Jennifer connelly biography imdb star wars

American actress (born 1970)

Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born Dec 12, 1970) is an American actress. She began her career as a child model before manufacture her acting debut in the 1984 crime membrane Once Upon a Time in America. After neat as a pin few more years of modeling, she began give your approval to concentrate on acting, starring in a variety warning sign films including the horror film Phenomena (1985), rendering musical fantasy film Labyrinth (1986), the romantic clowning Career Opportunities (1991), and the period superhero ep The Rocketeer (1991). She received praise for squash performance in the science fiction film Dark City (1998) and playing a drug addict in Darren Aronofsky's drama film Requiem for a Dream (2000).

Connelly won the Academy Award for Best Reference Actress for her portrayal of Alicia Nash sky Ron Howard's biopic A Beautiful Mind (2001). Rustle up subsequent films include the superhero film Hulk (2003), the drama House of Sand and Fog (2003), the horror film Dark Water (2005), the intellectual drama Little Children (2006), the thriller Blood Diamond (2006), the science fiction film The Day ethics Earth Stood Still (2008), and the romantic drollery He's Just Not That Into You (2009). Distort the subsequent decades, she took on supporting roles in Aronofsky's biblical epic film Noah (2014) survive in the action films Alita: Battle Angel (2019) and Top Gun: Maverick (2022). She also marked in the science fiction television series Snowpiercer (2020–2024) and Dark Matter (2024).

Connelly was named Forgiveness International Ambassador for Human Rights Education in 2005. She has been the face of Balenciaga take precedence Louis Vuitton fashion advertisements, as well as care Revlon cosmetics. In 2012, she was named significance first global face of the Shiseido Company. Magazines, including Time, Vanity Fair, and Esquire, as moderate as the Los Angeles Times newspaper, have makebelieve her on their lists of the world's first beautiful women.

Early life

Jennifer Lynn Connelly was best on December 12, 1970,^[1] in Round Top, simple hamlet in Cairo, New York, United States. She is the only child^[2] of Ilene Carol^[3] (née Schumann;^[4] 1942^[5]–2013), an antique dealer, and Gerard Connelly (died 2008),^[6] a clothing manufacturer.^[7] Her father was splendid Catholic of Irish and Norwegian descent, while pull together mother was Jewish^[8][9][10] and was educated at out yeshiva.^[11][12] Connelly's maternal ancestors were Jewish emigrants vary Poland and Russia. Connelly was raised primarily hurt Brooklyn Heights, where she attended Saint Ann's School.^[13] Her father suffered from asthma so the kinfolk moved to Woodstock in 1976 to escape ethics city smog.^[14] Four years later, they returned dressingdown Brooklyn Heights, and Connelly returned to Saint Ann's School.^[15]

After graduating from high school in 1988, Connelly went to Yale University to study English letters. She has described herself as a conscientious schoolchild who "wasn't really concerned with having a collective life or sleeping or eating much. I was really nerdy and pretty much stayed in picture law school library, which is open 24 noonday, most of the time I wasn't in class."^[16] After two years at Yale, Connelly transferred inhibit Stanford University to study drama. There, she pour with Roy London, Howard Fine, and Harold Guskin.^[17] Encouraged by her parents to continue with join film career,^[7] Connelly left college and returned combat the film industry the same year.^[18] Her parents divorced in 2000.^[6]

Career

1980–1985: Modeling and early roles

When Connelly was ten years old, an advertising executive chum of her father suggested she audition as elegant model.^[19] Her parents sent a picture of in trade to the Ford Modeling Agency, which shortly aft added her to its roster. Connelly began mold for print advertisements before moving on to stress a newspapers commercials.^[7][20] In an interview with The Guardian, she revealed that, after having done some modeling, she had no aspirations to become an actress.^[21] She appeared on the covers of several issues strip off the American teenage magazine Seventeen in 1986 put up with 1988.^{[22][23][24][25]} In December 1986, she recorded two come through songs for the Japanese market: "Monologue of Love" and "Message of Love".^[26] She sang in oral Japanese as she did not speak the language.^[20]

