. Gordon, who did not consider Connelly a serious actress, was convinced to cast her after her agent, Risa Shapiro, persuaded him to watch Far Harbor. Gordon later stated: "There was a subtlety and depth even to her gaze that captured more of the relationship than I ever could have hoped for." About her role, Connelly said, "Waking the Dead was the first film I worked on where whatever I did felt like my own thing. I was really trying to make something of the part and threw myself into it, so that meant a lot to me". The New York Times described her performance, "As Sarah, Ms. Connelly captures a burning ethereality and willfulness that are very much of the period. And she and Mr. Crudup connect powerfully in love scenes that convey the fierce tenderness of a relationship whose passion carries a tinge of religious fervor."
The script of Ron Howard's 2001 film A Beautiful Mind
A Beautiful Mind (film)
A Beautiful Mind is a 2001 American drama film based on the life of John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics. The film was directed by Ron Howard and written by Akiva Goldsman. It was inspired by a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-nominated 1998 book of the same name by Sylvia Nasar...
, which was loosely based on the 1998 biography of John Nash by the journalist Sylvia Nasar, sparked her interest in the project. Connelly was invited to an audition after her agent, Risa Shapiro, sent the producers a tape with a clip of the then-unreleased Requiem for a Dream. She was cast by the film's producer, Brian Gazer, as Alicia Nash, the long-suffering wife of the brilliant, schizophrenic mathematician played by Russell Crowe
Russell Crowe
Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
. Howard and the producers eventually chose them after being particularly impressed by their screen chemistry. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing more than US$313 million worldwide. Unlike her co-star, she had the opportunity to meet the real Alicia Nash before starting shooting in order to learn more about her life. For her portrayal, Connelly earned a Golden Globe
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
, an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and a BAFTA for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Time magazine critic Richard Schickel called her performance "luminous" and the actress intelligent and passionate. Roger Ebert wrote, "...Jennifer Connelly is luminous as Alicia. Although the showier performance belongs to Crowe, it is Connelly's complex work, depicting a woman torn by love for and fear of the same man, that elevates the film to a higher level". Connelly stated afterwards, "[A Beautiful Mind] is the film I'm really proud of and really love." A.O. Scott of The New York Times said, "There is, for one thing, Ms. Connelly, keen and spirited in the underwritten role of a woman who starts out as a math groupie and soon finds herself the helpmeet of a disturbed, difficult man." In relation to previous roles, she expressed: "There was a period where I felt like I wasn't quite being considered for the projects that I wanted to work on because maybe people were thinking. 'I'm not going to cast the girl who was in that movie for this adult project.' I've felt for a long time that this is what I want to do so I'm happy at this point to just take my time and work on projects that I feel really strongly about and the rest of the time just live my life."
According to Connelly, she was interested in Ang Lee
Ang Lee
Ang Lee is a Taiwanese film director. Lee has directed a diverse set of films such as Eat Drink Man Woman , Sense and Sensibility , Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , Hulk , and Brokeback Mountain , for which he won an Academy...
's Hulk
Hulk (film)
Hulk is a 2003 American superhero film based on the fictional Marvel Comics character of the same name. Ang Lee directed the film, which stars Eric Bana as Dr. Bruce Banner, as well as Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott, Josh Lucas, and Nick Nolte...
(2003) because of his philosophical perspective on the Marvel Comics superhero. She described it as "a family psycho-drama with hints of Greek tragedy". She played Betty Ross, a scientist and the former girlfriend of the main character, Bruce Banner. The film was a moderate success.
It was followed the same year by The House of Sand and Fog, a drama based on the novel by Andre Dubus III
Andre Dubus III
Andre Dubus III is an American novelist and writer of short stories. He is a member of the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.-Early life and career:...
. She portrayed Kathy Nicolo, an abandoned wife whose inherited house is sold at auction to the Iranian emigre and former colonel Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
). The film received worldwide critical acclaim, with a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
reporter commenting, "[Connelly] convinces totally as a selfish, desperate and lonely woman who confesses to her brother, 'I just feel lost.
2005–2007
After a two-year absence from the film scene, Connelly returned in the 2005 horror/psychological thriller Dark WaterDark Water (2005 film)
Dark Water is a 2005 American horror-thriller film directed by Walter Salles, starring Jennifer Connelly and Tim Roth. The film is a remake of the 2002 Japanese film of the same name, and also stars John C. Reilly, Pete Postlethwaite, Perla Haney-Jardine and Ariel Gade...
, which was based on a 2002 Japanese film of the same name
Dark Water (2002 film)
Dark Water is a 2002 Japanese drama-horror film directed by Hideo Nakata, the director of Ring and Ring 2. Dark Water is based on Floating Water, a short story by Koji Suzuki. Its Japanese name is Honogurai mizu no soko kara , which is also the name of the horror anthology by Koji Suzuki...
. She played Dahlia, a frightened young woman traumatized by her past, who moves with her daughter to an apartment in New York City where paranormal happenings take place. In his review, critic Roger Ebert wrote, "I cared about the Jennifer Connelly character; she is not a horror heroine but an actress playing a mother faced with horror. There is a difference, and because of that difference, Dark Water works".
