Jennifer Connelly Breaks Down Her Career, from 'Top Gun' to 'Labyrinth' | Vanity Fair

it's just a connection that I have to that character's experience, like if you watch a movie that's really effective and really moves you and you find yourself in a movie theater crying, you're not necessarily intellectually thinking, oh, this reminds me of what I experienced with my dad or my sister or whatever, but it reaches you on a human-like level. Hi, I'm Jennifer Connelly and this is my

career

timeline. My beloved is white and ready. His skin is like the finest gold. His cheeks. like a bed of spices even though it hasn't been washed since last December.

I was 10 years old and we lived in Brooklyn Heights and I remember almost every day we rode the subway and went to the City and I like a couple of jobs. and then I started doing commercials, it wasn't something I chose for myself. I think I was very shy and I enjoyed it because I like meeting people and I always wanted to be very professional, do the best job possible. The beginning, I remember, was one of the movies I auditioned for and didn't get, and then I had this audition for Once Upon a Time in America and I didn't have any training and I didn't have any skills at the time, I think they really helped me. for the fact that I looked a lot like Lizabeth McGovern, so I was playing the character that she played as a child.

I remember I was actually supposed to play a ballerina and they asked me to improvise a ballet dance and I can only imagine what that must have seemed like because I've never studied ballet so it must have been pretty silly but somehow I did it. I understood when I was that age. It was truly extraordinary to be on the set of Once Upon a Time in America. I think it's such a beautiful movie. and Sergio León was such an extraordinary director. I was so mesmerized by him that I thought he was a genius and he was so gentle and I honestly didn't have much of a clue what I was getting into at the time we filmed. part of it in New York, but then they had kind of recreated the streets of New York City in a back lot in Rome and I loved being there and the sets were so magical and I was completely blown away by the talent of the sets and the cinematography, um. all the actors it was really magical for me to be on that set so I fell in love with you you know how to make movies you are him right?

You're the Goblin King I want my brother back please yes anyway what's said is said but I didn't mean that oh you didn't it was like a wonderland we filmed in London and we had these huge posters that were so detailed and so magnificent and we had many rehearsals with the puppeteers. and that was so extraordinary as if I had never been exposed to that world before, it was literally like a playground for me, sitting and running around and interacting with the puppets and Jim was like an explosion of creativity. He had never met anyone. like him, he was so kind and gentle with me and patient, you would have multiple puppeteers working on a puppet at a time, like we had the character that my character spent the most time with, is this character called Hoggle.

I'm Hoggle, so there was a person inside the suit, he had his head on and I couldn't see through the eyes because they were like glass eyes and then there were like four different puppeteers working together just to make facial expressions, it was pretty wild. , do you remember the baby? what bab, baby, with the power, what power, power of voodoo, voodoo, you, what reminds me of me as a baby. He was a fan of his music. I'm not sure I was cool enough to really understand the extent of his genius and who he was, which is probably a good thing because I probably would have been very intimidated working with him, but I became a super fan.

I love the way she interacted with the crew and the kind of just the characters she created and the way she presented herself on set, which was she would sit in front of the camera, Dolly, she would joke around with the crew and she was very nice and easygoing and he seemed to have put a lot of effort into making people feel comfortable and I really appreciated that in him I love you, Harry, you make me feel like a person like me, I'm beautiful, I really wanted to make that movie, I mean, there was a lot to do in it, you know, it was explosive.

I thought the script was really wild and creative and I thought Darren was really interesting. He hadn't done it. I had the opportunity to play a character like that before his life was so far from mine and it felt like an opportunity to really use my imagination and try to build something, build a character and I spent a lot of time with people who were very generous to me, who They really share their experiences with me and I really wanted to throw myself into it with everything I had to try to represent it as truthfully as possible.

You have to do something AR, I mean, it's your fault. We don't have something for the morning. What are you talking about? You were really anxious to get off last night. I mean, you didn't have to. It's okay, and we could have eaten something. It was supposed to do. I'm going to sit back and see how you push yourself and not go it alone, just don't blame me, okay, there were so many creative people who were making really bold decisions that the whole atmosphere was kind of risk-taking and it was quite pioneer, it felt like what they were doing with the music, what they were doing with the sets, what Maddie was doing with the camera, that was the atmosphere, that was everyone's milia, like they were taking risks and exposing themselves and They were really fully committed. to that project, where the hell do you think I've been?

Where is the score? Well, we had a little problem. Look, I mean, everything was going well and then some dumb addict, what did a dumb addict do, what do you mean? I don't enjoy working from a negative place personally or creating tension or drama in my own life or using direct substitution like it's a difficult time. um Jared and I have talked about it because it was fun, like I didn't. I don't know what it was, but there was a scene where we had a fight, he was supposed to score and he didn't and I'm a little furious and I'm really pulling out and I'm torn apart. the apartment a little bit and I remember when we were filming we had an argument, um, I can't remember how it played out or how it happened, but he's great and he did a great job, you know, he was great in the movie and we've since made up since then. very hot in here with the windows closed and very noisy with them open so I was wondering if there is any way you can.

