The Fate of Linda Fiorentino

[beamish14]

frat-boy cousin, Gotcha!

I just came back from a screening of The Last Seduction, and I remembered how good Linda Fiorentino was in that. In every role she had, really. Her absence from films over the last quarter century is a huge loss for us.

Anthony Edwards literally gives the finger to East Germany when he exits Checkpoint Charlie in said film.

I think Wings of Desire/Faraway, So Close! probably count

[The Curious Sofa]

I mentioned Wings of Desire but would argue that it's the angels, prohibited from directly interacting with humans, who are a metaphor for the wall and a divided Berlin, rather than the other way round.

[feihong]

frat-boy cousin, Gotcha!

I just came back from a screening of The Last Seduction, and I remembered how good Linda Fiorentino was in that. In every role she had, really. Her absence from films over the last quarter century is a huge loss for us.

Anthony Edwards literally gives the finger to East Germany when he exits Checkpoint Charlie in said film.

I think Wings of Desire/Faraway, So Close! probably count

I really enjoyed Gotcha!, I thought it was so funny––especially when Anthony Edwards' roommate starts trying to seduce European women by pretending to be Carlos the Jackal. To me, Linda Fiorentino never looked more beautiful than in that role––and there's Alex Rocco doing high comedy as Edwards' father.

No question Linda Fiorentino was aging out of the roles people wanted to see her in––on the We Hate Movies podcast there was a joke about her being "way-too-40 to be in Men in Black II," which seems on-the-money. But in the aughts she became implicated in the scandals of sometime boyfriend (or...pen-pal? Apparently she corresponded with him before and during a time he went to prison) and Hollywood fixer Anthony Pellicano. Apparently Fiorentino started dating FBI special agent Mark Rossini under the pretext of researching Pellicano's case for a film, and she was able to get Rossini to illegally access FBI computers to get information on the case––which Fiorentino passed on to Pellicano to help his defense. Rossini pled guilty, and I don't see anything about what happened to Fiorentino, but she didn't appear in a film after Rossini's guilty plea.

Freaking wild. I had no idea.

[beamish14]

frat-boy cousin, Gotcha!

I just came back from a screening of The Last Seduction, and I remembered how good Linda Fiorentino was in that. In every role she had, really. Her absence from films over the last quarter century is a huge loss for us.

Anthony Edwards literally gives the finger to East Germany when he exits Checkpoint Charlie in said film.

I think Wings of Desire/Faraway, So Close! probably count

I really enjoyed Gotcha!, I thought it was so funny––especially when Anthony Edwards' roommate starts trying to seduce European women by pretending to be Carlos the Jackal. To me, Linda Fiorentino never looked more beautiful than in that role––and there's Alex Rocco doing high comedy as Edwards' father.

No question Linda Fiorentino was aging out of the roles people wanted to see her in––on the We Hate Movies podcast there was a joke about her being "way-too-40 to be in Men in Black II," which seems on-the-money. But in the aughts she became implicated in the scandals of sometime boyfriend (or...pen-pal? Apparently she corresponded with him before and during a time he went to prison) and Hollywood fixer Anthony Pellicano. Apparently Fiorentino started dating FBI special agent Mark Rossini under the pretext of researching Pellicano's case for a film, and she was able to get Rossini to illegally access FBI computers to get information on the case––which Fiorentino passed on to Pellicano to help his defense. Rossini pled guilty, and I don't see anything about what happened to Fiorentino, but she didn't appear in a film after Rossini's guilty plea.

Freaking wild. I had no idea.

I went to a screening of another great film Fiorentino appeared in, Alan Rudolph’s The Moderns. The casting director happened to be in the audience, and she explained that she had approached Fiorentino for different projects but that she’s essentially N.I.B. (Not in the Business) and refuses to take meetings

[The Curious Sofa]

From Kevin Smith very publicly badmouthing her, to not being asked back for Men in Black II, to most of the studio films that were supposed to take her to the next level flopping, there has always been speculation about the sudden end of Linda Fiorentino's career. The truth is probably that she just wasn't that interested in becoming a big movie star. I always thought there were parallels with Sharon Stone, who, after toiling in B-movies for over a decade, broke out in a similar femme fatale role, albeit in a much bigger film, but they are the same age and Stone is still working.

[colinr0380]

There was also the little matter that John Dahl's follow up film to the fantastic Last Seduction (which really should be placed in the company of Basic Instinct and Romeo Is Bleeding as classic early 90s neo-noirs with overpoweringly unashamed, and unhinged, femme fatales) was the poorly received (and unfortunately named) Unforgettable, which kind of damaged both Dahl and Fiorentino immediately. Its an absurd premise and a severe tonal whiplash from the extremely grounded Last Seduction, although I kind of like it as part of the run of 90s hyper-stylised thrillers (Dead Again; Shattered; Blink; Final Analysis; Jennifer 8, etc).

