“Vetoed it”: the iconic 1980s movie Heather Graham’s parents banned her from starring in
Currently getting a lot of praise for her turn in the comedy horror They Will Kill You is the former Boogie Nights star Heather Graham, who has somehow now been on screens for five decades, and yet is still only 56, a fact which seems 1) untrue and 2) evident of the fact I cannot do maths to save my life.
But indeed it’s true, Graham was appearing in standard 1980s Corey Haim/Corey Feldman fare like License to Drive, all wayfarers and endless bedroom posters and hair scrunchies, and it’s not even like she was a proper child star, she was 17 when she made her debut in that.
So she has evidently got quite some ability, because that kind of longevity in Hollywood is not easy to come by, let alone the fact that she was appearing in landmark TV like Twin Peaks long before she had her breakout role proper in the Paul Thomas Anderson classic Boogie Nights as Brandy, or just simply ‘Roller Girl’. She was a movie stealer in PTA’s debut and no mistake, and it led to a period during the late 1990s and early 2000s where she was one of the most in-demand actresses around.
The height of it probably came around 1999 when she starred alongside Mike Myers in the second Austin Powers movie, which I can say from experience was an absolute must-see at the cinema, and along with a couple of romantic comedies, Graham had a good few years where she was at the top of casting directors’ lists.
A downturn of sorts came, however, with the 2002 movie Killing Me Softly, an erotic thriller in which she starred opposite Joseph Fiennes and which did not go down well, so to speak, in fact, it is currently one of only 44 films in history to have a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is actually quite impressive in some ways.
Recovering from that proved pretty difficult for Graham, but it certainly wasn’t the first period of adversity she had faced in her career. When she was starting off in the late 1980s, she found that her burgeoning success in Hollywood was not met with approval from her parents, something that came to a head when she was offered a role in the very fittingly titled black comedy Heathers in 1988.
Graham told The Guardian: “My parents vetoed it. I kind of became my own person and discovered: ‘What do I like? What do I want when I’m not under this very judgmental, authoritarian, parental, patriarchal structure? What do I want to do? What do I think of this?’”
Heathers was the teen crime movie that featured many of the most recognisable faces of the era, including Winona Ryder and Christian Slater – despite it originally being a flop at the box office, it went on to be a cult hit and inspired both a musical and a TV show.
Within about five years or so, amidst their continuing disapproval at the ‘sexy’ roles she was taking on, Graham decided to cut all contact with her parents. She added, “It didn’t feel like a healthy dynamic. I stopped talking to them and, I have to say, that was a huge relief. I felt like, at that moment, my life opened up with a freedom. I didn’t need to please them.”
More than 30 years later, it definitely seems like the decision was the correct one. Graham is now writing and directing as well as appearing in front of the camera, something she did for the first time with 2024’s Chosen Family. She’ll also soon be seen in a reboot of Stephen King’s Carrie from Doctor Sleep director Mike Flanagan.