Both films that she appeared in the following year were nominated for multiple Academy Awards. She played Kathy Adamson in an adaptation
Little Children (film)
Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville...
of the novel Little Children
Little Children (novel)
Little Children is a 2004 novel by American author Tom Perrotta that interweaves the darkly comedic stories of seven main characters, all of whom live in the same suburban Boston neighborhood during the middle of a hot summer...
alongside Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
, a movie which focuses on the relationship between Sarah Pierce (played by Winslet) and Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson
Patrick Wilson (actor)
Patrick Joseph Wilson is an American actor and singer. Wilson has spent years singing lead roles in major Broadway musicals, beginning in 1996. In 2003, he appeared in the HBO mini-series Angels in America...
).
Connelly co-starred in Blood Diamond
Blood Diamond (film)
Blood Diamond is a 2006 political thriller film co-produced and directed by Edward Zwick and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou...
opposite Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
where she portrayed journalist Maddy Bowen, who is working on exposing the real story behind blood diamonds. New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
praised her performance: "Connelly is such a smart, sane, unhistrionic actress that she almost disguises the fact that her character is a wheeze."
Her next appearance was as Grace in the drama Reservation Road
Reservation Road
Reservation Road is a 2007 film directed by Terry George and based on the book of the same title by John Burnham Schwartz, who, along with George, adapted the novel for the screenplay. The film, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo, deals with the aftermath of a tragic car accident...
with Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Rafael Phoenix , formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American film actor. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his family returned to the continental United States four years later...
and Mark Ruffalo
Mark Ruffalo
Mark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He starred in films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Zodiac, Shutter Island, Just Like Heaven, You Can Count on Me and The Kids Are All Right for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best...
, a film released in 2007. After her son dies in a hit-and-run, Grace gradually tries to overcome her grief, while her husband Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix) becomes obsessed with discovering who killed him. By her own account, the character she played in the movie proved tougher than any of her previous roles. USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
's Susan Wloszczyna commented, "The strong performances of Jennifer Connelly and Mark Ruffalo ... raise the film above overheated melodrama".
2008–2011
Parisian fashion house BalenciagaBalenciaga
Balenciaga is a fashion house founded by Cristóbal Balenciaga, a Basque designer, born in the Basque Country, Spain. He had a reputation as a couturier of uncompromising standards and was referred to as "the master of us all" by Christian Dior. His bubble skirts and odd, feminine, yet ultra-modern...
and Revlon
Revlon
Revlon is an American cosmetics, skin care, fragrance, and personal care company founded in 1932.-History:Revlon was founded in the midst of the Great Depression, 1932, by Charles Revson and his brother Joseph, along with a chemist, Charles Lachman, who contributed the "L" in the Revlon name...
cosmetics signed Connelly as the face of their 2008 campaigns.
Connelly portrayed astrobiologist Helen Benson alongside Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves
Keanu Charles Reeves is a Canadian actor. Reeves is perhaps best known for his roles in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Speed, Point Break and the science fiction-action trilogy The Matrix...
in the 2008 remake
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 film)
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 2008 science fiction film, a remake of the 1951 film of the same name. The screenplay is based on the 1940 classic science fiction short story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates, and the 1951 screenplay adaptation by Edmund H...
of the 1951 science fiction film The Day The Earth Stood Still. Unlike the original movie, in which Benson was a secretary and her relationship with Klaatu was the focus, the remake featured Benson in a troubled relationship with her stepson, portrayed by Jaden Smith
Jaden Smith
Jaden Christopher Syre Smith is an American child actor, rapper, songwriter, dancer, and the son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. He is the elder brother of singer Willow Smith...
.
This was followed by a role in the 2009 romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You
He's Just Not That into You (film)
He's Just Not That Into You is a 2009 American romantic comedy film directed by Ken Kwapis, based on the self-help book of the same name by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, which in turn was inspired by a line of dialogue in Sex and the City...
, which also featured Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Joanna Aniston is an American actress, film director, and producer, best known for her role as Rachel Green on the television sitcom Friends, a role which earned her an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.Aniston has also enjoyed a successful film career,...
and Ginnifer Goodwin. The film was based on the self-help book of the same name. Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
praised her portrayal: "Despite its layer of darkness Connelly gives a really rich performance as a woman whose principles back her into a corner".
In 2009, she appeared in the costume drama biopic Creation
Creation (2009 film)
Creation is a 2009 British biographical drama film. Produced by Jeremy Thomas, the film was directed by Jon Amiel, and stars Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly as Charles and Emma Darwin...
, in which she played Emma Darwin
Emma Darwin
Emma Darwin was the wife and first cousin of Charles Darwin, the English naturalist, scientist and author of On the Origin of Species...
, wife of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, opposite her real-life husband Paul Bettany
Paul Bettany
Paul Bettany is an English actor. He has appeared in a wide variety of films, including A Knight's Tale, A Beautiful Mind, and The Da Vinci Code...
.