[The Curious Sofa]

It didn't help that Unforgettable was another flop, but it was a low-key release made on a relatively modest budget. It didn't do nearly as much damage as Friekin's Jade, a big-budget film that rode the wave of the 90s erotic thriller. That film was supposed to launch David Caruso and Fiorentino as movie stars, based on their established personas. When it flopped it rained Razzies and there was a lot of Schadenfreude because Caruso had left NYPD Blue, the show that had made him a TV star, after only two seasons because he thought he could do better.

While Fiorentino took less flak, her involvement in the debacle didn't do her career much good. But perhaps the most damage done to her reputation was the persistent rumour that Fiorentino was "difficult", and Unforgettable showed that at least one director was happy to work with her again. Dahl followed Unforgettable with a couple of modest hits, Rounders and Joy Ride, the latter a great little thriller that became a minor cult movie and spawned a couple of sequels. After a big budget war movie and a wello recived indie comedy (both flops) I frequently see Dahl's credit on TV episodes, where he has become quite prolific, working on some of the bigget TV hits of recent decades.

[colinr0380]

Oh gosh, I'd forgotten about Jade! And that may actually be my favourite Friedkin film of the 90s (certainly better than his 'nanny feeding babies to a possessed tree' horror film The Guardian!), and it is interesting to see Friedkin kind of trying to fuse the French Connection car chase with a Basic Instinct-style cop-out-of-his-depth plot. But yes I seem to remember that Fiorentino was all over the key poster art for that film, that felt to be very obviously capitalising on her Last Seduction fame.

[feihong]

Whenever I hear an actress being referred to as "difficult," I always have some suspicion that it means that she wouldn't sleep with the director or the producer or the male lead. Or maybe she had the temerity to ask things like "what's my motivation?" I don't know if any of that was Linda Fiorentino, but I did think she was under-utilized as a "smart actress™" in an era that has maybe an undeserved reputation for leveraging smart actresses.

I thought she was great in The Last Seduction, but watching it nowadays, the twist at the end just doesn't work for me at all.

SpoilerShow

The idea that even a guy as dumb as Peter Berg marries a trans woman by mistake and gets homicidal just recalling this supposed humiliation years later is...well, it's perhaps not totally implausible for its' era, but it's a pretty unfortunate twist to hang your whole narrative upon. Leaves a very bad taste in my mouth, thinking of the poor actor or actress who has to play this trans woman, who 1) doesn't get to read a single line and 2) is shot entirely out-of-focus for their all-too-brief appearances. And yet, the character is at the crux of the drama, though she never appears. Certainly there was more to this story than meets the eye. Thinking about Berg's poor trans wife, projecting what happens to her when her part in the story is quickly elided, makes it all feel especially sour. She is probably subjected to instant marriage annulment, and some level of abuse from the grotesque Peter Berg is definitely implied, and then she doesn't even have a voice or presence in the movie––the movie where her callous exploitation provides the central narrative twist. I thought that wasn't very cool.I was essentially with the movie until that happened.

The comparison to Sharon Stone is really apt; both of them essentially pigeonholed as vamps after a few striking early roles which suggested more range. Both actresses have "signature movies" which are dated now for many of the reasons they were considered "edgy" in their time (the exploitation of lesbian characters in Basic Instinct is just as insulting as the exploitation of a trans character in The Last Seduction), and for the most part you feel as if Hollywood didn't know what to do with either actress. Fiorentino apparently didn't like playing a femme fatale. I couldn't exactly see her playing Buttercup in The Princess Bride, but there should have been roles for a woman as striking, with such a fantastic voice, and such a "here and now" sort of gravity about her––and there hardly seemed to be so. She certainly would have been both more believable and funnier in the Meg Ryan non-comedy, Addicted to Love, than Meg was.

[hearthesilence]

I went to a screening of another great film Fiorentino appeared in, Alan Rudolph’s The Moderns. The casting director happened to be in the audience, and she explained that she had approached Fiorentino for different projects but that she’s essentially N.I.B. (Not in the Business) and refuses to take meetings

A shame but not surprising. I get the feeling that if she hasn't found greater acclaim with The Last Seduction - which likely ignited her career and helped her get much better roles for a while - she definitely would've left Hollywood sooner without regrets.

