The Adam Sandler-headlined comedy Just Go With It opens in theaters nationwide today. Romantic comedy
standby Jennifer Aniston stars alongside the comedian, but another actor takes a prominent role in the film:
Brooklyn Decker.
You might be asking yourself, “Who’s Brooklyn Decker?” The
23-year-old’s claim to fame thus far is appearing in various Swimsuit Issues of
Sports Illustrated and gracing the
cover for last year’s issue.
It’s easy to say, “Oh great! Another hot model wants to be
an actress!” and dismiss her thespian ambitions, but don’t hold a woman’s looks
against her. Not everyone is cut out for Hollywood, but many models have gone
on to great success in Hollywood, some of them even achieving legendary status
in their craft.
Who can say whether or not Decker will have such success,
but names like the ones below give us cause to look to the future with anticipation. Here are Player Affinity’s Top
Five Models-Turned-Actressses.5. Cameron Diaz
She was a prominent model in the industry before auditioning for and surprisingly nabbing a highly coveted role - without any experience!
Diaz’s big debut was in The
Mask as the drop-dead gorgeous Tina Carlyle, but she became something of an
icon with her leading work in There’s
Something About Mary. She charmed audiences the world over, and the
question, “Is that hair gel?” became a classic movie line. For her work there
she earned her first Golden Globe nomination and won the prestigious New York
Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.
She followed that up with the sports drama Any Given Sunday and Golden Globe- and
Screen Actors Guild-nominated performances in the quirky indie flick Being John Malkovich as well as the negatively
received Vanilla Sky. She also
starred in Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New
York in 2002, which earned her another Golden Globe nomination.
Most well-known of all, she headlined two Charlie’s
Angels films and the Shrek
series, the first and second of which took the world by surprise with its charm
and biting wit. Sequels to these films helped her earn a big paycheck.
The actress is perhaps best known for her bubbly charm, often playing naïve and clueless as she did so well in "Mary." It’s not entirely dissimilar to Marilyn Monroe’s
iconic work in The Seven Year Itch. Both
actresses are completely aware of peoples’ perceptions of them. But instead of
scoffing, they have fun with it, and the audience does, too. Diaz employs the
same kind of self-awareness in the Charlie’s
Angels films.
Just because she boasts a charming demeanor doesn’t mean
that she shouldn’t be taken seriously; she can also bring some serious acting
heat to the table. In Being John Malkovich, her co-star Catherine Keener “glams it up” to
a certain degree, but the naturally beautiful Diaz opts to do the opposite. She dyes
her hair a ghastly brown color, wears atrocious attire, and doesn’t wear
make-up. The role might not require the amount of dedication needed for, say,
Charlie Theron’s role in Monster
(hint, hint), but there is a degree of integrity needed nonetheless.
4. Halle Berry
At 17 years old, Halle Berry was crowned Miss Teen
All-American; she also took the Miss USA Pageant’s runner-up a year later. Her pageant
work led to jobs as a model. This in turn provided her the opportunity to work
on Living Dolls. Even at this early
stage the actress took on an admirable work ethic, staying in character between
takes.
She broke though in Spike Lee’s 1991 drama Jungle Fever, playing a crack addict. An
acclaimed performance in the television miniseries Queen followed in 1993, and 1994 saw her playing secretary Sharon
Stone in The Flintstones. She went
under the direction of Warren Beatty in the 1998 satire Bulworth, and won the 1999 Emmy for Lead Actress in a Miniseries or
Movie for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge,
where she played the titular Oscar nominee.
At the turn of the century, she headlined the first of what became three
X-Men films alongside Hugh Jackman
and Sir Patrick Stewart. In 2001, she gave a powerful performance in Monster’s Ball, a film that helped the
actress make history: she became the first African American to win the Lead
Actress Oscar.
In Monster’s Ball, she fully realizes the character of Leticia Musgrove. It’s a true testament to acting, not only that she could hold her own against Billy Bob Thornton – as well as outdo him – but that she also revealed the soul of her character.
She has had some lows, too. She nabbed the Worst Actress “prize” at the Razzies for her
performance in Catwoman; in fact, she was a
good sport about it and actually showed up to the ceremony and parodied her own
famous Oscar speech.
An acclaimed performance in Frankie and Alice serves as her most recent performance; she’s
currently lined up for the promising Cloud
Atlas, The Skank Robbers (God
help us), and Shoe Addicts Anonymous.
3. Kim Basinger
Born in December of 1953, Kim Basinger first worked as a
model. A modeling gig for a shampoo company in 1969 was her first, and the early
1970s saw her earning as much as $1,000/day on account of her burgeoning
modeling career, as well as brushing up on her acting skills at the Neighborhood
Playhouse.
Basinger relocated to Los Angeles in 1976 to pursue a
full-time acting career. She earned some positive notices for her work in 1979’s
From Here to Eternity, but she became
famous after playing Domino in Never Say
Never Again in 1983. A year later, she nabbed a Golden Globe nomination for
her supporting role in Barry Levinson’s The
Natural, and in 1989, she starred in Tim Burton’s take on the Caped
Crusader, the original Batman.
