Career Advice for Young Hollywood

BRIDGET FONDA demonstrated early on that she was capable of following in the footsteps of Aunt Jane and Grandpa Henry. She moved with ease from a knowing comic spin in Shag to more sophisticated turns in Scandal and Strapless. Since then, for the most part, she's shown a taste for a career more in line with Papa Peter's--i.e., the wisecrack "If Roger Corman still made movies, she'd star in them" actually came true for her when she played a dreadful Mary Shelley in Roger Corman's Frankenstein Unbound. The almost straight-to-video Iron Maze made it perfectly clear that Bridget, like most actors, requires a script and director. When it looked like Fonda had lucked out by winning a role over Madonna in Godfather III, her part was then cut drastically (and, in any case, Madonna may have been the lucky one with that film). But Bridget's small, hilarious contribution to last year's Doc Hollywood shows she still has everything she needs to deliver on that early promise. Perhaps Cameron Crowe's Singles or the upcoming thriller Single White Female will turn the tide.

Our Advice: Bridget should meditate on the meaning of the adage "Always a bridesmaid, never a bride," and stop kidding herself that she's "learning her craft" in low-rent, quirky flicks. She needs to show what she can do in films that deserve her. Singles or Single White Female could make the difference, but if neither does, maybe she could borrow cash from Aunt Jane (and Uncle Ted?) so she can hold out for the better parts in better films with better directors. And she should wait for the right leading man. Anyone out there remember the fireworks when she was all too briefly in the same frame with Andy Garcia?

KEANU REEVES may not be a great actor in the Robert De Niro mode, but he is definitely a movie star. Just rent Point Break and you'll see. In this knee-slappingly awful nonthriller, Reeves does not manage to acquit himself better than any other game actor in the hands of a tone-deaf director might; he does, however, manage to be compulsively watchable no matter what's coming out of his mouth. Actually, Reeves is quite a good actor in the right part and in the right hands, and he's one of the very few young actors who've already been in several films that are likely to endure: River's Edge (already a classic), Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Dangerous Liaisons and Parenthood. He's sweetly and loopily gifted at comedy (_I Love You to Death_ and Tune in Tomorrow, as well as those mentioned), and he can wrench tears too. He recently compared unfavorably to his co-star River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho, one of the bigger risks he's taken, but Phoenix was, after all, only given the very difficult to do by director Gus Van Sant--Reeves was given the impossible. It's clear by now that there are some large areas that are thin ice for Reeves. Playing Harker in Coppola's Dracula might be one of them--Reeves's affect is very of-the-moment, very un-19th century. Still, one of the interesting things about his career is that he's tried to do a variety of roles. His instinct to go far and wide of Ted, even in a risky part, is correct.

Our Advice: Comedy is tricky, and Reeves is fast outgrowing the goofiness that's made him famous, but he should still look for good comedy scripts because he's got a naturally droll comic presence that will take over where the goofiness ends. Reeves should also look for the project that will establish him as a romantic leading man--he's drop-dead gorgeous from head to toe on-screen, he looks like nobody else, and the camera seems to want to take him to bed. He should avoid all scripts that ask him to declaim at any length on any subject. And he should now stick to the best that Hollywood, not independent film, can offer him.

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