Set during the writing of On the Origin of Species, the movie depicts Darwin's struggle with the subject of the book as well as with his wife, who opposed his theories, and their mourning for their daughter Annie
Anne Darwin
Anne Elizabeth "Annie" Darwin was the second child and eldest daughter of Charles and Emma Darwin. According to biographers, she was a delightful child who brought much happiness to her parents. Eminent Darwin scholar E...
. The San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
wrote, "Darwin's wife, a religious woman who disapproved of her husband's theories, is played by Jennifer Connelly, Bettany's real-life wife, in the kind of casting that doesn't always work, but it does here. We believe in the Darwins' history together, their familiarity and affection. Connelly's English accent is also as good as Renée Zellweger's and Gwyneth Paltrow's. She doesn't get just the sounds right, but also the music and the attitude".
She then voiced the character named "7", an adventurous warrior in the animated film 9.
Dustin Lance Black
Dustin Lance Black
Dustin Lance Black is an American screenwriter, director, film and television producer, and LGBT rights activist. He has won two Writers Guild of America Awards for his work on the television series Big Love and an Academy Award for the 2008 film Milk.-Early life:Black was born in Sacramento,...
's What's Wrong With Virginia
What's Wrong with Virginia
What's Wrong with Virginia is a 2010 film by director Dustin Lance Black, starring Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Emma Roberts, Carrie Preston and Toby Jones.- Plot :...
premiered on September 15, 2010, at the Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
. Connelly portrayed the title role of Virginia, a mentally unstable woman who has a 20-year affair with the local sheriff, whose daughter then starts a relationship with Virginia's son. According to Cinema Blend
Cinema Blend
Cinema Blend is a website founded and run by Josh Tyler dedicated to news and reviews of upcoming and currently playing films, movie projects, Television Shows, and a newly founded Music section which covers album reviews, band interviews and daily news from the industry. It combines gossip from...
, "Virginia is propped up by a strong central performance, with Connelly doing some of her best work in years".
In 2011, Connelly starred in Ron Howard's comedy The Dilemma, opposite Vince Vaughn
Vince Vaughn
Vincent Anthony "Vince" Vaughn is an American film actor, screenwriter, producer and comedian. He began acting in the late 1980s, appearing in minor television roles before attaining wider recognition with the 1996 movie Swingers...
. Although the Austin Chronicle
Austin Chronicle
The Austin Chronicle is an alternative weekly, tabloid-style newspaper published every Thursday in Austin, Texas, United States. The paper is distributed through free news-stands, often at local eateries or coffee houses frequented by its targeted demographic...
s review noted, "Vaughn nails it, and his nicely nuanced everyguy performance is aided by the always-excellent Connelly," the movie opened to generally negative reviews. Variety remarked, "Connelly, though a shade looser and more spontaneous than usual, seems stuck at an emotional remove from the action".
Her next project, George Ratliff's Salvation Boulevard
Salvation Boulevard
Salvation Boulevard is a 2011 comedy-drama film with religious undertones. It is based on the novel of the same name by Larry Beinhart.-Plot:...
, premiered during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
. In the film Connelly played Gwen, the wife of Carl Vanderveer (Greg Kinnear
Greg Kinnear
Gregory "Greg" Kinnear is an American actor and television personality who first rose to stardom in 1991. He has appeared in more than 20 motion pictures, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in As Good as It Gets.-Early life:Kinnear was born in Logansport, Indiana, the son of...
); the couple are members of the Church of the Third Millennium, led by pastor Dan (Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brendan Brosnan, OBE is an Irish actor, film producer and environmentalist. After leaving school at 16, Brosnan began training in commercial illustration, but trained at the Drama Centre in London for three years...
).
Personal life
Her first son, Kai, was born in 1997, from her relationship with photographer David Dugan.On January 1, 2003, she married actor Paul Bettany
Paul Bettany
Paul Bettany is an English actor. He has appeared in a wide variety of films, including A Knight's Tale, A Beautiful Mind, and The Da Vinci Code...
, whom she had met while working on A Beautiful Mind
A Beautiful Mind (film)
A Beautiful Mind is a 2001 American drama film based on the life of John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics. The film was directed by Ron Howard and written by Akiva Goldsman. It was inspired by a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-nominated 1998 book of the same name by Sylvia Nasar...
, in a private family ceremony in Scotland. The couple's first child, Stellan, named after their friend, actor Stellan Skarsgård
Stellan Skarsgård
Stellan John Skarsgård is a Swedish actor, known internationally for his film roles in Angels & Demons, Breaking the Waves, The Hunt for Red October, Ronin, Good Will Hunting, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist,...
, was born the same year. She gave birth to her third child, Agnes Lark, on May 31, 2011, in New York City.
On November 14, 2005, Connelly was named Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
Ambassador for Human Rights Education. She appeared in an advertisement highlighting the global need for clean water, and sought donations for African, Indian, and Central American drilling projects. On May 2, 2009, she participated in Revlon's annual 5k Run/Walk for Women.
Publications such as Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
, Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
, and the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
have ranked her among the most beautiful women in the world.