Per Wikipedia (which has linked sources for all of this):

In a 1994 appearance on Late Show with David Letterman, Fiorentino said she chose to stop acting for a period of time after Warner Bros. executive Mark Canton told her during the filming of Vision Quest, "you have a great ass, but I think your jeans need to be tighter." She said she returned to acting later to pay off mounting credit card debt.

The same year when asked about her newfound fame, and what she would do if she could never act again, Fiorentino told The New York Times: "You mean I don't have to wake up at 5 in the morning and put makeup on? I would be totally fine; I would do something else." She added she did not have a "driving passion to stay on top. [...] I'd rather be a little more subdued and aloof in my life."

I forgot she was in the last theatrical film to feature Paul Newman in the lead role. I haven't seen it from start-to-finish, but Newman and Fiorentino are effortlessly charming - the film is a piece of fluff, but it's not a terrible swan song either.

[pistolwink]

She is/was a great presence on screen. I suspect this wild paragraph from her Wikipedia entry might have as much to do with her retirement from the business as her disappointment with her choice of roles:

Fiorentino later had a relationship with Los Angeles private investigator Anthony Pellicano, in the period leading to his 2008 trial and conviction, in Los Angeles, on multiple felony charges. While Pellicano was being investigated, Fiorentino also dated former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Mark Rossini, which law enforcement officials said was her attempt to assist Pellicano's defense. According to prosecutors, Fiorentino told Rossini that she was researching a screenplay based on Pellicano's case. Rossini conducted searches of government computers for information related to the case and passed the results to Fiorentino, who then handed the files over to Pellicano's lawyers in a failed effort to help Pellicano avoid a 15-year prison sentence. Rossini pleaded guilty to illegally accessing FBI computers and resigned from the FBI.

[beamish14]

Whenever I hear an actress being referred to as "difficult," I always have some suspicion that it means that she wouldn't sleep with the director or the producer or the male lead. Or maybe she had the temerity to ask things like "what's my motivation?" I don't know if any of that was Linda Fiorentino, but I did think she was under-utilized as a "smart actress™" in an era that has maybe an undeserved reputation for leveraging smart actresses.

I thought she was great in The Last Seduction, but watching it nowadays, the twist at the end just doesn't work for me at all.

SpoilerShow

The idea that even a guy as dumb as Peter Berg marries a trans woman by mistake and gets homicidal just recalling this supposed humiliation years later is...well, it's perhaps not totally implausible for its' era, but it's a pretty unfortunate twist to hang your whole narrative upon. Leaves a very bad taste in my mouth, thinking of the poor actor or actress who has to play this trans woman, who 1) doesn't get to read a single line and 2) is shot entirely out-of-focus for their all-too-brief appearances. And yet, the character is at the crux of the drama, though she never appears. Certainly there was more to this story than meets the eye. Thinking about Berg's poor trans wife, projecting what happens to her when her part in the story is quickly elided, makes it all feel especially sour. She is probably subjected to instant marriage annulment, and some level of abuse from the grotesque Peter Berg is definitely implied, and then she doesn't even have a voice or presence in the movie––the movie where her callous exploitation provides the central narrative twist. I thought that wasn't very cool.I was essentially with the movie until that happened.

The comparison to Sharon Stone is really apt; both of them essentially pigeonholed as vamps after a few striking early roles which suggested more range. Both actresses have "signature movies" which are dated now for many of the reasons they were considered "edgy" in their time (the exploitation of lesbian characters in Basic Instinct is just as insulting as the exploitation of a trans character in The Last Seduction), and for the most part you feel as if Hollywood didn't know what to do with either actress. Fiorentino apparently didn't like playing a femme fatale. I couldn't exactly see her playing Buttercup in The Princess Bride, but there should have been roles for a woman as striking, with such a fantastic voice, and such a "here and now" sort of gravity about her––and there hardly seemed to be so. She certainly would have been both more believable and funnier in the Meg Ryan non-comedy, Addicted to Love, than Meg was.

I hate the twist as well. It really cheapens what is otherwise a superbly crafted screenplay.

Berg and John Dahl were both present at the screening. I left before they spoke In part due to time constraints, but I can’t stand Berg as a person (there is a somewhat infamous clip of him during a press junket berating an Israeli journalist for not being in the IDF), and his films as a director are reactionary shit

I’m trying to think of any living male actors who get the “difficult” tag, and Jason Patric is one of the few who comes to mind

[brundlefly]

Whenever I hear an actress being referred to as "difficult," I always have some suspicion that it means that she wouldn't sleep with the director or the producer or the male lead. Or maybe she had the temerity to ask things like "what's my motivation?" I don't know if any of that was Linda Fiorentino, but I did think she was under-utilized as a "smart actress™" in an era that has maybe an undeserved reputation for leveraging smart actresses.

