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Beauty with Brains
By Chua Kim Beng
Telescope
October 2003
She's got to be just about the brightest star in the Hollywood pantheon. Jennifer Connelly won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work in A Beautiful Mind (2001) playing Alicia Nash, the wife of mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr (Russell Crowe).
Now, Alicia Nash was no ordinary house frau - she was studying physics at MIT in the '50s and fell in love with her professor, John Nash. In that sense, Connelly was the right person to portray Alicia. Not only does the five-foot-eight beauty (People magazine named her one of their 50 Most Beautiful People in 2002) physically resemble Alicia, but her innate intelligence, interests and educational background put her in good stead.
school daze
Jennifer Lynn Connelly was born on 12 Dec 1970 in the Catskill Mountains of New York, but grew up in the Big Apple. She was hothoused at St Ann's, a school for gifted children in Brooklyn Heights, where the curriculum included Mandarin in Grade 6. She was keen on physics because of an inspirational teacher, so, upon graduation, she enrolled in Yale and read physics. After a year, she switched to English because physics at university level was a whole different kettle of fish.
easy rider
Connelly attacked her new course with a passion: "I'd read a book three times, until the pages were covered with yellow Post-Its that had ideas scribbled on them, and more Post-Its stuck on my walls. But I had the best time just thinking about things." Another year later, she moved to Stanford to study Drama. However, she never graduated. "It seemed irrelevant," she insists. Unlike many here who see university education as a meal ticket, Connelly loved education for its own sake: "I think I saw college as my own personal time - not for vocational purposes, just for me own edification."
smarty pants
Till today, Connelly remains a voracious reader and counts James Joyce as one of her favourite authors - after all, she is of Irish descent on her father's side (her mother's side is Russian/Polish). Not only is she fluent in Italian and French, she knows her poetry, too. She admires Wallace Stevens and suggested changes to her character in Hulk (2003) based on a poem by Anne Carson. "The thing about Jennifer - and it was a prerequesite for the role - is that she's just plain smart," says James Shamus, a screenwriter for Hulk. "...you go to her house and there are philosophy books all over the place," complains her Waking the Dead (2000) director, Keith Gordon. "I remember at the audition, we were talking about quantum physics! She was talking about stuff where I was having a hard time keeping up!"
research work
In preparation to play Alicia Nash, Connelly actually went through John Nash's papers. "I tried to read his papers on game theory and I had copies of all his work sent to me," she said. "I diligently tried to make any way through that. But it's a math of an entirely different language for me, so I tried to grasp some of the concepts but I could only go so far." Which other actress from Lala Land could spare that kind of brain matter? None, we reckon.
down time
Even Connelly's vacations are decidedly less flighty than those taken by your run-of-the-mill Oscar-winners. You just won't see her at some chi-chi spa or resort. She's more likely to be found mountaineering or hiking. In fact, she once spent three-and-a-half weeks trekking across Tibet and didn't shower for that duration!
success, at last
Connelly started out modelling at age 10. When she was only 14, she hit the big screen when Sergio Leone cast her in Once Upon A Time In America (1984). After that, her acting career was hit-and-miss for many years. It was not until the dawn of the 21st century that her star went on the ascendant. Films like Requiem For A Dream (2000), Pollock (2000) and, of course, A Beautiful Mind put her squarely back in the spotlight. Connelly's current success has given her access to a wider choice of roles, which is important to her. "I feel blessed to do what I do and I feel like it's just the beginning and I have so much more to learn... The ultimate goal isn't to be famous; the ultimate goal is to work on stuff that matters."
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