I don't know, maybe work somewhere else for about 45 minutes, not a problem, thanks. I was so broken up when I read it and auditioned for the role. I thought, oh God, if only I could get a role like this, I'll never ask for a good one like this again. He's so cool, it was very clear to me. which was a special part and a special project, you know bad and Russell, the script and the story. I was very excited to be a part of this, it doesn't happen all the time, you know, there are a few and far between, I think the projects that I discovered that had all those elements going for them.

Charles was watching, it was fine, there was no one here. There was a scene in the movie where he almost drowns our baby and the stakes are high and we filmed the beginning of the scene in one location. We went downstairs and resumed it and I was in a completely different place, so we shot nowhere near the time when we shot the first half of the scene that we had established a sort of emotional state that I had to pick up when I got there. down and it was really weird, it was a weird challenge because I feel like with scenes that have a lot of emotionally high stakes I TR, I try not to set particular expectations of what they're going to look like, oh, I.

I need to be crying in the scene because she's really upset, you know, I kind of think about where that character is without those kinds of external expectations, but in this case there was an external expectation placed on him, uh, because it was a direct cut, It was an interesting challenge without a ramp to have to start a scene at a certain key right in the middle. I remember feeling complicated, my father left us this house, he left it to me and my brother, you should tell these things. The bureaucrats at the county tax office made the mistake, no.

Well, they said they would give you your money back and I know you put that deck in, I'm sure they would pay you back. I'm sorry. Lady, but I have nothing more to say to anyone, why should they be penalized for their incompetence, tell me that I should sue them for enough money to buy 10 houses. One of the things that I find most interesting about being an actor is spending time with characters who make decisions that They feel so different and I don't understand. I love that process where you know having to make sense of it, having to imagine that motivation, how that person grew up, what that person experienced, for that, for whatever choice they made. make it make sense to them, you know, or make it inevitable to them, she made so many bad decisions.

I really can't, I really can't pick one, to be honest with you, you know, that's the joy and the beauty of trying. to dig deeper into that and find the key to what makes that behavior make perfect sense from that character's point of view. What just happened. I really liked your music and I didn't know how to express it. I love history. I thought it was really. moving I thought he did a great job writing the script, we are very aligned creatively. I obviously felt incredibly comfortable and safe with him. I felt like he could generate ideas and propose things without the risk of thinking, oh, okay, he's going to think of this.

It's really stupid or crazy, you know, so it was really fun to feel completely uninhibited, like there was a scene where we didn't treat it that way. I thought: It just doesn't make sense that these two people had sex and she's sitting there. and I talked to him he had put his clothes back on so why don't I sit naked in the chair and we talk and he says okay let's try it. I don't think he would have done that with anyone else. I did it and then he looked at me and I was so distracted that you're sitting in that chair naked talking, we can't do this, you need to put something on.

I was like, okay, so it was definitely different, feeling like I can try this. and if it doesn't work, you know if you're going to do it or not, for the right reasons Penny, too late, what are you going to ask me when it's time to go out, don't look at me like that. without looking at you, I swear, Tom Cruz as a filmmaker is extraordinary, he is always working, he is always thinking about the project, he is always thinking about how it can be improved, how we can adjust the script, the scene is correct, the writing is correct, he is very focused. process um, I really enjoyed it, we would have meetings about the script, we would talk about it, we would read it and make adjustments and then sometimes we would shoot the scene and then we would reshoot a scene.

It felt really important to make the most of the scene. We had limited screen time, so my character Penny is a sailor. We originally filmed a boating scene in San Diego. It was beautiful, the beautiful boat we saw dolphins, it was great. We did the scene where we're sitting there and Tom says, "No, this is it." bored, I was like oh and he said it's not fast enough, it's not cool enough, it's not fast enough, I want Penny to be really strong and he was right, we went to San Francisco where it's really windy and it was a completely different experience for like soaking in the wind and it's much better and like I was saying, you know we don't have a lot of time with those characters to establish who they are, so a gesture like that, okay, he's selling a boat and it's calm and and lovely versus she is selling this boat and it is truly a high octane adrenaline experience.

I think it was, you know, it was a great choice. I admit I'm somewhat curious about the path not taken tonight. Each of you made a decision that given which version of my show you experienced, you must still have the cards you didn't choose, they are also tickets and you can use them to return any time during the next month and take a different path, maybe find out if The grass really is greener, it was a lot of fun. I thought about what its main characteristics were. I thought in each iteration that she was someone who was very optimistic and that she somehow achieved happiness.

Then I thought about how she physically presented herself in this world. how she could present herself differently in other worlds where she had lived a different life and made different decisions the second version of Daniela that we know she is single she was never married she had no children she never suffered the intense loss that Daniela had I suffered, so it was very funny to think about how that would mark a person. I still have a lot of things to figure out and I feel like I still have a lot to learn in my job, but that's funny, I don't know.

Would she go back and say to myself, oh, avoid this and try to do it sooner? Part of the joy afterwards is having to figure it out. You already know the process of figuring it out along the way.