|
Family Matters
by Jenny Peters
Brentwood Magazine
June, 2003
After an Oscar-winning dramatic performance Jennifer Connelly goes for the action
WHAT A DIFFERENCE FIVE years can make. Just ask Jennifer Connelly. As the Academy Award-winning actress awaits both the birth of her second child and the release of her much-anticipated film The Hulk on June 20, one can't help but marvel at how far she has come in just a few short years.
Half a decade ago, Jennifer Connelly was a new mother &emdash; a single mother &emdash; of a little boy named Kai, born during the sum-mer of 1997. She and the boy's father, photographer David Dugan, never married, and split-up shortly after the baby arrived. Consequently, at age 27, Connelly found herself in a situation that changed her life and career focus.
"Children are a great catalyst for change and growth," reflects Connelly, now 32. "You really have to take inventory of your own behavior and take responsibility for your own choices and your own actions and your own words and everything. We all remember our parents and the subtle things that are said &emdash; it's constant vigilance. It's been remarkable. On top of that, [it changes] the choices that I make, the movies that I do &emdash; [I'm] wanting to make responsible choices, not wanting to add to the suffering in the world, not wanting to put out any messages that are going to be hurtful or confusing to kids."
Five years ago, pre-motherhood, Connelly's career choices hadn't quite clicked with American audiences, despite her incredible look of a young Elizabeth Taylor and a razor-sharp intellect, thanks to a Stanford University education. Films like The Rocketeer, Career Opportunities, and Mullholland Falls failed to ignite much interest at the box office, and it seemed that Connelly's movie career (which began at the age of 9) was never going to match up to her potential.
Then she had her baby, switched her focus, and everything changed. Dramatically. She bared everything &emdash; literally and emotionally &emdash; in the searing, critically acclaimed drama Requiem for a Dream; made a lasting impression in Pollock, and then happened across A Beautiful Mind. Playing the stalwart wife of a schizophrenic genius in Ron Howard's multiple Academy Award-winning film was the role of a lifetime, and Connelly's performance won her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and virtually every other acting award given for movies made in 2001.
It was on the set of A Beautiful Mind that she met fellow actor Paul Bettany and fell in love, before marrying him in a quiet ceremony in Scotland on New Year's Eve. (They are expecting their first child later this year.) Also because of her fine work in A Beautiful Mind, Connelly won the cov-eted role of scientist Betty Ross in Ang Lee's production of the Marvel Comics classic The Hulk.
"I wanted to do The Hulk because it was Ang Lee," Connelly explains. "Not because I have a particular affinity for comic books, but because of him. I think that he's enormously talented. I watched The Ice Storm, and I sat in that movie the-ater for fifteen minutes afterwards, just sit-ting and thinking and feeling and reeling. His sensibility in such diverse films is amazing."
Getting multiple chances to work alongside Hollywood's top direc-tors, and still looking as gorgeous as ever, it seems that Jennifer Connelly has just lived through the best five years of her life. Can the next five get any better? "I can't speculate, but I'm really happy," she grins.
|
