|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sherilyn Fenn (born Sheryl Ann Fenn[1] on February 1, 1965 in Detroit, Michigan) is an Emmy and Golden Globe award nominated American actress and filmmaker, best known for playing Audrey Horne on the cult TV series Twin Peaks, for her roles in Ruby, Of Mice and Men, Boxing Helena and Rude Awakening, and for portraying actress Elizabeth Taylor in Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story.
Early lifeBorn into a family of musicians (her mother is keyboard player Arlene Quatro, her aunt is singer Suzi Quatro, her grandfather Art Quatro was a jazz musician and her father Leo Fenn managed such rock bands as Suzi Quatro's The Pleasure Seekers, Alice Cooper, and The Billion Dollar Babies), of Italian and Hungarian descent on her mother's side and Irish and French descent on her father's side, Sherilyn Fenn traveled a lot with her mother and two older brothers before the family settled in Los Angeles when she was 17.[2] Fenn, who claims to be demure,[2][3] didn't want to start with a new school again, and began studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute instead.[2] Acting careerEarly career
Rise to fame - Twin PeaksImage:AudreyHorne.jpg Sherilyn Fenn as Audrey Horne in Twin Peaks Fenn won her most outstanding role and made an indelible impression on the public when she was cast by David Lynch and Mark Frost as the tantalizing, reckless Audrey Horne, the high-school femme fatale from the critically acclaimed TV series Twin Peaks. The series ran from 1990 to 1991, and the character of Audrey was one of the most popular with fans, in particular for her unrequited love for FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (played by Kyle MacLachlan), her style from the '50s (with her saddle shoes, plaid skirts and tight sweaters), and a memorable scene in which she knotted a cherry stem in her mouth. "With Sherilyn Fenn, Twin Peaks came on and effortlessly destroyed every other show’s sexuality", said co-star James Marshall.[8] "Audrey is a woman-child who dresses like the girls in the '50s and shows her body", said Fenn. "But she's daddy's little girl at the same time."[5] In the show's second season, when the idea of pairing the characters was abandoned, Audrey was paired with other characters like Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook) and John Justice Wheeler (Billy Zane). About Audrey, Fenn said:
Shortly after shooting Twin Peaks' pilot episode, David Lynch gave her a small but impressive part in Wild at Heart, as a girl injured in a car wreck, opposite Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern, which won the Golden Palm Award at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. "David’s direction was, ‘Only think of this: bobby pins, lipstick, wallet, comb, that’s it.’ It’s very abstract."[9] "I just pictured her being able to do this", said Lynch of her scene, "she’s like a broken China doll."[10] David Lynch, who once described Sherilyn Fenn as "five feet of heaven in a ponytail", said about her:
After Twin Peaks, Fenn chose to focus on widening her range of roles and was determined to avoid typecasting. "They’ve offered me every variation on Audrey Horne, none of which were as good or as much fun."[12] She turned down the Audrey Horne spin-off series that was offered to her, and unlike most of the cast, chose not to return for the 1992 prequel movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, as she was then shooting Of Mice and Men.[13] Post-Peaks rolesImage:FennRuby.jpg Sherilyn Fenn as Sheryl Ann DuJean in Ruby
Fenn starred in the neo-noir black comedy Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel as a sultry, seductive femme fatale, opposite Whip Hubley and David Hewlett. She played John Dillinger's girlfriend Billie Frechette in ABC's 1991 gangster TV movie Dillinger opposite Mark Harmon, Will Patton and Patricia Arquette. Her acting coach, veteran Hollywood acting coach Roy London chose her to star in his directorial debut Diary of a Hitman (nominated for the Critics Award at the 1991 Deauville Film Festival, and costarring Sharon Stone, also one of London’s alumni), in which she plays a young mother determined to protect her child from hit-man Forest Whitaker. According to Fenn, the turning point in her career was when she met Roy London in 1990:
