Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12, 1970) is an American film actress and former
child model.
[1] She made her motion picture debut in the 1984
crime film Once Upon a Time in America.
[2] Although starring as early as a teenager in films such as
Labyrinth and
Career Opportunities,
[3] she gained critical acclaim following her work in the 1998 science fiction film
Dark City and the 2000 drama
Requiem for a Dream.
In 2002, Connelly won an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as the
BAFTA and
Golden Globe awards for the 2001 biopic
A Beautiful Mind.
[4] Other film appearances include the 2003
Marvel superhero film
Hulk, the 2005 thriller drama
Dark Water,
Blood Diamond,
The Day the Earth Stood Still and the romantic comedy
He's Just Not That Into You.
Since 2005, Connelly has served as
Amnesty International Ambassador for Human Rights Education for the United States. During her career, various magazines, including
Time,
[5] Vanity Fair,
[6] and
Esquire[7] have named her on their lists of the most beautiful women.
[edit] Early life
| "Monologue of Love" |
 |
| Single by Jennifer Connelly |
| A-side | Monologue of Love |
| B-side | Message of Love |
| Released | December 1986 |
| Format | 7" |
| Genre | Pop |
| Label | Toshiba East World Records |
Connelly was born in the
Catskill Mountains of
New York state, the daughter of Ilene, an antiques dealer, and Gerard Connelly, a clothing manufacturer.
[8][9] Her father was
Roman Catholic, and of
Irish and
Norwegian descent; her mother was
Jewish, a descendant of emigrants from
Russia and
Poland,
[10][11] and was schooled in a
yeshiva.
[12] Connelly was raised in
Brooklyn Heights, near the
Brooklyn Bridge, and attended
St. Ann's private school,
[13] except for the four years the family spent living in
Woodstock, New York.
[14]
One of her father's friends was an
advertising executive, who suggested that she should
audition in order to become a
child model.
[11][15] She received the representation from the
Ford modeling agency.
[16] At the age of ten, Connelly's career started in newspaper and magazine ads, then moved to
television commercials. In 1984, she appeared in Duran Duran's concept concert video
Arena (An Absurd Notion).
[17] From 1986 to 1992, she appeared in several issues of the
Seventeen Magazine as well as in Japanese magazine "Roadshow"
[18] and on December 1986, recorded the pop single “Monologue of Love” singing in
phonetic Japanese.
[15]
All these appearances led to movie auditions and her first film role was as Deborah Gelly, a supporting role in
Sergio Leone's 1984 gangster epic,
Once Upon a Time in America, filmed mostly in 1982 when she was eleven.
[19] She next starred in
Italian horror-director
Dario Argento's
1985 film Phenomena[20] and in the coming-of-age movie
Seven Minutes in Heaven.
[21]
Balancing work and school, she enrolled at
Yale University where she studied English and Drama for the two following years,
[22] before transferring to
Stanford University to train in classical Theater and improvisation with
Roy London,
Howard Fine and
Harold Guskin. She did not graduate.
[23]
[edit] Career
[edit] Early career
Connelly became a star with her next picture, the
1986 fantasy film
Labyrinth. She played Sarah, a teenager on the quest to rescue her little brother Toby, from
goblin's world, ruled by King
Jareth, portrayed by
David Bowie. The film disappointed at the box office, but became a cult classic in later years with a large fan base still in existence.
[24] She starred as Jennifer Corvino in
Phenomena under the direction from Italian
giallo master
[25] Dario Argento.
[26] Connelly starred in several obscure films, such as the
1988 Etoile, which was never released in the United States, one of the less successful in her career.
[27] and the
Michael Hoffman-directed
Some Girls, in which she portrayed the college student Gabby.
[28] In the
1990 Dennis Hopper-directed
The Hot Spot, she played Gloria Harper, a woman blackmailed by Frank Sutton, portrayed by
William Sadler.
[29] The movie was a box office failure.
[11][30] Her next movie was the
1991 romantic comedy
Career Opportunities, in which she starred along with
Frank Whaley.