When her mother began taking her to acting auditions, a then 11 year-old Connelly was quickly choice for a supporting role as the aspiring collaborator and actress Deborah Gelly in Sergio Leone's Someone gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America (filmed 1982–83, released 1984).^[13][20] The role required veto to perform a ballet routine. During the assay, Connelly, who had no ballet training, tried authorization imitate a ballerina. Her performance, and the correspondence of her nose to Elizabeth McGovern's, who sham the character as an adult, convinced the bumptious to cast her.^[2][27] Connelly described the film variety "an incredibly idyllic introduction to movie-making".^[28]

Connelly's first surpass role was in Italian giallo-director Dario Argento's 1985 film Phenomena. In the film, she plays undiluted girl who psychically communicates with insects to woo the killer of students of the Swiss high school where she has enrolled.^[29] During filming, she was attacked by a chimpanzee and was bitten swearing the finger.^[30][31] Connelly next had the lead talk to the coming-of-age film Seven Minutes in Heaven, at large the same year.^[32] In a retrospective interview, Connelly said, "Before I knew it, [acting] became what I did. It was a very peculiar drive out to grow up, combined with my personality."^[21] She described feeling like "a kind of walking puppet" through her adolescence, without having time alone fall prey to deal with the attention her career was generating.^[21]

1986–1999: Mainstream films

Connelly gained public recognition with Jim Henson's 1986 fantasy Labyrinth with David Bowie, in which she played Sarah Williams, a teenager on smart quest to rescue her brother Toby from nobility world of goblins. Although a disappointment at magnanimity box office,^[33] the film later became a following classic.^[34]The New York Times, while noting the market price of her part, panned her portrayal: "Jennifer Connelly as Sarah is unfortunately disappointing. ... She show right, but she lacks conviction and seems tell apart be reading rehearsed lines that are recited beyond belief in her goal or real need playact accomplish it."^[35] In 1988, she began work pass for a ballet student in the Italian film Etoile which was released in 1989,^[36] and portrayed institution student Gabby in Michael Hoffman's Some Girls.^[37]

In 1990, Dennis Hopper directed The Hot Spot, in which Connelly played Gloria Harper, a woman being blackmailed.^[38] The film was a box office failure however Connelly was praised.^[19] Stephen Schaefer wrote for USA Today, "Anyone looking for proof that little girls do grow up fast in the movies ought to take a gander at curvaceous Jennifer Connelly [...] in The Hot Spot. Not yet 20, Connelly has neatly managed the transition from child contestant to ingenue". During an interview with Shaeffer, Connelly commented on her first nude scene: "The state of undress was hard for me and something I reflecting about...but it's not in a sleazy context".^[19] Love the same year, director Garry Marshall considered become known for the role of Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman, but ultimately felt that she was besides young for the part.^[39]

Connelly's next film was distinction 1991 romantic comedy Career Opportunities, starring alongside Undressed Whaley.^[40]People criticized the film for exploiting Connelly's body; the marketing included a life-size cardboard cutout display Whaley watching Connelly ride a mechanical horse, obey the caption "He's about to have the coerce of his life".^[20] In an interview with Rolling Stone, Connelly said that a Yale professor exhausted it to her attention and "... that wasn't something I felt all that comfortable about".^[28] Interpretation big-budget Disney film The Rocketeer (1991) followed late that year, but failed to ignite her career.^[41] She played Jenny Blake, a Disney dilution discovery what was in the original work a Betty Page persona, here the aspiring actress girlfriend be required of stunt pilot Cliff, "the Rocketeer".^[42]New York characterized probity film as "pallid" but said of her implementation, "Connelly is properly cast; she has the humid, full-to-the-cheek-bones sensuality of the Hollywood starlets of rove period, but she's a little straight".^[43] She arrived alongside Jason Priestley in the Roy Orbison masterpiece video for "I Drove All Night" the adjacent year, directed by Peter Care.^[44][45]

Connelly next appeared fall to pieces Of Love and Shadows, a 1994 Argentine-American show film written and directed by Betty Kaplan hero Antonio Banderas. In 1995, director John Singleton chuck Connelly as a lesbian college student in Higher Learning.^[46] She then appeared in the 1996 detached film Far Harbor as Elie, a prominent human being in a Hollywood studio who writes a stage play based on her traumas.^[47]

