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How Holding out for Something that Mattered Paid Off
by Ingrid Sischy
Interview Magazine
April 1, 2002
Ingrid Sischy: So first tell us the bare facts
Jennifer Connelly: I was born in upstate New York, in a town called Round Top. We lived there until I was one, when we moved to New York, to Brooklyn Heights. When I was about six or seven, we moved up to Woodstock for three or four years, and then we moved back to Brooklyn Heights, and I lived there until I went away to college.
IS: And you parents were they together the whole time?
JC: Until recently - they got divorced about two years ago. My dad resettled in Woodstock and my mom lives in Big Sur, California. The two hippie outposts. (laughs)
IS: Are they hippies?
JC: I don't think they are. Certainly in the years that we were living n Woodstock, when I was a kid, my mom was anything but. Now she's a craniosacral therapist, who works at Esalen in Big Sur, California.
IS: And your father, what did he do?
JC: He was in the garment business, but he has asthma, and he was having a hard time breathing in the city. They needed some green space and quiet. I think it was more that that originally drew them to Woodstock than the spiritual sort of things that the town represented. Back then he got out of the garment business and bought a building, renovated it and turned it into a kind of arts center. When I was 10 they sold that place and my dad went back to the garment business. My mom stopped working because I started modeling, doing catalogues and that kind of thing, shortly thereafter.
IS: Can you remember how you felt about it?
JC: I had mixed feelings I think a part of me was uncomfortable with it, and a little bit self-conscious and uncomfortable with it in retrospect.
IS: Was professional work a huge part of your young life?
JC: Huge. I worked every day, and sometimes I did two, three jobs a day.
IS: And your first film?
JC: I did Once Upon a Time in America (1984) when I was 11. It was a nice part. I played Elizabeth McGovern's character as a young girl.
IS: And do you remember how you felt when you got Once Upon a Time in America?
JC: Really excited. But again, I think I had mixed feeling. I don't want to suggest that I had this horrendous childhood - I did have friends and I did normal things - but I was a little isolated. Part of that was my personality.
IS: Just surviving as long as you have in the movie business suggests that you're very driven.
JC: I am. If I ever rode anyone else as hard as I ride myself, I would be a tyrant. (laughs)
IS: So when high school was over, and it was time to make a decision between career and college, you chose both. You went to Yale, right? How was that for you?
JC: I went a little overboard. I really had no balance. I pulled a lot of all-nighters in the library right off the bat and I didn't really have a strong social life. Then I took a leave of absence and I worked. After that, I was sort of in and out of college. I'd do a semester, leave, work, come back, that kind of thing. It was a strange time. I think I did The Hot Spot (1990), and Career Opportunities (1991) back to back while I was at Yale. I remember when Career Opportunities came out there were these mechanical posters of me - literally, moveable cutouts of me on a rocking horse - that were around. I was mortified. I felt that I was representing a version of myself that I didn't feel connected to. Maybe that was why I went so overboard at college; because it was my place and I fought so hard to make it my own. As someone who had always wanted to make everyone happy and to not disappoint anyone, I really needed to go through a kind of emancipation and rebellion. It didn't happen for a few more years. I overdid school. I burned out. I got to a point where I felt very vulnerable and kind of raw, a little bit overexposed and unprotected. I was thinking too much and I didn't have a support system. I remember being really surprised when I withdrew from Yale at the end of my sophomore year, and students came up into my room saying, "We're going to miss you." I remember thinking, God, I didn't even know that they knew I was here, or cared.
IS: Then what did you do?
JC: My parents were living in Los Angeles, and I went and stayed with them for a while. I started reevaluating the course of my life and tried to figure out what I wanted. I realized I missed school and I transferred to Stanford. I think in my soul I was looking to be nurtured, and maybe that's why I chose a landscape that I thought was more gentle and rolling and open and warmer.
IS: Was it?
JC: It was warmer. And a little more sterile (laughs). I don't think I found my niche there, either. I felt out of place. I ran a lot. I left school again at the end of the term and worked again.
IS: You talked about emancipation and rebellion before. Was there a turning point?
JC: Yes. There came a time where I thought, I want to work, but is there a way where I don't have to be this figure that I seem to have become? I don't want to be it anymore. I wasn't making the right choices. I wasn't approaching things consciously. I was doing a movie because I wanted to be in Italy, or because so-and -so was in it and it sounded impressive. I felt like there was a disparity between the kinds of movies that I was doing and the films that I like to see.