That first part is a terrible assumption that casts a pall over every actress not described as "difficult," when there are so many other factors that could bring on that label. More along the lines of your second point, anything causing a bump in the day, because time is money, could be a problem. Of course notable (and bankable) male actors who do that -- Tootsie let Dustin Hoffman play on his rep -- are seen as less replaceable and given plenty of subsequent opportunities.

[The Curious Sofa]

I’m trying to think of any living male actors who get the “difficult” tag, and Jason Patric is one of the few who comes to mind

Val Kilmer, Steven Segal, Edward Norton, Shia LaBeouf, Charlie Sheen, Russel Crowe, Mike Myers, Chevy Chase, Richard Dreyfuss, and Wesley Snipes are just a few of the actors rumored to be notoriously difficult to work with. Some have had their careers affected by their reputations (Norton was not asked back to play the Hulk, Val Kilmer ended up in B-movies, Crowe's career cooled off significantly), others may have mellowed over time or kicked a drug habit that affected their on-set behavior.

The other actor besides Fiorentino that Kevin Smith publicly complained about was Bruce Willis, but since Willis was a huge star (and Fiorentino was not), it had no effect on his career. Smith apparently later reconciled with Fiorentino.

No doubt there is a double standard when it comes to female actors, who get away with much less. While I don't think the "difficult" label is only applied to actresses who refuse to sleep with producers, etc. (though Weinstein apparently ruined actresses' careers for this reason, Mira Sorvino went on record about him spreading false rumors about her, which cost her major roles). In some cases, actresses have called out the work they appear in for sexism and gotten a bad rap for it. In retrospect, Katherine Heigl's complaints about Knocked Up were probably valid. Megan Fox got fired after complaining about Michael Bay and I can't blame her considering how grossly objectified she was in what are essentially kids' movies. Both were crucified by the media at the time.

Sorry for derailing the Possession thread with the Fiorentino discussion, but her work in The Last Seduction is one of my all-time favorite performances, and one that singularly elevates a movie from what might have been merely decent to great. Then again, I feel similarely about Isabelle Adjani's performance in Possession.

[feihong]

Whenever I hear an actress being referred to as "difficult," I always have some suspicion that it means that she wouldn't sleep with the director or the producer or the male lead. Or maybe she had the temerity to ask things like "what's my motivation?" I don't know if any of that was Linda Fiorentino, but I did think she was under-utilized as a "smart actress™" in an era that has maybe an undeserved reputation for leveraging smart actresses.

That first part is a terrible assumption that casts a pall over every actress not described as "difficult," when there are so many other factors that could bring on that label. More along the lines of your second point, anything causing a bump in the day, because time is money, could be a problem. Of course notable (and bankable) male actors who do that -- Tootsie let Dustin Hoffman play on his rep -- are seen as less replaceable and given plenty of subsequent opportunities.

I don't think it necessarily casts a pall over actress not described as difficult––those actresses may never have been put in such a position in the first place. Or they may have been propositioned, and it could have been what they wanted, in which case, why should anyone care. Whereas Linda Fiorentino did complain that men frequently expected to find her the femme fatale she played in films––and I don't think that meant they'd just be surprised if it turned out she didn't smoke, or something. My own experiences on sets were that they were boys-club environments, and male actors engaging in histrionics tended to get a much longer leash––whereas women were frequently disparaged for much less, such as hoping there might be a way they can add something a little creative or interesting to their frequently underwritten parts in these films without getting in the way of the director's vision for a scene and getting labelled "difficult" behind her back. My point is this: when I hear someone talk about an actress as "difficult," I never immediately believe it. I don't necessarily believe it with male actors, either––there's often a reason behind an actor/actress "acting out" on set––though there's a big difference to me between an Edward Norton being "difficult" and a Steven Segal being "difficult." But with actresses in particular it seems like there is frequently more than a whiff of misogyny behind the label. So I suspect the label. I can see how the way I originally worded it could sound kind of crappy; but I also don't think that crappy thing is what I actually said.

[Mr Sausage]

Unfortunately I think Fiorentino's attempt to avoid typecasting by starring in blockbuster comedies like Men in Black and Dogma was never going to work out because she's just not that suited to comedy. She's not bad in those movies, but there's a seriousness and weight to her that holds her back next to the other performers. She never stands out in either. She would've been better served by classically dramatic roles, or even some long form police or medical drama on tv. But Smith had it right when he said he ought've cast Janeane Garofalo over Fiorentino.

[brundlefly]

She's funny in After Hours, but much in the same way as Last Seduction. Very dry.