[31] The big-budget
Disney film
The Rocketeer failed
[32] to ignite her career; this resulted in a temporary break in Connelly's acting work. The next year, she appeared alongside
Jason Priestley in the
Roy Orbison music video for "
I Drove All Night".
[33]
It wasn't until the middle of the 1990s that she started to demonstrate her ability to handle more mature roles.
[34][35] The
1996 independent film Far Harbor played a role very different from the types she had previously portrayed and hinted at a much broader range than she had previously shown. Connelly began to appear in smaller but well-regarded films, such as
1997's drama
Inventing the Abbotts, and
2000's Waking the Dead. In the first one, set in the late 1950s,
[36] she personified Eleanor, one of the three daughters of the town millionaire Lloyd Abbot,
[37] while in the second, based on the 1986 novel of the same name,
[38] her character was Sarah.
[39] She played a collegiate
lesbian[35][40] in
John Singleton's
1995 ensemble drama,
Higher Learning.
[41] The critically favored
1998 science fiction film Dark City, in which she played a supporting role and afforded her the chance to work with such actors as
Rufus Sewell,
William Hurt,
Ian Richardson, and
Kiefer Sutherland.
[42] Connelly revisited her
ingenue image, although in a more understated way, for the 2000 biopic
Pollock,
[43] in which she played
Jackson Pollock's mistress. The same year she portrayed the role of Catherine Miller, Connelly's first Television appearance,
[35] in the
FOX drama series
The $treet about a
brokerage house in
New York City.
[44]
[edit] Breakthrough and early 2000s
Connelly's big breakthrough was the 2000 film
Requiem for a Dream, directed by
Darren Aronofsky,
[45] based in the
novel of the same name.
[46] Connelly played Marion, the girlfriend of Harry, portrayed by
Jared Leto. Also starred in the movie
Marlon Wayans and
Ellen Burstyn.
[47] The movie depicts characters with different
drug addictions on the edge of a
mental breakdown.
[48] The critics acclaimed the individual performances of the actors, especially Connelly's and Burstyn's, because of the courage they had to exhibit in order to be able to demonstrate their characters' constant physical and mental degradation during the film.
[49]
In 2001 she took the leading female role in
Ron Howard's film
A Beautiful Mind,
[50] essaying the role of Alicia Nash, the long-suffering wife of the brilliant,
schizophrenic mathematician
John Forbes Nash, Jr. (played by
Russell Crowe).
[51] The film was a critical and commercial success and earned Connelly a
Golden Globe,
[52] an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress[53] and a
BAFTA for Best Actress in a Supporting Role;
[54]
| “ | [A Beautiful Mind] is the film I'm really proud of and really love.[55] | ” |
Time magazine called her performance "luminous".
[56]
Connelly starred in two films in 2003:
Hulk and
House of Sand and Fog. In
Hulk she portrayed
Betty Ross, the scientist and former girlfriend of the
main character,
Bruce Banner. She stated that the philosophical perspective of the noted director
Ang Lee on the
Marvel's superhero was the reason that awoke her interest in taking the role.
[57] The movie would result in a moderate success at the box office.
[58] House of Sand and Fog, based on the novel by
Andre Dubus III, was reminiscent of much of her independent film work of the late 1990s. Her character was Kathy Nicolo, an abandoned wife whose inherited house is sold at auction to the
Iranian emigre Massoud Amir Behrani (
Ben Kingsley).
[59] The struggles between Kathy and the foreign
Colonel intensify throughout the story as the characters fall in a downward spiral of events.
[60] The film was a modest box office success worldwide however received much critical acclaim.
[edit] 2005–2007
After two years off acting,
[61] Connelly appeared in the
2005 horror film and
psychological thriller[62] Dark Water.
[63] The film was based on a
2002 Japanese film. She personifies a frightened young woman, Dahlia who is traumatized by her past and moves with her daughter (played by
Ariel Gade) to an
Roosevelt Island apartment where
paranormal happenings take place.
[64]
In
2006, Connelly appeared in two films, both of which were nominated for multiple Academy Awards.
