Alicia Witt

Alicia Roanne Witt (born August 21, 1975 in Worcester, Massachusetts) is an American actress.

Background

Witt was discovered by David Lynch when she appeared on the television show That's Incredible! in 1980; she had recited Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. He cast her in the movie Dune (1984), where she played Paul Atreides' young sister Alia. Afterwards, she left Hollywood to concentrate on her studies and music. She was home taught by her parents. She studied piano at Boston University and won several national and international classical piano competitions, including the "Bartok-Kabalevsky International Piano Competition."

At age 14 Witt earned her high school diploma. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Hollywood with her mother Diane Witt (who is noted in the Guinness Book of Records for the world's longest hair) to pursue a career as a full-time actress. Soon, David Lynch, whom she refers to as a mentor, created the role of Gersten Hayward especially for her in his successful series Twin Peaks. He cast her again in Blackout, a segment in his short-lived HBO series Hotel Room. That was the last collaboration between the two for awhile.

During this time, Witt supported herself by playing piano at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. She went on to play small parts in Mike Figgis' Liebestraum (in which her brother Ian also appears), the Gen-X drama Bodies, Rest & Motion and the TV movie The Disappearance of Vonnie.

In 1994 Witt landed her first lead role in a film, playing a disturbed teenager named Bonnie in Fun. She received the Special Jury Recognition Award at the Sundance Festival and was nominated for Best Actress at the Independent Spirit Awards. This performance made Madonna want Witt to be cast as her witch-lover in the first segment The missing ingredient of Four Rooms.

She was introduced to a larger audience playing the role of Zoey Woodbine, daughter of actress Cybill Shepherd's character in the sitcom Cybill from 1995 to 1998. Between seasons she starred in films: Mr. Holland's Opus, Alexander Payne's abortion comedy Citizen Ruth, Passion's Way and Bongwater.

After Cybill was cancelled, Witt received a leading role in the Scream-ish campus-horror Urban Legend and the animated feature Gen¹³ which was never released because the studio stopped funding before the completion of the movie.

In 2000 Witt had starring roles on the television shows Ally McBeal and The Sopranos; the lead role in the comedy Playing Mona Lisa, an instant-classic turn as an anal porn star in John Waters' Cecil B. Demented, and her stage debut in Robbie Fox's musical The Gift at the now-closed Tiffany Theater in Los Angeles, in which she played a high-priced stripper with a disease.

In the years following, Witt's acting career slowed down. She had a small part in Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, which was intended as a reference to her roles in Dune and Liebestraum. She also played a college graduate who discussed losing her virginity in the experimental Ten Tiny Love Stories and the trailer-trash girl Barbie in American Girl, which was released to video in 2005.

She turned down the role of Mary Jane Watson in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and made her comeback to mainstream cinema in the 2002 romantic comedy Two Weeks Notice.

In 2003 and 2004, she turned her back on Hollywood and lived primarily in the UK filming The Upside of Anger opposite Kevin Costner; and she starred as Evelyn in a stage-production of Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things. Between the two projects, she went to South Africa to shoot the German TV movie Kingdom in Twilight. She played Kriemhild in this filmic interpretation of the epic poem Das Nibelungenlied, which was released in the US as Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King.

On June 14, 2004, Witt modeled what is believed to be the most expensive hat ever made, for Christie's auction house in London. The Champrau d'Amour, designed by Louis Mariette, is valued at $2.7 million (US) and is covered in diamonds.

Witt currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband, screenwriter Nathan Foulger.^[1]

Partial filmography

• Blue Smoke'(TV)' (2007) as Catarina Hale
• Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King (2006)
• 88 Minutes (2006)
• Last Holiday (2006) as Ms. Burns
• The Upside of Anger (2005) as Hadley Wolfmeyer
• Two Weeks Notice (2002) as June Carter
• Vanilla Sky (2001) as Libby
• Playing Mona Lisa (2000) as Claire Goldstein
• Cecil B. Demented (2000) as Cherish
• Urban Legend (1998) as Natalie Simon
• Citizen Ruth (1996) as Cheryl
• Mr. Holland's Opus (1995) as Gertrude Lang
• Four Rooms (1995) as Kiva
• Fun (1994) as Bonnie
• Twin Peaks (1990, Episode 8) as Gersten Hayward
• Dune (1984) as Alia

Television

• The Sopranos D-Girl as Amy Safir
• Ally McBeal as Hope
• Cybill as Zoe

Stage

• The Shape of Things (2004) New Ambassadors Theatre, London.
• Piano/Forte (2006) Royal Court Theatre, London. The play was especially written to incorporate her piano-playing talent.

References

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