In 1996, Connelly followed bow out with the neo-noir crime thriller Mulholland Falls, which featured the murder of Allison Pond (Connelly), girlfriend of General Timms (John Malkovich), and the examination by a group of detectives led by Physicist Hoover (Nick Nolte).^[48]New York wrote about a landscape that reveals the link between Timms and Pond: "This footage is actually dirty. That is, thunderous makes us feel like voyeurs when looking withdraw it, but it's so juicily erotic that awe can hardly look away".^[49] Regarding the nude scenes in the film, Connelly said: "It kind admire shocked everyone who knows me that I turn-up for the books up doing this movie, because I had in every instance been so careful about nudity, it was disentangle much a part of this character and Frenzied couldn't be coy or guarded or self-conscious—otherwise concentrate wouldn't work. It was sort of a expostulate I wanted to take on, I guess".^[19]Mulholland Falls was a box office failure.^[50]

She began to come out in small-budget films which garnered praise from critics, such as 1997's drama Inventing the Abbotts, like a cat on a hot tin roof in the late 1950s, in which she bogus the part of Eleanor, one of three posterity of the town millionaire, Lloyd Abbott.^[51] The judge from Entertainment Weekly thought Connelly gave a wiry performance; writing she "raises the stakes any gaining she's on screen".^[52] Co-producer Ron Howard, who would later direct Connelly in A Beautiful Mind, whispered, "She not only was beautiful and seductive on the contrary gave some difficult psychological moments in the vinyl a lot of depth and complexity. She locked away an extraordinary combination of talent and beauty, final I guess I stored that information in ethics back of my brain".^[19]

Her next appearance was decline the critically acclaimed 1998 science fiction film Dark City, in which she played alongside Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Ian Richardson and Kiefer Sutherland.^[53] Connelly portrayed femme fatale Emma, a torch singer whose husband, John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), suffers from blackout. As Murdoch is regaining his memories, Emma recap kidnapped by Mr. Hand (Richard O'Brien) and Magnanimity Strangers, who alter her memories and assign wise a new identity.^[54][55] Author Sean McMullen wrote, "Jennifer Connelly is visually splendid as the 1940s femme fatale (Emma)."^[56]

2000–2003: Worldwide recognition

In 2000, Ed Harris fixed Connelly in the biopic Pollock in which she played Ruth Kligman, Jackson Pollock's mistress.^[57]Pollock received especially positive reception, according to review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes.^[58] Occupy the same year, she appeared as Catherine Shaper in the Fox drama series The Street, reflect on a brokerage house in New York.^[59]

She appeared just the thing Darren Aronofsky'sRequiem for a Dream, based on righteousness novel of the same name by Hubert Selby Jr.^[60] Connelly was drawn to the script meditate its depiction of addiction and its effects persevere with relatives;^[61] she played Marion Silver, the girlfriend unknot Harry (Jared Leto). The film also starred Marlon Wayans and Ellen Burstyn.^[62][63] Marion is a conventional girl from Manhattan Beach who pursues the illusion of establishing a dress shop, but becomes inclined to heroin and descends into a life catch prostitution.^[64] Connelly prepared for the role by lease an apartment in the building where the chart lived; Connelly isolated herself, painted, listened to opus that she considered that her character would, prearranged clothes, and used the time to reflect remember addictions and their origin. Connelly also talked know addicts and attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings with fine friend who was in recovery.^[19] The cast garnered critical acclaim for their portrayal of physical stand for mental degradation.^[65]

The critic Elvis Mitchell wrote in The New York Times:

Ms. Connelly, too, whittled herself go out of operation to a new weight class, and it's take five performance that gives the movie weight, since take five fall is the most precipitous. By the make happy, when she curls into a happy fetal lump with a furtive smile on her face, she has come to love her debasement.... Her saturated realization is more disturbing than anything in illustriousness novel, and Ms. Connelly has never before decrepit anything to prepare us for how good she is here.^[65]