[flyonthewall2983]

Aubrey Plaza reminds me a lot of her

I forgot she was in the last theatrical film to feature Paul Newman in the lead role. I haven't seen it from start-to-finish, but Newman and Fiorentino are effortlessly charming - the film is a piece of fluff, but it's not a terrible swan song either.

The trailer for Where The Money Is (which I encountered as a special feature on the DVD of Jim Jarmusch’s Year of the Horse) was edited far more cleverly than the final product.

[The Curious Sofa]

Unfortunately I think Fiorentino's attempt to avoid typecasting by starring in blockbuster comedies like Men in Black and Dogma was never going to work out because she's just not that suited to comedy. She's not bad in those movies, but there's a seriousness and weight to her that holds her back next to the other performers. She never stands out in either. She would've been better served by classically dramatic roles, or even some long form police or medical drama on tv. But Smith had it right when he said he ought've cast Janeane Garofalo over Fiorentino.

Hard disagree. One thing that makes her performance in The Last Seduction so great is her comic timing. The movie sails close to being a black comedy anyway and her sarcasm, irreverence and total contempt for niceties, or as it turns out, the patriarchy, are very funny. I also thought that, within the limitations of the screenplays, neither MiB nor Dogma gave her particularly interesting roles or dialogue, she was good in both.

[Mr Sausage]

Fair enough. Should give The Last Seduction a rewatch. While I don’t think her performances in either MiB or Dogma are bad, they also aren’t memorable. They’re not really her style of comedy, I guess, or as you say are thankless straight man roles.

[pianocrash]

I unwillingly fell into a couple of Fiorentino performances (After Hours into Vision Quest) and was stunned by the reverse drop in quality on my part, as I'd seen the Scorcese several times, but the other not at all. Her dry delivery was something else, a Bacall for the 90's that nobody seemed to really understand, and she elevated just about anything she was in. Vision Quest was just a load of hooey all around (Owen Roizman's photography was probably the highlight, but I digress). I've been saving The Last Seduction & Jade to watch back to back, but only after I finally complete the personal hell that is the Ti West filmography (no survivors).

Judy Davis was the actor I always recall being "difficult", but even as a kid I chalked it up to her being a woman with serious ideals in the ludicrous moneygoround that is showbiz, whereas a goon (albeit a talented goon) like Ed Norton could wrest a cut of a film he was starring in away from it's director & still have a career afterward (it helped that the film in question, American History X, was pretty alright when all was said & done, despite all the resulting shenanigans).

[brundlefly]

only after I finally complete the personal hell that is the Ti West filmography (no survivors)

If you haven't seen You're Next (or even if you have) you can reward yourself by watching that at least through the first in-house kill.

[The Curious Sofa]

Ti West's The Innkeepers is among my favourite horror movies of the 20th century. A haunted house story masquerading as a hang out movie that turns out to be one of more devastating takes on fragile masculinity I've seen.

[beamish14]

I unwillingly fell into a couple of Fiorentino performances (After Hours into Vision Quest) and was stunned by the reverse drop in quality on my part, as I'd seen the Scorcese several times, but the other not at all. Her dry delivery was something else, a Bacall for the 90's that nobody seemed to really understand, and she elevated just about anything she was in. Vision Quest was just a load of hooey all around (Owen Roizman's photography was probably the highlight, but I digress). I've been saving The Last Seduction & Jade to watch back to back, but only after I finally complete the personal hell that is the Ti West filmography (no survivors).

Judy Davis was the actor I always recall being "difficult", but even as a kid I chalked it up to her being a woman with serious ideals in the ludicrous moneygoround that is showbiz, whereas a goon (albeit a talented goon) like Ed Norton could wrest a cut of a film he was starring in away from it's director & still have a career afterward (it helped that the film in question, American History X, was pretty alright when all was said & done, despite all the resulting shenanigans).

Judy Davis is a great example. She apparently started fights with all the major players on River Phoenix’s last film, Dark Blood

Norton ingratiates himself into the writing/casting/editing process of many films he’s worked on, and that can be an asset or severe hindrance depending on who you ask and the ultimate outcome. I think he insisted on rewriting parts of Frida despite having a relatively smaller supporting part. His own official writing/directing debut was awful, though.

Tony Kaye is something else entirely. I don’t know how he gets money to make films, but he does funnel his very lucrative commercial directing work into his independent projects

[domino harvey]

Norton is that Onion headline about how “Asshole Admits to Being Asshole in Total Asshole Move” (or whatever it is)— self-aware of his own extremes and extremely fortunate that he has the acting talent to back it up. In any other year he prob would have won the Oscar for parodying himself in Birdman