So Rachel McAdams - Mean Girls, the Notebook, Wedding Crashers, soon-to-be released Red Eye - is clearly the It Girl du jour. More power to her and I wish her well.
How does this work? So many starlet actresses get anointed and obviously few truly make it. I get the impression that
an actress is in a movie in a small but important role
the movie gets buzz and/or she gets buzz for her role - inside the industry - the public at large is still completely in the dark.
she gets cast in a few movies based on the buzz
a year-plus down the road, all of these movies are getting released at around the same time - or within 12 months anyway - and the PR hype machine cranks up to note the coincidence and make a sacrificial offering of this starlet to the public - holding her up and throwing her against the wall of opinion to see if she sticks…
few do and the rest limp away.
Any Hollywood types or more dedicated followers of Hollywood who can comment on this process?
I’ve wondered this myself. The example I was thinking of was Jessica Alba - lately she’s been all over the media but her career itself doesn’t seem to be doing any better now then it has was a year or two ago. But a year ago, Brittany Murphy was “hot” for no apparent reason and two years ago it was Eva Mendes’ turn to be “it”.
It just seems like an actor or actress gets a “push” from studios and the media in general, all around the same time. Whether they’re good or not, and whether the public embraces them or not, doesn’t matter. They become ubiquitous, and most of the time that’s all it takes. I tend to think this is a very planned and formulaic procedure. Paris Hilton, for example, was not nearly as well-known until her homemade porn video was released, and that was right on the eve of her Fox reality show starting. I doubt that was a coincidence. She was on magazine covers, talk shows, commercials, music videos… Now she’s everywhere, and I think some people were just worn down by her constant exposure (no pun intended) into tolerating or even liking her.
It doesn’t always work, though. A few years ago, they seemed to be pushing an actress named Julia Ormond, and all of a sudden she was in movies with all these A-list actors: Legends of the Fall with Brad Pitt, *First Knight * with Sean Connery and Richard Gere, the remake of Sabrina with Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear. But she never seemed to catch on, even after that media blitz. I haven’t heard about Julia Ormond in forever.
BBVLou - Julia Ormond was one of the Also-rans I had in mind when I wrote this OP. She got a ton of hype right at the same time she appeared in a lot of movies - it has bugged me. Movies take time to make - for her to appear in all those movies required a long time to film. So what happened? That’s why I hypothesize that she got “Insider” buzz, got attached to a lot of movies, then, when they started releasing the movies, an “outsider” PR blitz occurred both for the movies and to see if she would catch on as a standalone, can-open-a-movie-big celebrity on her own. In her case, obviously, it failed…
Btw, she is staring on Lifetime in a week or so in a made-for-cable movie with Rob Lowe…O how the starlets have fallen…
To be fair appearing in First Knight, Legend of the Falls, and Sabrina is enough to put any career in danger.
I remember that Amanda Peet was the “it” girl for a few months at least. I didn’t have anything against her but I couldn’t figure out what launched her into the stratosphere.
I think the Jessica Alba hype was all about Fantastic Four. Most of the magazine covers were just before the movie and as far as I know thats the only current movie she is in.
Part of it may be a good agent. Part of it may be media cross promotion. (i.e. Time-warner selling magazines to promote a movie, but the movie may also sell the magazines). Some of it may be luck. I mean Jude Law and Cate Blanchette are recognized good actors who probably don’t need "buzz’, but were in lots of movies released around the same time.
She was also in Sin City earlier this year, and appeared on several of the movie posters and featured prominently in the trailer as Nancy, a sexy stripper in a cowgirl-themed costume. That didn’t hurt her exposure either. Interestingly, she was in two comic book movies back to back.
Well, Jessica Alba is fucking hot, whereas Julia Ormond seemed to be kind of a stiff. Could have something to do with the difference in their careers. I mean, most action/adveture/comic book movies have a role for the Hot Babe, and that poster from Sin City of Alba in the cowgirl outfit probably put her in a few directors’ minds.
Heck, I remember Gretchen Mol appearing on the cover of Vanity Fair and being hailed as “the new It girl.” When did you last see Gretchen Mol?
Basically the studios are just fly fishing. Push a starlet and if she catches on, like Julia Roberts or Nicole Kidman, well, terrific. If she doesn’t catch on, there’s always another.
Of course, it may also be pure random chance.
Consider this; at any given time there are dozens of actresses in their 20s who are competing for roles in movies like “Wedding Crashers.” Some get the roles and some don’t. In a given year, there’s probably four, maybe five dozen starring or major co-starring roles for women about Rachel McAdams’s age (she’s a few months short of 29) in major Hollywood productions.
It seems to be that just by random chance, one actress or another who has enough film experience to not be a rookie, but not enough that you noticed her before, is going to nail 5-6 of those roles in a span of 24 months. It may simply be that McAdams, and all the other It girls before her, were just a combination of luck and a good agent.