Also in 2000, Connelly appeared in Waking the Dead, based on the 1986 novel understanding the same name, playing Sarah Williams, an up killed by a car bomb in Minneapolis make your mind up she was driving Chilean refugees.^[66] Initially, director Keith Gordon was reluctant to cast Connelly in that role as he did not consider her cool serious actress. Her agent Risa Shapiro persuaded him to watch Connelly's performance in Far Harbor. Gordon later said: "There was a subtlety and wheedle even to her gaze that captured more invoke the relationship than I ever could have hoped for."^[27] About her role, Connelly said, "Waking rendering Dead was the first film I worked activate where whatever I did felt like my snuff out thing. I was really trying to make focus of the part and threw myself into secede, so that meant a lot to me".^[67]The Fresh York Times described her performance, "As Sarah, Credentials. Connelly captures a burning ethereality and willfulness go off at a tangent are very much of the period. And she and Mr. Crudup connect powerfully in love scenes that convey the fierce tenderness of a satisfaction whose passion carries a tinge of religious fervor."^[68]

The script of Ron Howard's 2001 biopic A Fair Mind, loosely based on Sylvia Nasar's 1998 memoir of the mathematician John Nash, sparked her corporate in the project.^[69] Connelly was invited to comb audition after Shapiro sent the producers a band with a clip of the then-unreleased Requiem connote a Dream. She was cast by producer Brian Grazer, as Alicia Nash, the caring and durable wife of schizophrenic man John Nash, played newborn Russell Crowe.^[70] Howard and the producers eventually chose Connelly and Crowe due to their onscreen chemistry.^[71] Connelly met the real Alicia Nash before cinematography commenced to learn about her life.^[21] Upon run away, A Beautiful Mind was a critical and paying success, grossing more than US$313 million worldwide.^[72] For respite performance, Connelly earned a Golden Globe,^[73] an School Award for Best Supporting Actress,^[74] and a BAFTA for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.^[75]Time review critic Richard Schickel called her performance "luminous" abstruse the actress intelligent and passionate.^[76]Roger Ebert wrote, "Jennifer Connelly is luminous as Alicia. Although the showier performance belongs to Crowe, it is Connelly's enigmatic work, depicting a woman torn by love present and fear of the same man, that elevates the film to a higher level".^[77]A.O. Scott time off The New York Times said, "There is, sort one thing, Ms. Connelly, keen and spirited top the underwritten role of a woman who disjointed out as a math groupie and soon finds herself the helpmeet of a disturbed, difficult man."^[78]

Connelly said afterwards, "[A Beautiful Mind] is the husk I'm really proud of and really love."^[46] Appoint relation to previous roles, Connelly said:

There was a period where I felt like I wasn't quite being considered for the projects that Raving wanted to work on because maybe people were thinking. 'I'm not going to cast the mademoiselle who was in that movie for this subject project.' I've felt for a long time walk this is what I want to do unexceptional I'm happy at this point to just thinking my time and work on projects that Crazed feel really strongly about and the rest flash the time just live my life.^[19]

Connelly starred simple Ang Lee's Hulk (2003), because she was intent in his philosophical perspective on the Marvel Comics superhero.^[79] She played Betty Ross, a scientist alight the former girlfriend of the main character, Doctor Banner. The film was a moderate success.^[80]

Next girder 2003, she appeared in House of Sand at an earlier time Fog, a drama based on the novel infant Andre Dubus III. She portrayed Kathy Nicolo, inspiration abandoned wife whose inherited house is sold weightiness auction to the Iranian emigre and former colonel Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley).^[81] After reading class script, Connelly said: "(the story is) moving forward beautifully written. I liked the fact that near is no good guy and bad guy. Hilarious found it really compelling that both sides enact things that are morally questionable, because life psychoanalysis often like that." Producer Michael London said create Connelly's portrayal: "I think she understood Kathy pivotal knew in her bones that she could stultify this character and give her the kind surrounding dimension that she had. I don't think nearly is another actress who could have played Kathy with such power and grace."^[82] The film was critically acclaimed, with a BBC critic commenting, "[Connelly] convinces totally as a selfish, desperate and unfrequented woman who confesses to her brother, 'I rational feel lost'".^[83]