Image:FennOfmiceandmen.jpg Sherilyn Fenn as Curley's wife in Of Mice and Men In 1992 she played a sad and lonely country wife, desperately in need to talk to somebody in Gary Sinise's film adaptation of Of Mice and Men (nominated for the Golden Palm at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival) opposite John Malkovich. "Sherilyn’s one of the reasons we got such a great ovation at Cannes", said Sinise.[19] "Gary Sinise was one of the first people who didn’t see me like a lot of other people did,"[20] she said "It was a wonderful experience. Horton Foote adapted the novel and he fleshed out my character, and he made her much, much more."[14] The same year saw her starring in John Mackenzie's Ruby as small-town stripper/singer Sheryl Ann DuJean (a fictional character inspired by the women around John Kennedy, including Marilyn Monroe) alongside Danny Aiello, Arliss Howard and Marc Lawrence. "I see these images of Marilyn", said Lawrence - who worked with Monroe - about Fenn, "she even moves like Marilyn."[21] "She’s got a brain and all the right emotional instincts", said Mackenzie, "and that’s a great combination."[22] In 1993 she starred in the romantic comedy Three of Hearts as Kelly Lynch and William Baldwin's love interest, and Carl Reiner's detective film parody Fatal Instinct as Armand Assante's devoted secretary and Sean Young and Kate Nelligan’s rival. Her most notable film role to date was in the controversial Boxing Helena (nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival), directed by David Lynch's daughter Jennifer Chambers Lynch. Helena, in which she played a narcissistic seductress amputated and imprisoned by Julian Sands, was a way for Fenn to avoid being type-cast,[23] with a radically different role from what she’d done in the past:
Image:Fennhelena.jpg Sherilyn Fenn as the limbless Helena in Boxing Helena After a short break during which she married and gave birth to a son, Fenn portrayed Elizabeth Taylor in NBC's 1995 telemovie Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story:
She also portrayed Potiphar's wife Zulaikha in Showtime's biblical TV movie Slave of Dreams opposite Adrian Pasdar and Edward James Olmos. The film was directed by multi-award winning Robert M. Young and produced by Martha and Dino De Laurentiis. Slowdown in her careerIn the late 1990s, Fenn's career took a downturn, which she herself has attributed to her frankness and her lack of enthusiasm in traditional Hollywood films. "I was a brat", she admits. "I didn't like anything, even then. It was crazy, I was very picky. In other words, I didn't take advantage of what was happening necessarily then. But they also have a way of putting you in a category. I wasn't into playing the Hollywood game. I only responded to certain things.[16]
She then began to alternate TV movies and small independent films. In 1996 she joined the winning ensemble cast in the romantic comedy Lovelife as Jon Tenney's low self-esteemed girlfriend. The film was written and directed by Tru Calling's creator Jon Harmon Feldman and costarred Matt Letscher, Bruce Davison, Saffron Burrows and Carla Gugino. Fenn also starred in the 1997 romantic comedy Just Write as Hollywood tour bus driver Jeremy Piven's dream actress who mistakes him for a famous screenwriter. Fenn was originally cast as the female lead in ABC's 1998 show Prey and starred in the unaired pilot episode, but she was replaced by Debra Messing. She starred in the 1998 British psychological drama and huis-clos Darkness Falls as Tim Dutton's rich, neglected wife, sequestered by despaired Ray Winstone, who wants to understand the events that led to his wife ending up in a coma. "I loved the script when I read it; it's a wonderful character piece. I saw Ray's work, like Nil by Mouth, and I saw Tim's work, and I just was really excited to be a part of it."[16] While shooting the film in the UK in 1997, Fenn hesitated to settle in London in order to start a European career, as she felt more and more uninspired by Hollywood films, and finally decided to stay in the USA.[28][13] Recent roles and directingImage:FennCement.jpg Sherilyn Fenn as Lyndel Holt in Cement Fenn's return to television was the lead role in Showtime's sitcom Rude Awakening (1998–2001) as Billie Frank, an alcoholic ex-soap actress, based upon executive producer/creator Claudia Lonow's experience, who tries to go sober and become a writer but continues to struggle with her self-destructive habits:
