Jennifer Connelly Breaks Down Her Career, from 'Top Gun' to 'Requiem for a Dream'

It's just a connection

that I have with 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,

it's like not necessarily

that you're intellectually thinking,

Oh, this reminds me of what I experienced with my dad

or with my sister or whatever,

but it reaches you on some, like, human level.

[upbeat music]

Hi, I'm Jennifer Connelly

and this is the timeline of my career.

[upbeat music]

My beloved is white and ready.

His skin is as the most fine gold.

His cheeks are as a bed of spices.

[light music]

Even though he hasn't washed since last December.

I was 10 and we lived in Brooklyn Heights

and I remember pretty much every day

we'd go on the subway and go into the city

and I'd do, like, a couple jobs.

And then I started doing commercials.

It wasn't something that I chose for myself.

I think I was really shy.

And I enjoyed it in that I liked meeting people

and I always wanted to be very professional,

do as good a job as I could. [chuckles]

Like, Firestarter, I remember it was one of the movies

that I auditioned for and didn't get.

And then I had this audition

for Once Upon a Time in America

and I had zero training

and, like, no skill point whatsoever. [chuckles]

I think I was really helped

by the fact that I looked enough like Elizabeth McGovern,

so I was playing the character that she was playing

as a young girl.

I remember actually I was supposed to play a dancer

and they asked me to, like, improvise a ballet dance.

And I can only imagine what that must have looked like

because I have never taken ballet,

so that must have been pretty silly.

But I got it somehow.

When I was that age,

it was really remarkable

being on the set of Once Upon a Time in America.

I think it's such a beautiful film

and he was such an extraordinary director, Sergio Leone.

I was so mesmerized by him.

I thought he was such a genius and he was so gentle.

And I honestly didn't have much of a sense

of what I was getting into at the time.

We filmed some of it in New York,

but then they had recreated

the sort of New York City streets on a back lot in Rome.

And I just loved being there, and the sets were so magical,

and I was completely awestruck by the talent,

the sets, the cinematography, all of the actors.

It was really magical for me being on that set.

So it kind of made me fall in love with,

you know, making films.

[suspenseful music]

You're him, aren't you? You're the Goblin King.

I want my brother back, please, if it's all the same.

What's said is said. [thunder rumbling]

But, I didn't mean it.

Oh, you didn't? It was like a wonderland.

We filmed in London and we had these massive bills

that were so detailed and so magnificent.

And we had lots of rehearsals with the puppeteers

and that was just so extraordinary,

like, I had never been exposed to that world before.

It was literally like a playground for me being on set

and getting to run around and interact with the puppets.

And Jim was like an explosion of creativity.

I've never met anyone like him.

He was so kind and gentle with me and patient.

You would have multiple puppeteers

working on one puppet at a time.

Like, we had the character

that my character spent the most time with

is this character named Hoggle.

I'm Hoggle.

So there was a person inside the suit.

She had a head on and she couldn't see out through the eyes

'cause they were like glass eyes.

And then there were like four different puppeteers

working together just to do facial expressions.

It was pretty wild.

♪ You remind me of the babe ♪ ♪ What babe ♪

♪ Babe with the power ♪

♪ What power ♪ ♪ Power of voodoo ♪

♪ Who do ♪ ♪ You do ♪

♪ Do what ♪ ♪ Remind me of the babe ♪

I 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

'cause I probably would've been really intimidated

working with him.

But I became a super fan.

I love the way he interacted with the crew

and the kind of juxtaposition of those characters

that he created,

and the way he presented himself on set,

which was he'd sit on the camera dolly

and joke with the crew and was so convivial and easygoing.

And he seemed to have put a lot of effort

into making people comfortable

and I really appreciated that in him.

I love you, Harry.

[light music]

You make me feel like a person.

[light music]

Like, I'm me and I'm beautiful.

I really wanted to do that film.

I mean, there was so much 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.

