Even if you climb to the top of the Young Hollywood ladder, you still have to face the frightening task over a deep, deep ravine into the Land of Adult Actors. Since many once-blazing careers have dropped into that particular abyss, we here offer up completely unsolicited career advice from eight thespian Evel Knievels.
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WINONA RYDER's entire career to date has been just one surprise after another, almost all of them pleasant. Who'd have guessed that the talented young tomboy of Lucas and Square Dance would turn up as the irresistibly deadpan, morbid teen daughter in the comedy smash Beetlejuice?
Or that she'd not only emerge unscathed from the disastrous Great Balls of Fire!, but win hearts in the process with that loopy, wide-eyed child bride routine? And yet none of that prepared anyone for Ryder's development into both a real beauty and Hollywood's drollest comedienne in the it-only-gets-better-with-age black comedy Heathers. Ryder continued to surprise everyone with Mermaids, where she deftly stole the whole show from Cher (no small feat--name another teen who could have done so) while managing to make such vintage gags as going gaga over a beau's leather jacket seem mint fresh. Of course, Winona did let her Beetlejuice director Tim Burton demonstrate, in the otherwise inventive Edward Scissorhands, that she could be made to seem as bland as any other generic blonde cheerleader (gee thanks, Tim). But the next rabbit out of Ryder's hat surprised us most of all: After departing Godfather III (thus paving the way for Sofia Coppola--gee thanks, Winona), she was the first to sign up for Coppola's next film, Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Our Advice: She's the most versatile actress in her age group, but she has yet to make that jump to the adult roles that will turn us all into faithful fans forever. Natalie Wood, to whom Winona compares, did it, and we're betting Winona can too. She won't do it by making a movie like Night on Earth for outre director Jim Jarmusch, no matter how good she or it is. She will do it by working with top Hollywood director Francis Coppola in popular fare (Dracula), and with top director Martin Scorsese in grown-up class (The Age of Innocence). In terms of her film choices, Winona is doing the right thing. So our advice is: Get lots of rest, take vitamins, don't fall in love too fast, and don't ever walk off another movie.
RIVER PHOENIX One of the reasons teen movies are so bad is that the teens they're aimed at can't bear realistic portraits of their usually unattractive existence. What teens identify with are cliched, simple-minded, idealized versions of themselves. No wonder, then, that River Phoenix never appeared in a strictly teen movie--shallowness is one of the areas outside his ken. Phoenix cut his teeth on teen roles in crossover or wholly adult movies like Stand by Me, The Mosquito Coast, and Running on Empty. And so he is the sole well-known young actor who has nothing to prove as he emerges out of adolescence into mature roles. He's the serious actor of his generation, and his skill has already been recognized by critics as well as by an Academy Award nomination. Moreover, he's showing steady growth. His portrayal of the hapless narcoleptic gay hustler in last year's My Own Private Idaho lifted that film from the level of an inspired shambles to the level of half-a-great-movie. The less seen Dogfight, released at the same time, was an equally sensitive, unvain performance. Other actors may mature as they approach 30--roughly the age at which most of them begin to show more interesting stuff--to give River Phoenix competition for roles that contain a complicated psychological dimension, but for now they'll have to take the hand-me-downs.
Our Advice: Hopefully, Phoenix's next, Sneakers, with Robert Redford, will let him show some more of his impressive comic timing--we wouldn't want him to exclusively brood. One thing River needs to pay attention to right now is the thing other young actors probably pay too much attention to--appearance. River's looked like hell in his past two movies, and while his characters justified this, it was a bit too convincing. If he wants to go around in real life looking like a bag person, that's his business--and it's the fashion among hip young actors (who naturally think they're above fashion). But on-screen, things are different. River need not worry about being taken for just a pretty face. He should realize he can't do with less than a great face, either.
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.
NICOLE KIDMAN Since nobody out there in box-office land would know Nicole Kidman from her films (_Dead Calm_, an undeserved flop; Days of Thunder, a major disappointment; Billy Bathgate, a bomb), it's obviously good for her career that she married Tom Cruise. Then again, if you were a producer or director or leading man, would you particularly want to work with an actress who won't necessarily help your film draw an audience but will, very likely, report your every perceived misstep to Tom Cruise, or, worse, bring him to the set to see for himself? Oh well, there's a cloud outside every silver lining. Luckily for Kidman, she's got the resources for a major career no matter whom she's married to. She's incredibly young (24) for the presence, sophistication and life experience she radiates on-screen (unless we were supposed to think of her as Doogie Howser in drag, Simpson and Bruckheimer clearly thought she read well beyond her years when they cast her as a neurosurgeon in Days of Thunder). Kidman showed in the overly badmouthed Billy Bathgate that she can play grown-up with a sheer take-no-prisoners style that no Hollywood-bred actress near her age can touch. And as a nice complement to these assets, Kidman is one of the few young actresses these days who doesn't telegraph a highly neurotic need to be liked. Like only a couple other young women on-screen, Kidman shows promise of being able to play the kind of roles that demand the guts of a Madonna without the gutter she comes with.
Our Advice: Too bad George Cukor can't be reincarnated, because then it would be easy to offer Kidman a helpful hint: Work only with that guy. Since there aren't any Cukor contenders around today, the best Kidman can do is avoid what the actress she's generally compared to (Sigourney Weaver) has been up to lately: playing masculine women heroes in action films. Kidman has already done this herself, very ably, in Dead Calm, but that's enough. She'd be an interesting Scarlett O'Hara if that project weren't doomed to be miniseries kitsch. Certainly, regardless of the outcome of Far and Away, she should not pair herself again with Tom till she's batted one out of the park on her own. Best advice: She should get ahold of the best script she can find and take it to fellow Australian Peter Weir and convince him to direct it--he doesn't make movies specifically about strong women, but his movies, as opposed to the movies of most Hollywood directors, have strong women in them.