IS: It comes down to all the old issues, doesn't it? As a woman, it's still harder than of you are a guy. It's still a lot about how you look. On one hand, since you look the way you do, you've got a fortune on your side. On the other hand, though, that brings its own set of problems.
JC: Absolutely. I felt really self-conscious about my physical self. I started comparing myself to other people and feeling like I had to meet a certain standard. On one hand I got sucked into it, and on the other hand, I abhorred the fact that I got sucked into it. I got even more angry at myself for the fact that I understood it was silly, and yet I was still sucked into it. I went through a period of thinking, I don't want to be a commodity. I don't want to be perceived so superficially. I don't know how to be in this acting world and yet still protect my sanity as a human being. So I thought, Maybe I can't just make it having people watch me and look at me. Finally I decided I was going to make a go at being involved in the kind of projects that I wanted to be in and really try to be patient and only work on things that I could feel proud of.
IS: How did you make that change?
JC: I waited. I turned things down that didn't feel right. I had to fight to even be considered or to get a meeting for certain roles. People would say, "Oh, she's the one who was in Career Opportunities. I don't see her for this kind of art house movie." It took a while to change that perception. One of the first changes came with Waking the Dead (2000). And then there was Requiem for a Dream (2000). Directors that I've since talked to have said, "You know, I was surprised by Requiem". Or "It seemed like a very different version of you that I hadn't expected."
IS: I heard this hilarious thing that Pauline Kael reportedly said about Requiem. In the last years before she died she had fully-blown Parkinson's disease, but she was still her tough, crabby self, and a friend who went to visit her remembers her saying, "Darren Aronofsky - they have got to stop him from ever picking up a camera again."
JC: Why?
IS: I guess she didn't like the movie. (laughs). Pauline Kael was never scared to voice her opinions. That's what made her such a great critic and such an influence to this day. She was allergic to pretentiousness. Anyway, your role in Requiem was very heavy-duty.
JC: Yeah. I really wanted it. I had people in all corners saying," Why would you want to take this on?" And even, "Don't do it." But I had no hesitation. What it was talking about really resonated with me. I felt like it was talking about a lack of love from mother to child, and through that an inherited voracious hunger, a lack of self-respect, and a lack of trust in oneself and therefore in anyone else. It was talking about people being incapable of intimacy and living with so much fear that they wind up turning to some kind of quantifiable, external substance to make themselves feel whole and sedated. I think you see this everywhere, and on all sorts of levels: food, TV, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, whatever. It seems like so many people are seeking peace in that self-destructive manner.
IS: It's interesting because after playing a young girl strung out on heroin and pulled into the world pf drugs and degradation by her equally drugged-up boyfriend in Requiem, you went on to be Jackson Pollock's partner in self-destruction in Pollock (2000), which was also partly about addiction and depression. So now we come to A Beautiful Mind. How did you hear about it?
JC: I read the script first. Ron Howard, the director, was one of the producers of Inventing the Abbotts (1997), which I'd been in. I thought A Beautiful Mind was really moving, all the more so because it was inspired by a true story. And I loved my character, Alicia Nash. She was an extraordinary woman. Studying physics at MIT in the 1950's -
IS: I have to pipe in here - because one issue I had with the film was after she meets Russell Crowe's character, John Nash, it's the last time you see her studying science. Did you have an issue with that?
JC: I did. I would, at times, vie to have evidence of her studying. In reality, she continues to study, but I think it's an accurate representation that he did wind up taking a lot of space in her landscape, her mindscape.
IS: What was it like playing opposite an actor who had just won the Oscar for Gladiator (2000), and is arguably the biggest actor in the world at the moment?
JC: I felt like I had been given a gift, and I really savored it. The first part of the process was the table read-throughs, which were a little bit daunting. And then we went into rehearsals, and that was when it started to really become fun. Russell questions everything. The scrip says you do this and you walk in like this. Well, he says, "Why do I walk in like this? That's ridiculous. Why shouldn't I walk in like this?" It felt like no stone was left unturned. In a way, Nash was a vortex of a personality, and in his own way Russell has that, too, because he's so smart. He's incredibly passionate and he won't rest until he gets what he wants. I think he's used to people being intimidated by him and his talent. He walks into a room and he has a commanding presence. He takes up space.
