Elisabeth Shue
Interview By: Dan Portnoy
DanielPortnoy@TheCinemaSource.com
What do you think of when you hear the name Elisabeth Shue' The first thing that comes to my mind is the year 1984 and a little movie called The Karate Kid. Granted there have been many other noteworthy Shue performances over the last two decades but 1984 is the year when America was properly introduced to this talented young star. Since that time she has been making waves in Hollywood receiving acclaim for many of her roles including an Oscar nod for her performance in Leaving Las Vegas. In her most recent film, Shue is able to showcase her ability once again backing a would-be down and out race horse in Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story.
Dreamer is an inspirational tale of triumph, failure, faith and resurrection. The film tells the story of the Crane family and Sonya, a race horse at the end of its road due to a tragic broken leg. So that the horse does not have to be put down, it is given to the once great trainer Ben Crane (Kurt Russell) as severance pay when he lost his job. Ben, down on his luck, must place his faith in Sonya and his daughter Cale (Dakota Fanning) in order to revive a dream that was once forgotten. In the film, Shue plays Lily Crane, a supporting mother and wife who, along with her daughter Cale, believes in the magic of second chances. Through Sonya, the Crane family is taken on a journey of redemption and courage proving that sometimes you just have to have a little faith.
For Shue, working on this film gave her a chance to rekindle some of her old childhood memories and fantasies. What I am referring to of course is the infatuation with horses that most young girls including Shue seem to share. Shue laughed as she reminisced about her childhood fascination. 'We used to go to Maine in the summers to this little house in the middle of nowhere and there were a lot of farms nearby with horses and every once in a while you would get a chance to ride a horse.' Those vacations had quite an effect on Shue causing her to bring that love of horses back home where unfortunately she did not have the luxury of owning one of her own. 'We had an old saddle so I put the saddle on a swing and I made stirrups and I pretended my swing was a horse.' You've got to respect the innovation of a young child. It was this passion that made working on Dreamer that much more important and significant for her.
Dreamer devotes a great deal of its energy to the notion of one's desire to win. All the characters in the film are chasing some dream, pushing for some positive outcome, whether it's a second chance or an unlikely victory. That is what makes Dreamer so inspirational. 'I think there's a purity to the need to win in life and we're all on this path to want to win in different ways. And the dreams that we have are usually about winning, not necessarily a game but winning happiness or love. There's just a purity to that and it's a focus that bonds people.' Winning is an aspect of life familiar to Shue who has been an athlete her whole life. If you remember she even showcased a little soccer talent in The Karate Kid. (I'm sorry, I need to get that movie out of my head.) 'I've been an athlete my whole life, so I'm always looking for a game to play and I don't think I could stay in shape if I didn't have games to play. So right now my game is tennis, for a long time it was gymnastics.'
Shue, who has two children, finds it harder and harder to pull herself away from her family. As a result, she has become very selective when choosing her roles. 'The older you get the harder it is to be away from your family' I choose my parts now, especially my supporting parts to only work with people that I look up to and respect and want to learn from.' But what if the role is for something provocative, you know, something that is not child-friendly, does that affect your choices' 'No not really. I still do lots of movies that they'll never see.' The important thing is that Shue chooses parts that she's interested in and passionate about. That way her drive to be a part of that film grows and in return, so does her acting ability. 'I think it's important to continue to be an artist and grow and I would never choose my parts based on whether or not they'll be appropriate for my kids to watch.'
Not limited to film, Shue recently returned to theater in an off-Broadway revival of Lanford Wilson's play, Burn This. And the way Shue tells it, being on stage brings about a great deal of anxiety, even more so than film. 'It was terrifying' I hadn't been on stage in ten years. It's just a huge responsibility to be out there all by yourself'it doesn't feel like that the entire time, just the first three minutes.' But of course theater is very different from film in many aspects; for one thing - for the sake of being painfully obvious - it's live. 'There's a certain intimacy working in film where you feel incredibly safe because there's this family that's surrounding you that's supporting you at all times where as when you're on stage you're just a little further away from knowing who the people are who are out there.' However, both are thrilling in different ways and it's those truly talented actors like Shue that are able to branch out into multiple facets of the performing arts.
Dreamer will mark Elisabeth Shue's thirty first feature film. In 2006 we can expect two more additions to her lengthy list of cinematic roles, First Born and Gracie. Although we may not see as much of Elisabeth Shue as we'd like or did in the past, she still manages to bring the same level of charisma and aptitude to her roles and continues to be to be a pleasure to watch.