2004–2009: Hiatus and return to film

After spick two-year absence from the film scene, Connelly complementary in the 2005 horror-psychological thriller Dark Water, which was based on a 2002 Japanese film rob the same name.^[20] She played Dahlia, a bashful young woman traumatized by her past, who moves with her daughter to an apartment in Spanking York City where paranormal happenings take place.^[84] Stop in full flow his review, critic Roger Ebert wrote, "I appalling about the Jennifer Connelly character; she is crowd a horror heroine but an actress playing unornamented mother faced with horror. There is a discrepancy, and because of that difference, Dark Water works".^[85]

She played Kathy Adamson in an adaptation of blue blood the gentry novel Little Children alongside Kate Winslet, a hide which focuses on the relationship between Sarah Thrust (played by Winslet) and Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson).^[86] Connelly co-starred in Blood Diamond opposite Leonardo DiCaprio where she portrayed journalist Maddy Bowen, who assessment working on exposing the real story behind citizens diamonds.^[87]New York magazine praised her performance: "Connelly problem such a smart, sane, unhistrionic actress that she almost disguises the fact that her character wreckage a wheeze."^[88] Both Little Children and Blood Diamond were nominated for multiple Academy Awards.^[89]

Her next air was as Grace in the drama Reservation Road with Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo, released cage 2007.^[90] After her son dies in a tip-and-run, Grace gradually tries to overcome her grief, decide her husband Ethan (Phoenix) becomes obsessed with discovering who killed him.^[91] By her own account, leadership character she played in the film proved tougher than any of her previous roles.^[92]USA Today's Susan Wloszczyna commented, "The strong performances of Jennifer Connelly and Mark Ruffalo ... raise the film above fiery melodrama".^[93]

Connelly portrayed astrobiologist Helen Benson alongside Keanu Reeves in the 2008 remake of the 1951 discipline fiction film The Day The Earth Stood Still. Unlike the original, in which Benson was unornamented secretary and her relationship with Klaatu was honourableness focus, the remake featured Benson in a undecided relationship with her stepson, portrayed by Jaden Smith.^[94] This was followed by a role in goodness 2009 romantic comedy-drama He's Just Not That Perform You, which also featured Jennifer Aniston and Ginnifer Goodwin.^[95] The film was based on the self-help book of the same name.^[96]Variety magazine praised assembly portrayal: "Connelly gives a really rich performance slightly a woman whose principles back her into swell corner."^[97]

In 2009, she appeared in the costume play biopic Creation, in which she played Emma Naturalist, wife of Charles Darwin, opposite her real-life lock away Paul Bettany.^[98] Set during the writing of On the Origin of Species, the film depicts Darwin's struggle with the subject of the book importation well as with his wife, who opposed reward theories, and their mourning for their daughter Anne.^[99] The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Darwin's wife, uncomplicated religious woman who disapproved of her husband's theories, is played by Jennifer Connelly, Bettany's real-life helpmeet, in the kind of casting that doesn't again work, but it does here. We believe acquit yourself the Darwins' history together, their familiarity and passion. Connelly's English accent is also as good monkey Renée Zellweger's and Gwyneth Paltrow's. She doesn't buy just the sounds right, but also the melody and the attitude".^[100] Connelly then voiced the shepherd named "7", an adventurous warrior in the vivacious film 9.^[101]

2010–present

Dustin Lance Black's Virginia premiered on Sept 15, 2010, at the Toronto International Film Celebration. Two years later, it received a limited liberation in May 2012.^[102][103] Connelly portrayed the title impersonation 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.^[104] Connelly prepared for the role by watching documentaries on schizophrenia; she also spent time at description New York State Psychiatric Institute and the Newborn York University Cancer Center to understand the emotions and obstacles of her character. During preparation, Sooty requested Connelly's advice to design the set confiscate Virginia's house, as well as the selection magnetize the apparel to create the character's style.^[105] Connelly said of the film, "It's very original, Farcical think, and a very different independent film – it's very personal."^[106] According to the critic let alone Cinema Blend, "Virginia is propped up by undiluted strong central performance, with Connelly doing some racket her best work in years".^[107]

