TMS Spotlight: The Supermodel Turned Movie Star
(Owen Franken)
Beautiful women aren’t exactly lacking in Hollywood and other areas of showbusiness. It’s also not rare for an actress, particularly young starlets, to start their careers with a stint in modeling before they officially breakthrough as performers. But how many supermodels have actually successfully crossed over to acting fulltime? Probably a lot more than most people realize, depending on their age and familiarity with the entertainment field. There are some famous models who will experiment with the acting bug, like Christie Brinkley in Harold Ramis’ Vacation (1983) or Cindy Crawford in Andrew Sipes’ Fair Game (1995). But the ones who completely switched to motion pictures from still photographs are impressive.
(via blogspot.com)
These days Isabella Rossellini is mostly remembered for her work in films like David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) and Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990), or for famously being the daughter of film legends Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman. But the actress actually already had a full-fledge gig as a magazine and runway model, which peaked when she became the face of the cosmetics brand Lancôme in the early 1980s. As is the case with fellow famous offspring and models-turned-actresses Anjelica Huston and Milla Jovovich. Most viewers recognize Rene Russo as the female lead or love interest in popular movies like Wolfgang Petersen’s In the Line of Fire (1993), Barry Sonnenfeld’s Get Shorty (1995) and Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler (2014). But Russo already had plenty of experience as one of the most in-demand models of the late 1970s on the cover of publications like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Cosmopolitan.
(Ron Galella)
Similarly, half a decade later, Andie MacDowell would go from posing for magazines, catalogues, and ads for the haircare company L’Oréal; to appearing as the token pretty girl in Joel Schumacher’s St. Elmo’s Fire (1985); to co-starring in such acclaimed films as Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies & Videotape (1989) and Harold Ramis’ Groundhog Day (1993). The most surprising supermodel-turned-steady working actress transition I discovered was Lorraine Bracco. Famous for her roles in gangster classics like Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas (1990) and HBO’s “The Sopranos” (1999-2007), Bracco was a former muse for fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier in the mid-1970s. X-men stars Famke Janssen and Rebecca Romijn were strolling the catwalk in the 1990s before hitting the big screen big time in their blockbuster franchise in 2000 as well.
In modern film, Anya Taylor-Joy of Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015) and Autumn de Wilde’s Emma (2020), is probably the most successful young actress to leave the fashion world for the artsy crowd; though she still has a gig with Dior on the side too. As we can see, giving good face can help build your career. But being a double threat can work in your favor for even more fame and praise.