Happy Birthday, Juliette Lewis!
Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 8:00AM 
We don't get many screen talents that defy simple categorization as much as Juliette Lewis. One minute she's raw and dangerous then vulnerable and timid the next, her humor at once bawdy and passive. Even when playing a supportive girlfriend trope, she always draws you in with a flash of the unexpected. She's so consistently arresting and specific that you forget how disimilar some of her characters are.
Filmmakers of late aren't giving her the type of heavy lifting she can handle, even though her heyday 90s work (including her Oscar nominated Cape Fear performance) still deliver on repeat viewings. Of course her most unpredictable turn was in the early 2000s with the launch of her rock band The Licks, developing a rock persona as vivid as her screen performances and then some. Of her screen peers that have stuck around, none of them kick this much ass.
Michael Rapaport's documentary short on Lewis, Hard Lovin' Woman, debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival. It's a fun look at her career but also a reminder of her ferociously versatile talent - and you can watch it online for free!
What is your favorite Juliette Lewis performance?
Reader Comments (17)
Husbands and Wives
CapeFear is her definitive role then she seemed to play variations on that,I do agree she does get your attention,loved her cemeoin Conviction.
Jennifer Lawrence ripoff Juliette Lewis' shtick for Silver Linings Playbook.
Jennifer Lawrence ripped off Juliette Lewis' shtick for Silver Linings Playbook.
Always great! Love her in the underrated gem "Whip It"
Well, there's What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and there's Conviction.
Natural Born Killers.
Just watch the doc. & OMG I didn't think I could love her more, but now I do!
fantastic in KALIFORNIA
Ugh, someone give her WORK !!!
I've watched Cape Fear three times and every time she gets me. Anyone who can play that centerpiece scene at the school has nothing to prove, but it's a shame she isn't really being given the chance to anyways. And she was really good in Husbands and Wives, too!
@Paul Outlaw - Thank you for this new incentive to finally watch Gilbert Grape! I had no idea she was even in that.
I really, really enjoyed her in KELLY & CAL. She was so real while still being uniquely herself.
Natural Born Killers
My favorite is "Cape Fear," but I'll mention her work in "Husbands and Wives," where she nails a tricky part and seems right at home with actors twice her age and experience.
I adored her in August: Osage County. There was something very real about her character. The youngest daughter, always "the pretty one", who never had to be all that book smart but ultimately had to be rather scrappy. At the end of the movie it was her character's fate that I was most curious about.
Juliette Lewis is always wonderfully refreshing, but my favourite (and most rewatched) of her performances is in Husbands & Wives - it's such a great casting move to marry her raw/feral screen presence to a more cerebral character. She brings unpredictable inner life to a role that could have landed with such a cliche'd thud, especially given that the timing of the film's release placed her squarely as "Soon Yi" in the bitter art-mimics-life-mimics-art controversy - it takes an actor of Lewis' stature to transcend all that drama and deliver a full human being. It probably also helps that she's playing ball alongside the best, with the whole stellar ensemble on peak form - she always deserves to be surrounded by actors who can match her.
I'm also totally smitten with her electrifying Strange Days performance.
My Jewish Dad makes me watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation every single Christmas. And while the whole movie is kind of genius (seriously, where is Beverly D'Angelo being held hostage?), Juliette Lewis is the definitive Audrey.