This threads reminds of an episode of Arrested Development, when Tobias tried his best to hype the name of Fünke in the Studio grounds, but actually managed for Maeby to become a producer.
Marketing. It is incredibly difficult for any star of any type to have staying power. It seems like five years is a pretty good run, and the level of fame is usually going to be on a bell curve.
This might even be an example of the tipping point in show biz. Actress stars in one movie, maybe it’s an obscure movie that picks up a cult following, or a surprise hit at a film festival, and then gets a wide release. Before you know it, said actress has been noticed by someone important, and is appearing on talk shows, magazine covers, showing up on “most searched for” lists, and getting set to appear in a handful of other productions. Sometimes (eventually?) the hype hits a saturation point and things get back to normal; in this case that’s moving on to The Next Big Thing.
Not to pick on Gretchen Mol, but she was being hailed as a superstar after appearing in Rounders. I’m nothing special when it comes to picking out talent, but I’d seen Rounders, and couldn’t help but be surprised when I started hearing the buzz for the actress I couldn’t remember.
My prediction for the next ubiquitous star to bite the dust is Jessica Simpson. Her dad is creepy (he was on Kimmel the other night; has Mr. Simpson always had an earring?), her sister doesn’t have any talent, and I can’t imagine the public’s attention span will take much more of Jessica Simpson. The novelty has worn off, and it’s to the point where any Jessica Simpson joke is reaching the level of “The phrase jumping the shark has jumped the shark.”
Simpson has really been well known for about 6 years. She’s had a reality show, been in a movie, and has “diversified” into skin cream or whatever it is she’s hawking now. Britney Spears emerged around the same time, and it looks like Spears is starting to fade away. Eventually the same thing will happen to Simpson. Hilton has only been known maybe 3-4 years. I figure we have maybe two-three years left, when it comes to the daily assault of information about her activities.
Especially when you consider that Mol basically played a generic “girlfriend” role in that movie. It also didn’t help that the other prominent female in the cast, Famke Janssen, was more memorable.
As much as I want this to happen, I wouldn’t place any bets on it. Both Simpson and Spears follow Madonna’s guide on fame which states that if you’re a singer and want to stay famous, the quality of your music is–at best–secondary. Your main goal should be to keep the media constantly talking about you. So far, Simpson and Spears (along with their handlers) have done this almost flawlessly.
How long do you all think “it girl” Lindsay Lohan’s fame will last? Will the combination of media saturation, stinker Herbie movie, and bad dye job do her in?
I think Jessica Alba is the better example, but even better is Scarlett Johansen. Or possibly Keira Knightley. I don’t care, as long as it’s no longer Kate Bosworth. Elisha Cuthbert was apparently flung at a teflon wall, the poor thing.
I am also curious about the mechanics, most notably this part:
“the movie gets buzz and/or she gets buzz for her role - inside the industry - the public at large is still completely in the dark”
I’m wondering if anybody is watching Entourage…does that show offer any insight into the phenomenon?
Scarlett and Keira are both good actresses, from what we’ve seen of them so far, and not just pretty faces. I don’t expect them to fade away any time soon, since they seem to have the acting chops to match their looks.
But expect a Kate Bosworth media frenzy in 2006, since she’s playing Lois Lane in Superman Returns.
But with Johansen and Knightley the fame seemed to come as a result of the work. There was only minimal attention given to them before Lost in Translation or Pirates of the Caribbean came out and drew an audience.
With stars like Alba, there seems to be advance planning at work. Alba’s current crest of popularity began before Sin City or Fantastic Four premiered. And even if Sin City had been a huge success, there was no reason to think that the public was going to single out Alba in the large cast (Rosario Dawson and Carla Gugino both had larger roles). It’s like someone decided that Alba was going to be famous in six months and then started the plan in motion to make it happen.
Don’t get me wrong: I think Alba is beautiful and I have no objection to seeing her on the cover of half the magazines at the stand. But after her last two failed attempts at being the next big thing (anyone remember the hype over Dark Angel? Or Honey?) you’d think editors would start demanded proof before accepting whatever publicists said about her.
I’m inclined to agree with this - both actresses ended up in hits - I would at Lost in Translation and Bend it like Beckham as other “under the radar” movies that they had success with - and then each got boomerang’d with the hype thing on their next wave of movies.
What I am talking about is when an actress (or actor for that matter) is hyped for their first wave of movies - and there are a few hitting within about a year or so.
I heard about Gretchen Mol before Rounders when the machine started - that and a couple of other flops flopped and she disappeared.
Jessica Alba qualifies.
I think Dignan is onto something - I think there is an attempt to force a tipping point. What I would love to get the inside scoop on is: why this actress at this point? How far in advance was she spotted, ended up in a few parts, and now this tipping point is being forced?