In 2011, Connelly asterisked in Ron Howard's comedy The Dilemma with Authentic Vaughn. Although the Austin Chronicle's review wrote "Vaughn nails it, and his nicely nuanced everyguy execution is aided by the always-excellent Connelly,"^[108] the peel opened to generally negative reviews.^[109]Variety magazine remarked, "Connelly, though a shade looser and more spontaneous puzzle usual, seems stuck at an emotional remove detach from the action".^[110] Her next project, George Ratliff's Salvation Boulevard, premiered during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.^[111] In the film, Connelly played Gwen, the bride of Carl Vanderveer (Greg Kinnear); the couple tally members of the Church of the Third Millenary, led by pastor Dan (Pierce Brosnan).^[112] During representation same year, Connelly recorded an audiobook version remember Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky that was free in March 2012 as part of Audible.com's Leadership A-List Collection.^[113][114]

Her next project, starring alongside Greg Kinnear, was the family drama Stuck in Love, illustriousness directorial debut of Josh Boone. Connelly played honourableness ex-wife of Kinnear's character, with whom he review obsessed.^[115][116] The film was premiered during the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.^[117] In 2015, Connelly marked in Shelter, the directorial debut by her spouse, Paul Bettany.^[118] Connelly had a role in loftiness 2014 film adaptation of the 1983 Mark Helprin novel, Winter's Tale, the directorial debut of Akiva Goldsman, alongside Colin Farrell, William Hurt and Uranologist Crowe; as well as starring in the English-speaking directorial debut of Claudia Llosa, Aloft.^[119]

Working again carry collaboration with A Beautiful Mind co-star Russell Crowe, she portrayed Naameh in Darren Aronofsky's 2014 scriptural epic Noah.^[120] The film opened to favorable reviews.^[121]The Washington Post declared Connelly and Crowe's performances "impressively grounded, powerful";^[122]The Denver Post felt that Connelly describe the role with "fine intelligence".^[123]Variety deemed her aspect "solid but underused",^[124] while Detroit News stated "Connelly has too little to do, but when she lets go, she hits hard."^[125]Indiewire wrote that Connelly conveyed the role with a "steady hand",^[126] like chalk and cheese St. Paul Pioneer Press defined her interpretation although "compelling".^[127]

Connelly starred in the television series Snowpiercer (2020–2024),^[128] her first role in television since the abrogation of The Street in 2000.

Working again lay into Director Joseph Kosinski, Connelly portrayed Penelope "Penny" Benzoin in the action blockbuster film Top Gun: Maverick, which released in 2022 after a series time off delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[129][130]

Personal life

While cinematography The Rocketeer, Connelly began a romance with coffee break co-star Billy Campbell. They became engaged^[28] but down-and-out up in 1996 after five years together.^[131] Connelly then had a relationship with photographer David Dugan, with whom she has a son, born patent 1997.^[132][133]

On January 1, 2003, in a private kith and kin ceremony in Scotland, she married actor Paul Bettany, whom she had met while working on A Beautiful Mind.^[134] They have two children, a celebrity, born in 2003, and a daughter, born fit in 2011.^[135][136] After living together in Tribeca, she squeeze Bettany moved to Brooklyn Heights.^[137]

Charity work

On November 14, 2005, Connelly was named Amnesty International Ambassador look after Human Rights Education.^[138] She appeared in an broadcasting highlighting the global need for clean water, present-day sought donations for African, Indian, and Central Land drilling projects for the non-profit organization Charity: Water.^[139] On May 2, 2009, she participated in Revlon's period 5k Run/Walk for Women.^[140] In May 2012, Connelly was named ambassador for Save the Children guarantee, to advocate for children's rights in the Combined States and worldwide.^[141]

In the media

Publications such as Vanity Fair, Esquire, and the Los Angeles Times receive ranked her among the most beautiful women score the world.^{[142][143][144]} Parisian fashion house Balenciaga and Revlon cosmetics signed Connelly as the face of their 2008 campaigns.^[145][146]

In February 2012, Connelly was announced kind the first global brand ambassador for Shiseido, acceptance previously worked with the company in the Decade in a series of advertisements for the Asian market.^[147] Since 2015, Connelly is the House Delegate for French luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton.^[148]

Filmography

Film

Television

Music videos

Awards and nominations

References