I hadn't had an opportunity

to play a character like that before.

Her life, it was so far away from my own

and it felt like an opportunity to really use my imagination

and try and build something, build a character.

And I spent a lot of time with people

who were very generous with me,

who really shared their experiences with me

and I just really wanted to throw myself at it

with kind of everything that I had to try

and depict it as truthful as I could.

Well, you have to do something, Harry.

I mean, it's your fault

that we don't have something for the morning.

What are you talking about?

You're all hot in the biscuit to get off last night.

That is such bullshit. You have didn't to, okay?

And we could have had something right now.

What was I supposed to do?

I'm gonna sit around and watch you push off

and knock on myself?

Just don't put it all on me, okay?

There were so many creative people

who were making really bold choices.

That whole atmosphere was one of sort of risk taking

and it was quite pioneering.

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 the milieu of everyone kind of taking a risk

and putting themselves out there

and really committing fully to that project.

Ben.

Yeah, where the hell you think I've been, huh?

Where's the score?

Well, we had a little bit of a problem, you see?

I mean, everything was going good,

and then some dumb junkie... Did what?

Some dumb junkie did what? You mean you fucked it up?

I don't enjoy working from a negative place personally

or to create tension or drama in my own life

or actually to use direct substitution, like...

It was a tricky time.

Jared and I have talked about it since.

It was funny, like, I don't know what it was,

but there was a scene where we had like a fight.

He was supposed to go and score and he hasn't

and I'm kind of furious and I'm really withdrawing

and I've kind of torn up the apartment a little bit.

And I remember when we shot that,

we actually had an argument. [chuckles]

I can't remember how it played out or how it happened,

but he's great and he did a great, you know,

he was great in the movie and we've since made up.

It's extremely hot in here with the windows closed

and extremely noisy with them open.

So I was wondering if there's any way you could,

I don't know, maybe work someplace else

for about 45 minutes?

Not a problem.

Thank you so much.

Break. Got it. [whistles]

When I read it and auditioned for the part, I thought,

Oh God, just if only I could get a part like this.

Like, I'll never ask for a good one again.

Like, this one's so great. [chuckles]

It was really clear to me that it was a special part

and a special project.

You know, Ron and Russell and screenplay and story.

I was really excited to be part of it.

It doesn't happen all the time, you know,

there are few and far between I think

projects that you'd find

that have all of those elements going for them.

[baby crying]

Charles was watching him. He was okay.

There is no one here.

There was a scene in the movie

where he's almost drowned our baby.

And the stakes were quite high

and we shot the beginning of the scene in one location.

I come down the stairs and we resume it

and it was in an entirely different location.

So filmed nowhere near the time

when we filmed the first half of the scene.

We had established a kind of emotional state

that I kinda had to pick up as I came down,

and it was really strange.

It's a strange challenge 'cause I feel,

like, with scenes that have a very have,

like, emotionally high stakes,

I try not to like set particular expectations

of what they're gonna look like.

Like, Oh I need to be crying in the scene

because she's really upset. [chuckles]

You know, I sort of think about where that character is

without that kind of external expectations.

But in this instance,

there was an external expectation placed on it

'cause it was a direct cut.

It was an interesting challenge with no ramp up

to, like, have to start a scene

at sort of, like, at a certain pitch right in the middle.

I remember that feeling tricky.

My father left us this house,

he left it to me and my brother.

You should be telling these things to the bureaucrats,

the county tax office.

They have made the mistake, not I.

Well, they said they would give you your money back

and I know you've put that deck on.

I'm sure they'd repay you for that.

I'm sorry miss, but I have nothing more to say to anyone.

Why should they be penalized for their incompetence?

Tell me that.

You should sue them for enough money to buy 10 homes.

One of the things that I find most interesting about

being an actor is spending time with characters

who do make choices that feel so different

and that I don't understand.

I love that process of, you know,

having to make sense of it,

of having to imagine that motivation,

how that person grew up,

what that person experienced to for that...