[65][66] She played a major role in an
adaptation of the novel
Little Children alongside
Kate Winslet. Although her role as Kathy Adamson is very important in the novel, director
Todd Field gave her character less screen time, instead focusing on the characters played by Winslet
[67] and
Patrick Wilson. She acted in
Blood Diamond opposite
Leonardo DiCaprio. In the film, she portrays the journalist Maddy Bowen, who tries to collect the necessary information in order to expose the story behind the
blood diamonds.
[68]
She next appeared as Grace in
Reservation Road with
Joaquin Phoenix and
Mark Ruffalo, which was given a limited release in the fall of
2007.
[69] According to her, the character she portrayed in this movie was the toughest role she has ever played in her career.
[70]
[edit] 2008–present
In 2008 she appeared alongside
Keanu Reeves in the
2008 remake of the 1951
science fiction film The Day The Earth Stood Still. Connelly, a fan of the original movie,
[71] played the
Princeton University astrobiologist Dr. Helen Benson. Unlike the original movie, where her character was a secretary and the focus of the movie was balanced in her romantic relationship with Klaatu, the remake emphasizes on the troubled relationship between her and her stepson portrayed by
Jaden Smith.
[72] The
astronomer Seth Shostak prepared her in order to understand the scientific jargon of the character.
[73]
She also co-starred in a role opposite
Jennifer Aniston and
Ginnifer Goodwin in the 2008 romantic comedy
He's Just Not That Into You,
[74] based on
self-help book of the same name,
[75] where she played Janine.
[76] Her next work was a
small role in the fantasy film
Inkheart.
[77]
Her
2009 roles included the costume drama biopic
Creation, in which she personified
Emma Darwin, wife of
Charles Darwin, played by her real-life husband,
Paul Bettany.
[78] The movie took place during the writing of
On the Origin of Species by Dr. Darwin and the struggle along with his religious wife, Emma, who opposed the theories while they were in deep grief for the passing of their daughter
Annie.
[79] The same year she voiced 7, in the animation film
9.
[80]
In 2008, she was named the face of
Balenciaga's advertisements,
[81] as well as the new face for
Revlon cosmetics.
[82]
Her next movie,
What's Wrong With Virginia, was premiered on
September 15,
2010 at the
Toronto International Film Festival.
[83][84] Connelly portrayed a mentally unstable woman, who has a twenty year long affair with the local
sheriff, whose daughter starts a relationship with Virginia's son.
[85] Connelly's upcoming movies include
Ron Howard's comedy
The Dilemma, to be premiered on
January 14,
2011,
[86] and
George Ratliff's
Salvation Boulevard to be premiered on January 24, during the 2011
Sundance Film Festival.
[87]
[edit] Personal life
Despite her successful film career, Connelly stated that she prefers to live a family life with her husband and children when she is not working.
[11] She also expressed that the most important thing in her life is her family,
[88] with whom she lives in
TriBeCa,
New York City.
[89]
| “ | I try to stay focused on my life and do try not to be brought into the Hollywood fantasy.[90] | ” |
She is diagnosed with
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and takes
Ritalin to treat it.
[91]
Her first son, Kai was born in 1997, from her relationship with photographer David Dugan.
[92] She gave up her
veganism during her first
pregnancy.
[93] In 2003, she married the actor
Paul Bettany,
[5] whom she met while working on
A Beautiful Mind, in a private family ceremony in
Scotland.
[94] The couple's first child and Connelly's second, Stellan,
[95] named after their friend, actor
Stellan Skarsgård,
[96] was born the same year. His
godfather is the actor
Charlie Condou.
[97] She is expecting her third child (second with husband Paul Bettany) in 2011.
[98]
Connelly contributed to several charity causes. On November 14, 2005, She was named Amnesty International Ambassador for Human Rights Education.
[99] She was featured in an advertising for highlighting the need of clean water of people globally with the end result that people made donations to drilling projects in Africa, India, and Central America.
[100] On May 2, 2009, she participated of Revlon's annual 5k Run/Walk for Women along with
Jessica Alba and
Jessica Biel.
[101] She is also a fluent speaker in Italian and French.
[11][102][