But her most significant role to date was as Lynn Bracken in
L.A. Confidential, for which she won
the 1997 Best Supporting Actress Oscar over Joan Cusack and veteran actress
Gloria Stuart. Post-Oscar, her career continued to flourish, receiving a $5
million payday for 2000’s I Dreamed of
Africa and playing the maternal figure in 8 Mile. She most recently had a small role in Charlie St. Cloud.
Despite her Oscar for L.A.
Confidential, and she’s exceptional there, I honestly find her work in The Burning Plain to be her most
impressive. It’s a film I can’t truly recommend as a film, so to speak, but
Basinger provides some absolutely devastating work in the film. Her face
portrays the battlefield of emotions constantly flying through her head. Any still
frame of her performance conveys a new insight, a new realization.
Unfortunately, Basinger, 57, has no projects lined up at the
moment. Let’s hope that changes someday soon.
2. Julia Roberts
While taking acting classes in New York, Julia Roberts
signed on with the modeling agency Click. After starring in lesser known
projects and small gigs, she picked up some minor prominence for Mystic Pizza in 1988, but a year later
is when things heated up. That’s when she starred in the drama/ultimate chick
flick (eat your heart out, Terms of Endearment) Steel Magnolias, acting alongside acting
heavyweights Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, and Dolly Parton.
She picked up a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and
an Oscar nod in the same category, but in 1990, Roberts’s turn as Vivian Ward
in the romantic comedy Pretty Woman served
as her big breakthrough. She won over the hearts of audiences nationwide, and
picked up her second Academy Award nomination, this time in the Lead Actress
race; she also won her second Golden Globe.
A string of audience favorites, including Hook, Sleeping with the Enemy, and The
Pelican Brief, followed. Then in 1997, she returned to the awards derby to
some degree with a Globe-nominated performance in My Best Friend’s Wedding. She starred opposite Rupert Everett,
Dermot Mulroney, and the aforementioned Cameron Diaz; the film was both a
critical and commercial success.
Roberts has mostly followed up with more audience favorites like Runaway Bride – opposite Pretty Woman co-star Richard Gere – and Notting Hill as well as the "Oceans" franchise. However, she made a grand
return to the awards scene in 2000 with Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich, nabbing a slew of
prizes including her first ever Academy Award for Best Actress.
She picked up
Golden Globe nominations for failed Oscar pony Charlie Wilson’s War and the early 2009 release Duplicity. Her most recent project was Eat Pray Love; she can be seen later this
year in Larry Crowne with Tom Hanks.
She’s definitely one of Hollywood’s most intriguing
actresses. She effortlessly moves between serious acting projects (Erin Brockovich, Closer), lighter mainstream fare (Ocean’s, Mystic Pizza),
and films that define the term “chick flick.” Those films, in Julia’s case,
often fall somewhere between the serious and lighter. Films such as Stepmom obviously fit the former, while
the frothy My Best Friend’s Wedding
easily slips into the latter.
Though she won an Oscar for playing the titular role in Erin Brockovich, audiences most remember
as Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman. A perfect
role for a young ingénue, it was oddly turned down by Daryl Hannah, Molly
Ringwald, and Meg Ryan. I honestly can’t picture those three in the role. Well,
at least not performing as well as Roberts did. She’s simply a captivating
presence on screen, making you fall in love with her time and time again. Even in
the nearly abysmal Eat Pray Love, she
holds your interest and makes you genuinely care about the course of actions
she’s taking.
1. Charlize Theron
The actress from South Africa started out as a model at age
16 upon winning a modeling contest. Her modeling career began in Europe but a
year later moved to New York. She pursued a career in ballet, since she very
little enjoyed modeling, but that worked to no avail because of a knee injury. In
1994 she moved out to Los Angeles and had no luck with Hollywood agents. An
outburst at a bank oddly provided her with an agent’s card and the promise of
an acting gig if she learned English.
A 1995 B-movie in which Theron had less than a minute on
screen was her screen debut. Beyond that, she’s starred in the thriller The Devil’s Advocate, family-oriented
adventure Mighty Joe Young, and the
successful remake of The Italian Job.
She’s provided great work throughout her entire career, but her
Oscar-winning performance in 2003’s Monster
is easily Theron’s finest achievement. She both expresses the anguish of
the character and a fervent dedication to the craft of acting.
Another Oscar nomination followed in 2005 with North Country. Then there was the action-oriented
dud Æon Flux -- no Oscar nominaton. She’s recently acted in
projects such as In the Valley of Elah (2007),
Hancock (2008), and The Road (2009). She returns to the
cinema later this year with the Diablo Cody-penned Young Adult.
A big work ethic really paid off for her with Monster, and it’s simply her most
impressive acting to date. I doubt she’ll ever top her performance there, but
that isn’t a slight on her other work. In The
Italian Job she was a fun presence and fit well into the cast. Additionally,
she does her best to give an emotional depth to her character in Hancock. She isn’t successful, but blame
the haphazard script for that one.
Outside of Young Adult,
she’ll again venture into action films with Mad
Max: Fury Road and Snow White and the
Huntsman. Oddly enough, she’ll play the Evil Queen in the latter, making it
difficult for the Magic Mirror to decide who really is “the fairest of them
all.”