For whatever choice they make to make sense to them,

you know, or to be inevitable for them.

She made so many bad choices. I can't really... [chuckles]

I can't really pick one to be honest with you.

You know, that's kind of the joy and beauty of it

is trying to get underneath that

and find the key to what makes that behavior

make perfect sense from that character's point of view.

[Hannah speaking foreign language]

What just happened?

I just really liked your music

and didn't know how to express it.

I loved the story. I thought it was really moving.

I thought he did a great job writing the script.

We're very aligned, creatively.

I felt obviously incredibly comfortable and safe with him.

I felt like I could come up with ideas and propose things

without risk of thinking like,

Oh okay, he's gonna think this is really stupid or crazy,

like, you know.

So that was really fun feeling completely uninhibited.

Like, there was one scene, we didn't shoot it that way.

I was like, It just doesn't make sense

that these two people have just had sex

and she's sitting and talking to him

that she's put her clothes back on,

so why don't I just sit in the chair naked

and we have the conversation?

And he's like, Okay, let's try it.

And I don't think I would've done that with anyone else.

We did it, and then he looked at it,

he's like, It is so fucking distracting

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 that was definitely different.

Feeling, like, I can try this, and if it doesn't work,

you know, we're gonna do it or not do it

for the right reasons.

Penny... Too late.

What?

You were about to ask me what time I get off.

Don't give me that look.

I'm not giving you any look. I swear.

Tom Cruise as a filmmaker is extraordinary.

He's always working, he's always thinking about the project,

he's always thinking about how it can be better,

how he can adjust the script.

Is the scene right? Is the writing right?

It's a very focused process. I really enjoyed it.

[Crowd] Overboard. Overboard.

Overboard. Overboard.

Overboard. Overboard. [crowd applauding]

Overboard. Overboard.

Great to see you, Pete.

We'd have meetings about the script and talk through it

and read through it and make adjustments.

And then sometimes we would shoot the scene

and then re-shoot a scene.

It felt really important

to make the most of the limited screen time that we had.

So my character, Penny, is a sailor.

Originally, we shot a sailing scene in San Diego.

It was beautiful, a beautiful boat.

We saw dolphins, it was great.

We did the scene. We're sitting out there.

And Tom goes, No, this is boring.

I was like, Oh. [chuckles]

And he was like, It's not fast enough,

it's not cool enough, it's not fast enough.

I want Penny to be, like, really strong.

And he was right.

We went to San Francisco where it's super windy

and it was an entirely different experience

for, like, getting soaked in the wind

and it's so much better.

And like I was saying, you know,

we don't have that much time with those characters

to establish who they are.

So a gesture like that,

like, Okay, she's selling a boat and it's calm and lovely

versus she's selling this boat and it's this really,

like, high octane adrenaline experience.

I think it was a great choice.

I will admit to a certain curiosity

about the path not taken.

Tonight, each of you made a choice

that determined which version of my show you experienced.

You should still have the cards that you didn't choose.

They're also tickets

and you can use them to return at any point

during the next month and take a different path.

Maybe find out if the grass really is greener.

It was really fun.

I thought about what her core characteristics were.

I thought in every iteration,

she was someone who was really warm,

optimistic who sort of reached towards happiness.

Then I thought about, you know,

how she physically presented herself in this world

and how she might present herself differently

in other worlds where she had lived a different life

and had made different choices.

The second version of Daniela that we meet, she is single,

she never was married, she didn't have kids,

she never suffered that intense loss

that Daniela once suffered.

So that was really fun

to think about how that would mark a person.

I still have so much stuff to figure out

and I feel like I still have so much to learn in my work,

but that's kind of the fun.

Like, I don't know, would I go back and tell myself,

like, Oh, avoid this and try and do this sooner.

And part of that joy later is the having to figure it out,

you know, the process of figuring it out along the way.

[light music]