IS: What was it like to have your movie relationship and then see each other off camera an hour later?
JC: The relationship didn't take over in any sort of literal sense. Obviously we played husband and wife and lovers, and we were neither of those in real life. But that said, it is a different kind of working relationship that I had with Russell than I had, for example, with the woman who did my make-up. I think a lot of it comes from the closeness associated with really listening to someone that much and really being so available. You can't deny a certain intimacy comes from that.
IS: There are certain actresses and actors - well, it seems like every time they play opposite someone, that someone becomes their boyfriend or girlfriend, or wife or husband. (laughs) Not so with you, huh?
JC: In the same way that Alicia stood out because she wasn't ruffled by John. I want to live in my own reality. I didn't want to get sucked into Russell's. I have my own attachments, so that wasn't available. Besides, I wasn't interested in that. I felt very strongly that I had to protect my personal space. And ultimately it lead to us having a more respectful relationship as co-workers and as people, Russell and I.
IS: You're in a relationship with someone, aren't you?
JC: Yes. He's an actor, named Josh Charles.
IS: Then there's your soon-to-be five-year-old son, Kai. Although I know his father is quite involved in raising him, too, you're the primary caregiver. Now that you're becoming this big movie star, does the fact that you have an enormous responsibility to your son make it harder to have your career?
JC: No. I think the responsibility is one of the only things that's made it possible for me to have it. It gives me a sense of balance that keep me from spinning off into space. I don't think all this would have happened otherwise. Now that I've mothered someone else, I've learned to mother myself a little bit. And actually, my relationship with my own mother is changing, which is kind of interesting. Being with Kai I could start to see the things that kept me from really being present and really living my life. It's made me more available as a person, which affects what I can give to my work. It's made me aware of things that I wasn't aware of before - in myself and in the world. I've always been looking for something sacred in my life: I've always read religious texts and philosophy and I've found what I've been looking for in a much more practical way - in the process of living life.
IS: Next up for you is The Hulk, the upcoming film adaptation of the classic Marvel comic The Incredible Hulk, where you co-star opposite Eric Bana as Betty Ross. I'm sure that, as with A Beautiful Mind, you'll be able to dig into the role in a way that shows Betty to be more than simply a love interest - especially since the movie's being directed by Ang Lee, who is known for portraying women in powerful, unexpected ways. Do you find it's rare to come across scripts with great roles for women, or are you seeing more of them that you did a few years ago?
JC: Not as many as I see for men. I see a few, from time to time. And there are some that are meant to be about the woman's life, but I feel that they're kind of contrived, like they're self-consciously saying, "This is a great woman's part." She's usually predictably quirky so you don't really feel her. Or really care.
IS: OK. Speaking of caring, as we do this interview, you have already won a Golden Globes for you performance in A Beautiful Mind. So now, I don't want to put a voodoo jinx on anything, but in two days the Oscar nominations are going to be announced. Is this something that you want?
JC: To be nominated?
IS: (laughs) No, to win.
JC: Can I tell you after we find out if I'm nominated? (both laugh) A phone call, 10 days later:
IS: Jennifer, how are you?
JC: I'm good, how are you doing?
IS: I have a little follow-up question. Remember when I asked how you feel about the whole Oscar shebang?
JC: Yeah?
IS: And you replied, "Will you ask me if we find out I've been nominated?" (Connelly laughs) Well, here I am , Jennifer! You were nominated. How does it feel?
JC: It's kind of surreal. It still feels like something that I haven't quite processed, that's happening to someone else. I mean, gosh, I don't know. You grow up looking at - we weren't even a particularly movie-based kind of family - but we still watched the Academy Awards, you know? So it feels kind of like an important thing but at the same time my life is exactly the same. I'm still feeding the hamster and cleaning the banana peels out of Kai's lunch box.
IS: Who do you think the hamster thinks should win, Jennifer?
JC: Oh my God, this hamster is outrageous; she's so funny! She's finding crazy ways to climb out of her cage. But I think that, gratefully, our hamster is oblivious to the whole Academy Awards thing. Were the hamster not I'd be very concerned.
(both laugh)
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