In 1999 Fenn reteamed with Chris Penn and Adrian Pasdar for Pasdar art-house directorial debut, the neo-noir Cement, a contemporary re-telling of Othello, in which she played a tempting, thoughtless femme fatale, the wife of jealous corrupt cop Chris Penn. The film, which won Best Picture awards on the festival circuit, was written by Farscape’s screenwriter Justin Monjo and also starred Jeffrey Wright and Henry Czerny. She also reteamed with actor/director Bruce Davison for his 2001 award-winning [1] family comedy, Showtime's Off Season alongside Rory Culkin, Hume Cronyn and Adam Arkin. In 2002 Fenn was cast as Harleen Quinzel/Harley Quinn in WB's Birds of Prey but was replaced by Mia Sara before the series began (Fenn appeared in the unaired pilot episode but dropped out after the network decided to reshoot the episode, due to scheduling conflicts, as the show's creators realized that the character of Harley Quinn would need to be a bigger part of the show, for which Fenn was unavailable).[29] She played a criminal in the 2002 film, Swindle, opposite undercover cop Tom Sizemore. Fenn had small roles in the critically acclaimed The United States of Leland (2003) as a woman who represents happiness and joie de vivre to Ryan Gosling, and in Showtime's Cavedweller (2004) opposite Kyra Sedgwick. She co-starred in 2005 in the ultimately unreleased Lesser of Three Evils alongside Ho Sung Pak and Peter Greene. In 2006, Fenn starred in Whitepaddy alongside Lisa Bonet and Hill Harper, and co-starred in Emily Skopov's Novel Romance, opposite Traci Lords and Paul Johansson. She was also cast as the female lead in ABC's Three Moons Over Milford[30] but was replaced by Elizabeth McGovern. She appeared in the in the 2007 Dukes of Hazzard prequel, The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning as Lulu Hogg. "It's just a fun silly role," she said, but Fenn had already worked with director Robert Berlinger on Rude Awakening, and wanted to do so again.[31] Shortly after shooting The Dukes of Hazzard prequel, Fenn stepped behind the camera for the first time and directed in Pittsburgh a documentary film about child enrichment program CosmiKids and its founder Judy Julin.[2] Guest appearancesSherilyn Fenn guest-starred in numerous TV series like 21 Jump Street (1987) opposite her then-fiancé Johnny Depp and in a 1995 episode of HBO's Tales from the Crypt directed by Robert Zemeckis, alongside Isabella Rossellini and John Lithgow, in which she played the lover of Humphrey Bogart, who appeared in the episode via CGI special effects. In a 1997 episode of Friends she was Matthew Perry's wooden-legged girlfriend. She appeared in a 2001 episode of The Outer Limits in which her character was duplicated and played a manipulative woman in a 2002 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She joined former co-stars Jeremy Piven on Cupid in 1998, and Mark Harmon on NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service in 2004. In 2005 Fenn appeared on The 4400, in which she plays Jean DeLynn Baker, a 4400 who has the ability to grow toxin-emitting spores on her hands. Other appearances include Judging Amy in 2005 and CSI: Miami in 2006. Fenn was one of several former Twin Peaks stars, such as Dana Ashbrook and Mädchen Amick, to have a recurring role on WB's Dawson's Creek. She also had a recurring role on Fox's Boston Public. She played two different roles on WB's Gilmore Girls. She originally appeared as Sasha in the season 3 episode Here Comes the Son, which was the pilot for a California-set spin-off titled Windward Circle, which would have starred Milo Ventimiglia, Rob Estes and Fenn. The network dropped the project citing cost issues due to filming on location in Venice, California.[32] Fenn reappeared in the 6th season as a different character, Anna Nardini, the ex-girlfriend of Luke Danes (played by Scott Patterson) and protective mother to his daughter April. When asked why she cast Fenn for two different roles on Gilmore Girls, creator Amy Sherman-Palladino said:
Personal quotes
Personal lifeFenn dated Prince and was engaged to Johnny Depp. She briefly dated Hollywood agent Jay Moloney. Fenn also dated photographer Barry Hollywood (who photographed her for the December 1990 issue of Playboy magazine). She married guitarist/songwriter Toulouse Holliday[35] in 1994, and bore a son, Myles, in late 1993. The marriage came to an end in 1997. Fenn practices kundalini yoga. Awards & nominations
Trivia
Selected filmography | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
