We’ve seen them through the trials and tribulations of high school, ups and downs of relationships and now we’re following them into the world of the silver screen. Neil Huitson takes a look at the array of teen stars trying to make the leap into Hollywood
GROWING PAINS
Television in general is a notoriously difficult position from which to launch an assault upon the silver screen, but the transition has traditionally proved doubly difficult when an actor is making the leap from a show aimed squarely at the teenage market. As the largest and most loyal demographic of the television audience, teenagers bring an unparalleled degree of zealousness to their weekly viewing. Characters in teen dramas invariably inspire an exceptional degree of personal association amongst their audience, perhaps because the self-doubt so intrinsic to our teenage years motivates us to embrace a feeling of kinship or shared experience wherever we may find it, from the docks of Capeside to the hallways of Harbor High School.
Such an avid and emotionally invested following can prove both a blessing and a curse to actors portraying the characters, especially when they look to move on to cinematic pastures. On the one hand, only the most glittering of the glitterati can boast as high a degree of recognition and as loyal an audience, as can an actor recently graduated from teen-TV. On the other hand, this truth only extends as far as movies aimed at the same teen market as the show the actor has just come from, with studios proving understandably dubious that the actor can bring his audience with him to more mature material or that the actor themselves has anything to recommend them above the thousand other potential casting choices once they have been removed from the narrow parameters of teen entertainment. This latter constraint typically ensures that a teen actor’s first Hollywood steps are into safe and comfortable territory.
The logic goes like this: get your foot in the door of Hollywood and eventually, once you have established yourself as a big-screen presence, you can begin testing the waters of more diverse and mature material. A particularly popular method of pursuing this course of action is to take a role in a horror film, because although horror has traditionally been the staple of teenagers as far back as the 1950’s drive-ins, it also offers tremendous crossover appeal to a more mature audience, meaning a greater degree of recognition and marketability once the actor finally steps out of the teen pond and into the ocean of grown-up Hollywood.
Neve Campbell was one of the first and arguably the most successful in pursuing this route to superstardom, supplementing her final year on Party Of Five with The Craft and the first instalment of the Scream trilogy. Once the latter and its 1997 sequel established her as a big-screen actress, Campbell attempted to complete her transition from the teen market with date-movies for the twenty-somethings (Hairshirt, Three To Tango) and more risqué roles intended to establish her as a sex symbol for men rather than just prepubescent boys (three words: threesome. Denise. Richards). If the films with which she chose to make the transition had not been uniformly dreadful, then perhaps Campbell would not have taken a step backwards onto well-treaded ground with Scream 3 and from there drift into direct-to-video obscurity.
Sarah Michelle Gellar appears now to be at exactly the same stage at which it all went wrong for Campbell. She has served her time in movies pandering specifically to the Buffy demographic (Simply Irresistible, Cruel Intentions, Harvard Man), and is in the midst of her scream-queen phase (The Grudge, The Return), set to reach for indie credibility by playing a pornstar in Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko follow-up Southland Tales. Gellar seems particularly aware of the necessity of crossover appeal, as she is also slated to appear in a romantic comedy alongside Alec Baldwin and will be voicing a citizen of Fairy Tale Land in kiddie’s animation Happily N’Ever After. The former Buffy Summers must be particularly motivated to become a serious Hollywood player, because with the power such status would bring she could help revive husband Freddie Prinze Jr’s moribund career by insisting he be given some extra work on her films.
Conversely, Joshua Jackson didn’t even get as far as making that first foray into more mature material and today stands as testament to the dangers of playing it safe. As demonstrated by 2005’s Cursed, Jackson seems to be stuck in the same teen flicks he must have viewed five years ago as mere stepping-stones to assist his post-Dawson’s Creek film career. It could all have been so different for the star of such quintessentially teen fare as The Skulls and Gossip had he made it ahead of Christian Bale from the final shortlist of eight and landed the role of Batman in last year’s first instalment of the rejuvenated franchise. The same could be said of David ‘Angel’ Boreanaz, another contender to wear the cape and cowl, last seen in the direct-to-video Crow follow-up and back in TV-land starring in Bones.
It is two of Jackson’s co-stars on Dawson’s Creek that have made the biggest impact on Hollywood, though for very different reasons. Michelle Williams was afforded the credibility as a serious actress, so craved by her former teen-TV peers, the moment she was announced as a nominee in the Best Supporting Actress category at this year’s Oscars for her role in Brokeback Mountain. The acting career of Katie Holmes, on the other hand, has become secondary to her role as girlfriend/fiancé/Kool-Aid-drinking-automaton of Tom Cruise. That her production schedule has ground to a halt is a shame, given that she seemed poised to became a bona-fide A-list actress based on her 2005 combination of roles as leading lady in blockbuster Batman Begins and sexually manipulative journalist in the small-scale yet critically acclaimed Thank You For Smoking.
Of the current crop of hot young things, it is hard to see any of the cast of Smallville escaping the typecasting that inevitably comes with playing such iconic characters. One Tree Hill is as yet still free from the sound of itchy feet racing for the exit, with those cast members most likely to move on to bigger and better things, seemingly content limiting their forays into film to teen flicks shot during filming breaks between series. With Mischa Barton having already left and the remaining ‘core four’ having grown beyond the original premise and locale of the show, the current season of The OC could be the last before we have to bid Seth, Summer and Ryan a fond farewell. Adam Brody is not only the poster boy for the current ‘geek chic' fashion trend, but has proven his big-screen potential with scene-stealing turns in Mr and Mrs Smith, The Ring and Thank You For Smoking. Rachel Bilson will this month attempt to emulate her real-life boyfriend’s progress by playing the fragile temptress role alongside fellow television alumni Zach Braff in The Last Kiss. As for Benjamin Mackenzie, aside from the inevitable role as Russell Crowe’s son, his potential film career does not bode too well given his training at the Labrador school of acting (tilt head to side, look quizzical/deep). Admittedly, Orlando Bloom gradated from the same school and today is one of the hottest properties in Hollywood. But then Orlando Bloom never starred in a drama aimed at teenagers.
1. Without a Trace (C4, Mon 22:00) – Jack and the team search for a missing agoraphobic agony aunt.