CHRISTIAN SLATER might be having a great career if Hollywood weren't in a severe creative slump. After all, he's charismatic, he's a natural actor who seems to respect his own limits, and he's got "Do Not Underestimate" written all over him. Then again, since Slater has never starred in any kind of hit, and has made such mistakes as starring in the deadly stupid Kuffs, it's a wonder he has the career he has. Last summer's Mobsters was his big chance to break through by carrying a big studio film; it was just his luck that this ballyhooed project typified much of what's bugging the industry these days--it was too-high concept with no feet on the ground, and it was put in the hands of a television commercial director out of his depth. Slater didn't help--he proved as misdirectable here as he has been directable elsewhere--but he wasn't the problem either. Slater did appear in the hit Robin Hood, but it was an unfortunately, mysteriously abbreviated supporting role. He was, however, the only actor in Robin Hood who seemed to be acting in the movie Warner Bros. was trying to make (that's right, not Alan Rickman's movie or Morgan Freeman's movie, or even Kevin Costner's movie), and he quite definitely compared favorably to the phlegmatic Costner in the few scenes he was given. This just makes one ask, where are the starring parts the young man Christian Slater needs to launch a mature career from the platform of his impressive teen roles in the critically praised Heathers and Pump Up the Volume?
Our Advice: Despite the luck he had with first-timers Michael Lehmann and Allan Moyle (on Heathers and Pump Up the Volume), Slater should, after Mobsters and Kuffs, stay far away from first-time directors. Taking supporting parts in well-made, high profile pictures (that's the nicest way to describe Young Guns II) has been savvy, but he's going to need to step out again and show he can star. The ideal project would be something refreshingly medium-concept, tastefully erotic (one of his strong suits), emotionally direct (River Phoenix he isn't) and, here's the stickler, extremely well scripted (he's very honest with what he's given, and not all that inventive when he's given nothing). Beyond that, he should go with the best director who wants him--the worst that can happen if a few good directors take him on is that he becomes the new Matthew Modine.
JULIA ROBERTS's career raises the difficult question: Has any other star in memory ever risen so far so fast without making even one truly good movie? What sets Roberts apart from her peers is not just her natural vivaciousness and that infectious grin, but the fact that she's actually making a career out of rising above mediocre material. For the most part, it's a long list of one by-the-numbers potboiler after another, from heartbreak-of-showbiz Satisfaction to life-after-death Flatliners to heartbreak-of-diabetes Steel Magnolias to damsel-in-distress Sleeping with the Enemy to heartbreak-of-nursing Dying Young, and so on. The exception to this rule, the phenomenally successful, phenomenally thin Pretty Woman, suggests that Roberts's real chance to realize her potential lies in old-fashioned charm vehicles where she'd have to abandon the pretense of Acting and instead accept the mantle of Movie Star. Of course, abandoning all of one's faculties, as in Hook, is perhaps going too far.
Our Advice: First of all, movies aside, we advise Julia to refrain in the future from extolling the virtues of nitrous oxide in any interview in which she earlier states she has never touched a drug in her life (as she did last fall in Entertainment Weekly). That said, we advise Julia to get her highly touted agents to puts calls in to, say, Steve Martin and Rob Reiner. She should demand to know, "Where is my Roxanne? Where is my When Harry Met Sally... ?" Since she plays best in conventional Hollywood product, she might try doing a remake--like Bell, Book and Candle, which didn't really work so well the first time they tried it, or Barefoot in the Park, which did. She should definitely lighten up, but not necessarily all the way up into the air on wires. And perhaps she should get back into Gere. One thing is for sure: She should do something. Having nothing in the can after an anemic performance in Hook is not healthy.
CHARLIE SHEEN falls squarely into that spot midway between his opaque actor brother Emilio Estevez and his sensitive actor father Martin Sheen: No, it's not No Man's Land, it's Leading Man's Land. Handsome and stalwart (though by even his own accounts a good deal more exciting offscreen than on), Sheen follows in a long line of men who look--who are--perfectly comfortable embodying traditional male types, whether in buckskin (Young Guns), uniform (Platoon), or designer suit (Wall Street). The movies are always in short supply of this most essential commodity, so Sheen should have a long career that could easily outlast all his competitors (after all, where are the other lads who were hot when Michael Douglas was starting out?). But Sheen is ultimately more flexible than this suggests. He's very good in the silliest sort of comedy, which was evident long ago in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, reiterated in Major League, and driven home last year in Hot Shots!
Our Advice: There's little doubt that Sheen's already on the right track; with his traditional looks and that straight-arrow demeanor (well, onscreen, anyway), he'll continue to be offered parts that require just that. But with his considerable flair for funny business (he must have gotten it from his mother's side of the family), Sheen's light-years ahead of such earlier generations' straight men as Lloyd Bridges, Leslie Nielsen and Robert Stack--they only turned to comedy after their other options ran out. The trick now is for Sheen to get into comedy in a big way, and demonstrate that these gifts are no fluke, thus making himself attractive to a better class of comic director.
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Rebecca Morris and Kevin Hennessey peer into crystal balls professionally, and can be found most weekends hawking their psychic wares on the Venice Beach boardwalk.