Alison Brie’s favourite female acting performances: “You can’t look away”
Alison Brie‘s latest film, Together, is a gruesome tale of a couple whose sex life has vanished, only to be replaced by clinginess and resentment, and the terrifying aftermath of it all.
Brie stars alongside real-life husband, Dave Franco, with the pair getting into a pretty sticky situation when a nightmarish, unknown force creates a magnetic attraction between them, quite literally fusing their bodies together and unleashing a torrent of hellish situations that make for a stomach-churning darkly comedic horror.
It’s a wild ride, and acts as a metaphor for a wider commentary on co-dependency and relationship gender tropes, albeit not a very subtle one, with Brie’s character, Millie, the more responsible one in control, and Franco as a clingy, failing musician in tow.
For someone known for admiring and picking left-of-field parts, some of the actor’s favourite female protagonists star in equally dark films, perhaps the inspiration for her role in Together, with Brie revealing her love of dark movies and thrillers and some of her favourite female protagonists to Rotten Tomatoes.
Starting strong and topping the list is Sigourney Weaver in Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror, Alien. One of the defining sci-fi films of the ’70s, Alien expanded the abilities of man-made special effects in the pre-CGI era. Weaver plays the legendary Lieutenant Ellen Louise Ripley, who helps save the human species from the threat of the Xenomorph XX121. The actor described Weaver as “incredible” in the film, which has since become one of the actor’s defining cinematic parts.
Brie then opted for another dark film with Jonathon Demme’s 1991 crime horror The Silence of the Lambs, in which Jodie Foster plays Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee who seeks help from a psychopathic serial killer and former psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter, to help apprehend another murderer who has been claiming female victims. Foster won an Oscar for her role in the film, showcasing deep emotional complexity as the character. Brie described Foster’s performance as “brilliant”, adding, “She’s dealing with this serial killer and she’s keeping up with everybody and her boss at the FBI. At the same time, she’s so vulnerable. It’s her vulnerability that enables her to have this connection with this psychopath.”
Changing course, she opted for Joan Cusack in the 1988 Mike Nichols film, Working Girl, about a working-class girl who proves her worth in the male-dominated corporate New York. Brie called all the female characters amazing, including Melanie Griffith, who plays the protagonist Tess, but singled out Joan Cusack, who plays Tess’s best friend Cyn, noting, “Her eye shadow is so blue; it’s horrifying, and you also can’t look away”.
She also highlighted Sigourney Weaver’s performance as Tess’s villainous boss, saying, “Sigourney Weaver was a great villain in it, because she also has moments when you, I don’t know, you kind of like her… and then you don’t in the end, of course.” She went on to add, “But she’s a very interesting, strong character. Even her tone of voice and the way that she’s super sweet to everyone, it’s almost like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada before she did that. You know, kind of the bitch with the huge smile on her face.”
Holly Hunter’s role in the 1987 film, Broadcast News, was also a standout for Brie, a self-proclaimed Hunter fan. In the film, she plays the archetypal ambitious young woman in an exciting time for women in America. “Holly Hunter is such a singular actress in her style, and her voice is unique, and she’s such a petite woman,” explained Brie, “I think she carries her strength in an interesting way. She just emanates strength and confidence.” She also revealed that she’d love to play a strong behind-the-scenes female character like Hunter.
For her final pick, the theme of empowered female characters carried on strong with Annette Bening’s turn as Sydney Ellen Wade in the 1995 political romantic comedy, American President, who is an environmental lobbyist who challenges the President, played by Michael Sheen, before eventually developing a romantic relationship with him.
Brie described Bening’s performance as one of the “best comedic performances of her career”, adding, “she’s so specific”. Bening was nominated for a Golden Globe for ‘Best Leading Actress’ for her role as the feisty Sydney, so I guess Brie wasn’t the only one who noticed the genius behind the acting.
With Together already making waves among critics, Alison Brie could soon find herself added to the canon of feisty, headstrong women in cinema.
